19 September 2010

I once asked Robert if Rajneesh was enlightened.  Very quietly, and with his face turned away from me, he said, "Yes." It was not a deep question, just the usual stupid question asked by any spiritual shopper, but I guess I didn't have anything clever to ask him that day. 

When I posted this a few months ago I got a lot of negative responses from people who had the opinion Rajneesh was not enligtened, including soem professional swami types. People talked about his 93 Rolls Royces, his prescription drug use, and his students, which many judge as bad somehow. But all that is surface stuff. The surface goes on even if the inner part is dead and gone.

When I remember looking at Rajneesh videos, what immediately affected me was: 1. His inner silence; his steady gaze; his sense of humor. Those were Robert's characteristics too.

I think Rajneesh published altogether too many books. It is hard to tease out the highest teachings when there are too many words. The same is true for Robert. You will find hundreds of contradictions within Robert's body of talks. They are just talks, just philosophy, techniques and pointers. Sometimes he just made things up and he even tells people he just made the things up for entertainment. It is all mind stuff, words, concepts, and truth is never found in words.

But Robert's "highest truth" was also the one he announced most often: "You don't exist! You never existed. You are like an optical illusion." 


Non-existence and illusion are complicated topics because non-existence has several levels which I won't go into here. Basically the two non-existences are: You don't exist as a body/mind, these are just concepts, and then more completely, you don't even exist as consciousness, experience. You are absolute nothingness. The bubble of consciousness is just an illusion too.

I just saw these words from Rajneesh today, all they are exactly on:

"Beyond enlightenment you enter into nothingness.

Experience disappears, experiencer disappears.

Just pure nothingness remains, utter silence.

This is the destiny of every human being, sooner or later to be achieved.

They have enjoyed everything. They have enjoyed the purity of individuality; now they have to enjoy the disappearing of individuality. They have seen the beauty of individuality; now they have to see the disappearance and its beauty, and the silence that follows, that abysmal serenity that follows."


15 comments:

  1. "Experience disappears, experiencer disappears.
    Just pure nothingness remains, utter silence."

    So is bliss, joy and peace an experience too?

    Thanks,
    Janet

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  2. I am not qualified to discuss about Rajneesh. I just would say that one may have a deep inner silence while his ego and mind are alive yet.

    My past mater was so. His silence was so deep and strong than when he came into a hall full of people, everybody become silent. He was close to liberation, but had no teacher and no good teachings, and his ego took him away. My second wife was so, too. She know Turiya well, and was deep in it. I told Ed about her.

    Sergio

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  3. Every time I listen and watch an Osho video on youtube for example I am quietened. I am not sure what it is but he has that affect on me. I am by no means enlightened and have a chaotic talkative mind, so there must be something to the person and expression that was Rajneesh or Osho. I have to agree with others though about all of his materialism. This does not settle well for me. However, who am I to say anything. I know nothing of who I really am.

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  4. Hi Ed

    Your post made me think about this comment made by Nisargadatta about Rajneesh ( from David Godman website ):

    The most infamous teacher of the late 1970s was Osho, or Rajneesh as he was in those days. I once heard Maharaj say that he respected the state that Rajneesh was in, but he couldn't understand all the instructions he was giving to all the thousands of foreigners who were then coming to India to see him. Although the subject only came up a couple of times while I was there, I got the feeling he liked the teacher but not the teachings. When Rajneesh's foreign 'sannyasins' showed up in their robes, he generally gave them a really hard time. I watched him throw quite a few of them out, and I saw him shout at some of them before they had even managed to get into his room.

    Love
    Marco

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  5. Yes Janet, all of it goes.

    Just as it goes every night for most.

    The various states of consciousness come and go. Waking, sleep, dream and even Turiya.

    Yet that which you are remains, the witness, untouched, without quality, experience or knowability. Unknown.

    You think you are a body and this body has different states, but in fact, waking with the body consciousness of the world is just one of many experiences.

    After a while you can become aware that all the states are present similtaneously, although one predominates at any one time.

    You can feel the dark, denseness of sleep while fully awake, and also recognize that dream is just the usual imagination/daydream mind, half covered by deep sleep.

    Intertwined within all is the Turiya state that sustains and penetrates all as the great Void which itself has many manifestations.

    You are beyond even this, having no existence in this world.

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  6. One other thing. Being with a real teacher is difficult because he will always pound away at your preconceptions about spirituality and how gurus should be and behave.

    That was the point of Robert's stories about Yogananda. Yogananda. Yogananda asked Robert if he'd love him no matter what he did.

    Yogananda would be constantly contradictory. Robert too.

    Just as you thought you were comfortable with how an "enlightened" sage would act, he'd act differently and then watch to see if you stayed around.

    Everyone comes to a teacher with preconceptions about the path and how gurus should be.

    You have to give all that up, surrender to him or her, and then let them do with you as they would.

    Or else, if you are not willing to do that, you need a method, such as self-inquiry that provides a method to surrender to instead of a person.

    Rajneesh was deliberately rubbing the noses of millions of people into the direct regarding how a guru should act and be, but probably no one knew his inner state, even his closest students.

