Let me toss in here the etymology of the word guru, because it's implication is far deeper than just a teacher. The word as a whole means weighty, deep, venerable. It can also be seen as a compound in many ways. The most commonly mentioned is Gu - darkness; Ru - light. The one who brings light to dispel the darkness in our hearts and minds. Another is Gu- the depths of the heart, ru - a call. So the Guru is the call, the voice from the depths of your heart. Or the one who speaks to the depths of your heart. Or the one who speaks from the depths of his heart. Another way to split it: gu - secret, ru - shout out. The one who openly speaks of the secrets of life. One more: gu - bonds (as in guna), ru - cut. The one who cuts a disciple free from all bondage. Of course there are many, many more ways in which the word can be deconstructed, each shedding its own beauty and light on what a spiritual master truly is. I cannot relate to Osho as such a one. But I can very much understand if others can.
Sorry to be obsessing over obsessing about obsessing on obsessions ... We do it every single moment of every second, of every hour, of every day, month, year, life ... We obsess on everything we make contact with through seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching and thinking ... What's so different about this obsession? Nothing! It's the same ... Everyone (and EVERYTHING) is YOUR teacher, GURU, Lama, whether you want them to be or NOT, Bhaskar. You either like them or you hate them, or you feel indifferent about them. But YOUR's they are. Why get upset over this one little insignificant incident? Aren't you obsessing on my obsessions now? (as well as ) HTML:
whatever he did, Osho was misguided, I lost my faith after seeing people like him, and after seeing the futility of bhakti too ofcourse. It was my time though, It was a bhakti ride, full of emotions that don't last very long, sentimentality which changes with the change of thought, and craving for some divine being who never shows up because no one is there, pure delusion if you ask me. As I have found out from my own personal experience, there is no God, how can there be a God ? if God was there, why would haiti earthquake happen? Why so much betrayal, if you are suffering and God really existed, why wouldn't God help if he is really there? I can't believe years of my search led me to this, there is no God, lol . what an Ironic possibility no? why do people get away with lies, fraud, "misguidedness", why would there be so many problems that the world is facing right now if he is really there. Funny how I came to this conclusion after my thread ceremony , how happy I was thinking i was a bram1n, what ignorance/misguidedness! You wear some thread and think you can chant the vedas and perform some rites , so misguided. anyway forget that, lets logically think about this, If there is a God, Why so many diseases? why so much death? in fact, we are idiots, we think God exists and no one thinks about death, no one thinks about hardships, they think they won't come up because God protects them, then BOOM! it hits you in the face like a pile of dirty dung. death is a more a possibility than meeting God, you dying with a horrible disease is more of a possibility, no brahminical rite can protect you, no vedas can protect you, nothing can really change it, in fact, lets say you wish for a long life, and you don't die with a horrible disease and then you live long enough , you will die of old age! it is the ultimate end for this body. I read dvaita, I read advaita, I practiced vishista-advaita, dvaita, advaita, there is no point in it all, Dvaita is false! because it is based on a principle of seperation between God and the soul, but, there is no God, and neither is there a soul! No one has seen either, and those who have seen them, might have just been schizophrenics!. Advaita is false, because it claims that change is an illusory appearance and reality doesn't change, well look around buddy, reality is changing every minute , second of your life, tick tick tick, the clock is ticking away , look at your face, what was it like 10 years ago? I bet it has changed now, you had a different anatomy when you were a kid and now you have a different anatomy when you are an adult, when you are an old person , your body will have a different anatomy, the world as you know it will change, the books that hold the vedas will wither in the harsh environment, if protected by the building, the building will fall one day. Everything is falling away, everything is changing every minute , every second, every moment, to say that there is no change, even internally is false. You may meditate, think that there is a self in the meditational experience where it doesn't change, well when you do find that self within , that consciousness changes as well. So advaita is false. Vishista-advaita, one and the same, and yet different, God and Soul are the same, and yet different , well , God doesn't exist, neither the soul, because for God to exist, this world has to be perfect, well its not, and for the soul to exist, there should be a permanent self within me, well thats not there either. So , there is no God, there is no soul, therefore, the vishista-advaita, is false as well because none of those actually apply! it is not one and the same, it is not different, it is not the same nor is it different because dude! its all in your head!. Basically all three philosophies are false! and the guy who wrote the vedas might as well just have been getting high on SOMA juice which consisted of concentrated ephedrin with an opimium as well as some marijuana like drug, in fact some sadhus smoke this piece of garbage(marijuana) and get high even today. It might as well have just have been that! People like Osho, muhammad, prabhupada and all the rest, whether their intentions are good or bad, try to create an illusory appearance of God, what misguided creatures they are, to think there is a maker in all this chaotic world. and when they are taking all these followers for a ride, why would any body expect that it would go ok? (or turn out ok?) how can delusion or illusory world lead to freedom from the misery? Its total ignorance/misguidedness.
I see that along with your faith, you have also lost the basic decency of allowing others the freedom to their beliefs and opinions and are resorting to name-calling. Have you lost faith in being good to others and accepting them as they are? You sound right now like the atheist version of the Jehovah's Witnesses.
And it is clear from your rant that you have not studied deeply, nor come remotely close to understand any of the three philosophies of Hinduism.
is it so? did I name call anyone? I said they were fools because I really think they were fools, same thing with them being stupid (I didn't use any other terms of indecency), I used the said terms because I really believe they were ignorant, or should have I replaced all these terms with "misguided"? Schizophrenics can claim that they have seen God, doesn't stop them from being schizophrenics. and maybe the "bullshit" thing is a name-calling factor, yes. I apologize for that for that is so, and will edit the text to delete the indecent terms. I understood hindu philosophies perfectly well, in fact, I was born into them into the brahmin vaishnav sampradaya. The gurus and saints and scholars along with shathavadanis were all around me. I studied hinduism 24/7, to the extent of getting bad grades in college (maybe almost failing) and to the extent of thinking of going away from lay life, I battled with the fact that there is no God for almost 2 years now, I wanted to believe (why wouldn't I, I was brought up with it, surrounded by it, no one, not even my family even now knows I have lost my faith), but I just couldn't believe it any more, because the truth was staring right back at me into my face. I don't know how sincere I can get in my personal spiritual quest here, but Bhaskar, my intentions were not to insult you or anyone, I gain nothing from it, my goal was to prove a point. I hope you understand.
To call people fools and stupid ones is definitely name calling and offensive. Is there anyone who feels good when someone calls them that? The only point you proved is your own blinding arrogance. People study the shastras for 50-60 years of their lives and still feel there is more to learn. And you think that in a few short years you know it all? And is it that you are so brilliant, a man of such towering genius that you can sit in judgment of others? I suggest you get a shred of humility sometime. It might serve you well.
Just a sample of some of the things you got wrong about advaita. That which changes cannot be called real. How can you say something is real when it is destroyed the next minute? The very definition of that which is real, that which exists, according to vedanta is trikaala abaadhita vastu - that which exists in the past, present and future without change. All the objects of the world, of course, fail to live up to this condition. Therefore they are not really real - they have an apparent reality (vyavahaarika satta) but not absolute reality (paramarthika satta). Absolute reality or absolute existence is of existence itself. Existence exists. Everything else, all the forms, appears to exist because of contact with existence itself. But existence is beyond all forms. Of course. Which is why advaita says you are not the body, you are much more than that. The body has changes, but the you that knows the changes of the body and mind? There must be an entity that does not change, because change can only be measured in reference to something that is not changing. All this is changing, so don't hang on to it is the message of vedanta. Seek instead that which is the permanent factor that is the witness of all change, inside you and outside. The vedas as a book will of course pass away. But then the word Veda - knowledge - will not. Vedas are not the books as you seem to think. Veda is a name for the knowledge. The books are called by that name because they convey that knowledge. But the books may pass but the knowledge will remain forever, that cannot be destroyed. Just as the law of gravity cannot be destroyed even if you burn every physics book and kill every physicist. By internally you mean the mind, and you are right. The mind is always changing. And vedanta of course accepts that. And thats why it tells to look deeper than the mind and see that which is unchanging that witnesses all the changes in the mind. Mano bhuddhyahamkara chittani naaham, chidananda roopa shivoham shivoham - I am neither mind, intellect, ego nor memory. I am the pure consciousness alone. First of all you haven't even understood what is meant by self, particularly in the sense of the higher, changeless atman. The self is not the things you have identified it with. It is not something to be conscious of. It is the pure consciousness that is the witness o them all. That cannot change. What changes is thoughts. But the consciousness that is aware of them does not change. Saakshaat dhi vishayah saakshi, drg eva na tu drishyate. The change in meditation is the change in the vision of the mind. The mind changes and gives up the sense of ego and becomes an instrument through which that consciousness works. I will offer the example of light. All the movement of objects that we see is in the presence of light. Light illuminates the dance of matter, but is itself still and unchanging. In the same way consciousness illuminates the dance of thought, but itself is ever still. In meditation, the mind is brought to a state of utter silence, where the thoughts are all dropped and then the pure light of consciousness, separate from all thought, alone remains. You don't see it, or think it. You be it. This is what comes of learning from those who know squat about spirituality. Some western scholars translated soma in this way and you think it is a drug. The word soma has many, many meanings. This includes the mind, the moon, God, nectar, camphor, air, wind, water, mountains, rice and monkeys. In the mystical language of the vedic literature, it is used in all these meanings and more. They are not meant to be read in translation, but to be understood according to vedic grammar (not panini's grammar) and then contemplated upon. basically, advaita accepts much of what you are saying about impermanence and change. The difference is it can take you further. In order to reach that, you first need to cultivate the mental discipline necessary for it. If you have not done that, then naturally you will not gain the result. That is not the failure of advaita. It is the failure of your own mind and intellect.
All that sounds suspiciously like a re-hash of stuff you've read. And I doubt it will have much effect on its intended recipient. It all hangs on a somewhat specialized understanding of the meaning of the word 'reality'. If nothing that changes is real as you say, you might as well shut up anyway. Your own process is as unreal as anything else. I think it's all to the good if people question the religious assumptions of their background culture, whatever that may be. It takes courage, and it takes sincerity. Those are qualities far more valuable than mere bland acceptance of someone else's version of the universe.
It's good to question. It's bad to close your mind to the answers. Anyone can ask questions and walk away. It takes a man of integrity to listen to the answers, give them serious thought and then accept or reject. I was explaining the stand point of advaita as expounded in the scriptures, since Jedi was explaining why he did not accept it. Of course it is from what I have read, backed up to some degree by my own experiences in meditation and life. The point i was making is that his claim of having studied Hindu philosophy for years rings hollow, since his words betray a lack of understanding of even the superficial meanings of the teachings. This is why I used the traditional language and quotes from the shastras to back up my point. Which is simply, don't criticise what you don't understand.
The claim that change can only happen with respect to a constant is false because there are no constants in the observable world, only things that are slowly changing and yes you can see a rapid change on the framework of slow changes that take so many years that it looks like they are not changing, astronomy is full of such examples!. but then again you can draw a ridiculous analogy and say, "look the laws of physics don't change, and similarly brahman doesn't change". To that i will probably reply, there is evidence that laws of physics exist and we know they don't change because of experiments that can be carried out objectively with reproducible results- that is not the case with Brahman. And about the vedas... come on bhaskar, law of gravity is equal to the manual on "Ashvamedha yagna"? , "manual on how to slaughter a horse for power and glory" is as true and scientific and objective as F= G (M1M2)/R^2 ? You see the problem with this type of thinking? And you know what the implications of such thinking are? There was a guy who came over to our university back when I was doing my undergrad, he came from India and wanted to give a talk called "Scientific spirituality" (how he got this opportunity at a school like ours is indeed a mystery!). He claimed that even science accepts the fact that sun is the source of energy on this planet, so! he said...we start asking sun for personal favors by sitting in a proper posture and chanting "OM bhur bhuvah svaha , tat savitur varenyam , bhargo devasya dimahi , diyo yonah prachodayat" without moving , we can increase our intellect tenfold, you will learn anything you want to learn about this world, you can cure any disease too!, anything you wanted to achieve, will be achieved!, wow! what a scientific thought there eh? No evidence that this actually works, no studies conducted in a controlled setting, no sense of what science is in the first place, what the scientific method is, he just claims its scientific spirituality and therefore it is! Oh yeah , I do remember that he had one rule though, when chanting, you can't move, not even an inch , because he said you have to establish a link with the sun and if you move your body, your link with the sun will be broken. There was also another guy I met from India , some yoga teacher, claimed to be a professor and he wanted to bond with me, he claimed kundalini yoga is healing alot of diseases because most of these disease processes have to do with the "Chakras" . Being the open minded fool that I still am, I politely asked him to provide me with the research pertaining to that and I would love to learn more about the studies they have conducted on kundalini yoga and it's effect on healing particular diseases. what do you know!, that was the end of our conversation right there! because he found me guilty of arrogance. Bhaskar, liking something is alright, but insisting that it is true without enough evidence or with evidence that points to the contrary , is I am afraid, sheer foolishness. So claiming something to be "the way it is" - "the way reality is"- without any proper evidence is close-mindedness , not the other way around. Also, what purpose does "mind training" serve when that "mind training" doesn't even allow you to atleast quit smoking? I met a couple of people like this, they are aloof to smoking, they are not attached to smoking, yet they smoke 2 packs a day. If you ask why - they will claim that they have been smoking for the last 20-30 years, so why stop , you are not your body anyway. Now , I am not saying all advaitins are like this, but you see the fundamental problem with this philosophy here don't you? If you didn't get that or if I wasn't clear, let me point it out: 1) You have no evidence that advaita is true, so it is similar to gayatri mantra/kundalini yoga examples. 2) Advaita philosophy can easily be abused, people can literally brainwash themselves the wrong way! A guy could shoot another guy, or beat his wife up and say "Nothing wrong with this, in the grand scheme of things, only brahman exists". Now, this ofcourse doesn't mean i am saying you are somehow wrong in following advaita, If you are happy with advaita, by all means, go ahead and practice it, though in my life it failed miserably, it might work out for you. I am sure you are a good guy and probably your morals won't change with or without advaita. If you want to think that I really haven't studied anything about hindu scriptures or have "learnt nothing", then go ahead by all means think it is so, if you want me to concede to the point that it is "my failure" and that there is no problem with advaita at all, then alright fine, who cares? I have no problem with that as well. you might buy into it and it might work out for you in the end, I sincerely hope it does, but its just not my thing. Again, I will point out that just like how BlackBillBlake said, it is sometimes good to question the religious/cultural dogmas to see if they hold up to the light of our scrutiny.
Many people when they consider questions of reality look only so far as to what is relevant to a particular corridor of refraction. Reality is an inviolate constant in that which is not real does not exist.
Well it seems to me that different people understand things differently. The same data may seem good to some, not so good to others.And where religious traditions are concerned there are many different understandings which are often incompatible. It appears that jedi has a set of quite reasonable criticisms here, and since I've had quite a lot of interaction with him over time, I don't think he's a person with a merely superficial view. To me, he's always seemed like a serious minded young man. Perhaps too serious at times. Also there's my point that if all changing things/processes are unreal, this explanation of yours is completely redundant. Simply more play of illusion. The scriptures are illusions, gurus are illusions. Jedi , yourself, me - the language used - illusions. You can't have it both ways and retain any logical integrity. Perhaps it would be better if the language used was less inflexible. To say 'it seems to me that things are thus' would be ok. To make authoritative claims that this is 'truth' is probably one of the major causes of conflict on this planet of ours. On the question of 'constants' - It might well seem that process is the only constant we know. Probably the liberation spoken of by advaitins is another aspect of process. It isn't, after all, that these folks go into some kind of nirvana and then disappear......
Hi BBB, its been a while, How have you been? I hope you are doing well About being inflexible...oh how I wish Muhammad said "This is what I think" instead of saying "This is IT", we wouldn't have people justifying child marriages and infidel killings in some parts of the world. About the constants, process of what? maybe you are referring to change being the only constant, then maybe that could be true, who knows. I have no idea what happens after death , I thought I knew, but really even those people who think they do have no clue, they just think they do. Ramana maharshi is said to have "died" and saw how it all is, but really when you look at the story for yourself, he was just pretending to be dead, lol. if you close your eyes, lie down and think you died doesn't mean you know anything about death. So is there a thing called moksha? nirvana? or whatever we call it? to be completely honest, I have no idea.
I'm ok jedi - although like you it seems, I've been having to look closely into the whole thing I'd been pursuing for about the last decade, and coming to my own conlusions. Without going too much into this, I'd say the case of Muhamed is pretty typical of religious leaders - but perhaps with the difference that he had, or so it seems to me, an historical mission connected with the Arabs originally. To weld a group of disparate tribesmen into a powerful nation and in fact empire. But that's a digression here. You read me rightly here. I do mean change is the only constant. To me, Ramana's statement that 'the jivan mukta is no longer a person' makes absolutely no sense at all. So far as I can see, so long as you have a human body, you are a living person. I don't know what happens when we die. Perhaps it's the end, perhaps something continues in some way. I hope so.I feel it is probable, but I can't go further than that. I think we'll have to await death to find out definitely. But in the meantime there's lots to do right here in life. I do think there are states of mind, consciousness - whatever terminology, in which one feels unity with the wider cosmos. There are also states where one feels quite detached. Whether this amounts to mukti in the Hindu sense, I don't know. I used to experince similar things after making love to my wife. To me, it makes more sense these days to look at this more in terms of what I'd loosesly call 'growth psychology' than traditional religion. BTW - in a previous post you mentioned your disillusionment with the bhakti path. This is something I've experienced myself, at different times, but tried to ignore or put down to other causes.(written into the thing isn't it) However, I do feel I've reached the end of the line with all that. I feel I have been misled, but also blame myself for being so led. I feel I've gone round and round in circles never getting anywhere. In my case, I can see how it became a kind of escape from my previous negative experiences. Overall, I'm not inclined though to adopt a materialist explanation of the universe. It seems to me that possibly all our past ideas about 'spirit' for want of a better term, may be as flawed as our pre-scientific ideas about physical phenomena. It's curious that people always say they've experienced god or the divine in line with their own particular religious culture. It makes me think there is something, but probably the reports of mystics are a pinch of that mixed with a lot of their own aquired mental content and cultural conditioning. So my attitude is that there may be something, but I don't think the big religions have much real clue about it, and I also have numerous criticisms of the role religion and religious myth has played in the general disaster we seem to be experiencing these days. Stuff like in the Gita where he's told to fight, the christian idea that we're basically bad or flawed, the rigid social structures that imprison millions in repression and poverty etc etc. I'm sure all this is dangerous in the modern world. Maybe science will investigate much further into fields such as paranormal experience and so on in the future. This may lead to some progress and a general debunking of religion. Anyway, just for the record, I retain an interest in chinese philosophy, studies of tribal religions, psychology, some aspects of Buddhism, and even some of the more practical aspects of the yoga system. I'd just like to say this though - my interest is in what I can assimilate to my own being, to who I am and what I am. I have no wish to be 'digested' by this or that guru, system or whatever. And sadly, that seems to happen to a lot of people. Needless to say I also try to keep a humanistic or even stoic attitude. Anyway jedi, I hope you can find a niche where you are happy and balanced. All the best, BBB.
its good to hear you are doing well BlackBillBlake , and I have to say, reading your account is like a breath of fresh air for me, because I too feel like I have been going around in circles for the past few years now, and I too was not accepting my loss of faith for a long time. On hindsight, I feel that it was because of self-doubt. I think all the major religions use this method of control over their "followers". If any follower questions something critically, they claim "You don't know anything, you are an idiot, you have not properly understood it", or they give an answer that is similar to "We don't believe that because it is not our tradition". For most, that is enough, and they accept it, all the while thinking that they are "not intelligent" or "knowledgeable" enough to refute stupidity when they see it. How can they? when this has been handed down from generation to generation, stupidity in the form of tradition has a way of becoming valid, mostly because it has been there for a long long time. We all can see what kinds of problems it causes both at a personal level (as it was in my case) as well as at a global level (as it is now in the world). I looked into buddhism, but it has its own dogma as well, people take what their guru and tradition says way too seriously without giving it much thought, and it becomes another cause for misery. For now though I don't know what I am and I think I am like you in certain ways, and I agree, we certainly have to keep our humanistic and stoic senses intact, question everything, and accept only things that actually are in line with common sense. Ofcourse, There are some qualities that are admirable and should be inoculated into everyone, things like compassion for one another, and tolerance for one another are some universally admirable qualities , but come on, who needs all this other religious dogma ruling over things like that? We don't need the authority of the vedas, bible, the buddha or any other guru to tell us to be kind/compassionate to each other....its common knowledge and essential almost for our survival (example: International help given to Haiti). Anyway, thank you BBB for sharing your experiences, I appreciate it, I hope we both find what we are looking for in the end.
Jedi - this reply of yours - what can I say? It actually brings tears to my eyes. As for the first part, I think you express in a very eloquent way some very basic realizations which I have to tell you have taken me many years to fully accept and take on board. You see my freind, you are quite correct to say that we are alike in some ways. So I don't have to spell out the way I feel about the fact that I consider that much of my potential (which, as in your case is above average) has been wasted for far too many years. Diverted into quite a useless set of preoccupations. But if this experience has taught me anything, it is that one must value oneself, and one's own ability to think critically, and to think 'out of the box'. Although human life presents so many problems and contradictions, in my assesment, in the end it is a fantastic thing! I'm not saying I'm going into Buddhism. Mainly, it is some of the teachings of the Chan (Zen) masters of China I find useful and appealing. Lin Chi is my fave. He pretty much says to throw away all dogma. I'm not at all keen on some Buddhist schools. I don't know if you are at all familiar with philosopical Daoism? To me this appears to be one of the most acceptable of 'spiritual' views of things. Very non dogmatic. Probably, it has taken me over 30 years to appreciate this. Also the Stoics of ancient Rome, who thought that one should act in an ethical manner no matter what - even if the universe is ultimately meaningless. At least we try to create order in whatever small ways we can.
Thank you BBB for your kind words . I have to confess I haven't looked into buddhism as much as maybe I should have done. I will check it out, there is a pretty good website I found a while back: www.accesstoinsight.com which has a lot of suttas translated by thannisaro bhikkhu , I think it belongs to theravada. I will try to find books on chan and other traditions as well
i believe osho is mostly harmless fun. whether he is doing major good in this world, i have no way to judge, but as far as i can see, he is at least doing no particular harm.