    This was Osho's style of cooking. Do you really think he cared about the cars? To him it was a joke, and to his students too.

    He could not care whether he was alive or dead, it did not matter. What matter then a few cars and money or sex? They were all useless to him.

    To get to freedom, you need to give up judging altogether, because judging is based on "principles," ethics, convention, etc., which tie you to the world.

    After awakening you can come back to the world on any terms you like.

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  7. "You can feel the dark, denseness of sleep while fully awake, and also recognize that dream is just the usual imagination/daydream mind, half covered by deep sleep".

    Is this also possible the other way around: Being aware while asleep and go on with the sadhana of jnana marga? J. Krishnamurti have said that while asleep you can discover new areas of being.

    But who is there in deep sleep to discover? I thought in deep sleep the mind is gone in to the heart center. Then who is left to discover what?

    Dennis

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  8. Edji
    This is a very needed message Edji..It is true that one may never have to judge a Guru to accept and surrender to him.
    But for seekers, who are still stuck in duality, how do we really know the master isn't attached to those things? These days we never get to know these Gurus, behind the stage..Personally when I see the Rolls Royce, I can see the number of poor children who can be fed or educated in that money.If a guru can be happy without it also, why is that compassionate move not flowing of them.I know they are absolutely free, but doesn't it send wrong signals to the followers who may never know what the joy of giving away means? Lots of exploitation in terms of money and power is also happening in the name of spirituality, as you know..
    Unless we awaken what can we be really sure of, when accepting a person as a master..?
    Can an awakened being identify another one who is also awakened? Why is there a difference of opinion even among those people who are awakened(I mean those who claim)..? Is this also a curse of the dual nature created of our mind?
    I'd wanted to ask these questions for long time..Forgive me, if anything is wrong or stupid..

    Regards
    Sharada

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  9. Questioner: "People are very much interested in your Rolls Royces. What do You want to prove with this, so many cars and so much luxury around You?"

    Osho: "Why are people concerned? Then certainly they need it; then more Rolls Royces will be here. Until they stop asking me, more and more Rolls Royces are going to be here. Now it has to be seen that it is a challenge: the day nobody asks me about Rolls Royces, they will not be coming.
    People's interest in Rolls Royces shows their mind. They are not interested what is happening here. They don't ask about meditation, they don't ask about sannyas, they don't ask about people's life, love, the laughter that happens in this desert. They only ask about Rolls Royces. That means I have touched some painful nerve. And I will go on pressing it till they stop asking."

    http://www.oshoworld.com/biography/innercontent.asp?FileName=biography8/08-20-rolls.txt

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  10. Edji,

    I remember listening to the videos of Kiranji who was with Osho for more than a decade. When Osho left for US, he was shattered. He realized something was wrong with his own understanding. This experience was so painful for him but uprooted his dependency on his Guru and clinging to the external appearances.

    Later, he met a Sufi saint in Pakistan, who asked him "what are you searching for. Can you become other than what you are". That question stuck him and he went into find silence within himself for 10 years and became realized.

    Kiranji told that Osho's followers didn't understand Osho. He, himself, didnot understand what Osho was pointing to and was caught up in the superficial aspects for a long time. He was initially enthralled by experiences during the meditation.

    As Edji said, Kiranji also said that Osho actually wanted people to get fed up of their materialistic pursuit and even with the longing for searching. He constantly gave pointers. However, Osho was in the 100th floor and talked about what he saw from there; while his students in the first floor tried to interpret what he was saying with what they saw.

    My observation is that most masters points out to look into the Self. Each Master has his/her own way. The answers also depend upon the context and the questioner. Some may feel that these are not pointers to focus on YOU. Now this feeling has difference too. When Robert Adams felt this in the ashram of Paramahansananda, it is different than an unrealized soul caught up in the worldly matters speaking out of ego.

    Pranaam,

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  11. So how many of you went running to re-read some of Osho's teachings?

    Got you!

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  12. The last anonymous comment about the hundred story view of Osho is right on. Perfect! This is exactly how I saw Robert. This is exactly how Robert directed.

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  13. Dear Edji,
    I am intensely happy to walk along the road with Robert and his friends. No need for anything else. Forget my confusing questions and I will drop this eruptive mind. Just let me be in the silence of Your presence.
    Dennis

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  14. I had to laugh reading the allusion that someone with a "steady gaze" must be enlightened. So ... the body and personality (i.e. the illusion of self) portray themselves a certain way and voila! we have proof of enlightenment. Oh brother.

    I have been around sooooo many woo-woo types who speak quietly and serenely before a group, almost always with flowers at their side, soft cotton shirt or robe, a newly adopted name (again, for the fictitious self) and after a time it all comes off as manufactured theatre.

    The bottom line for all of "us" is to drop the gurus and teachers and search within because everything else is the conceptual mind stuff of others.

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  15. Searching within is just a phrase. The proper questions are how to search within, is there a within or a without, and is there anything we are looking for when we look within?

    It should also be noted that lots of people take up meditation and self-inquiry to run away from problems in the world, bad relationships, sickness, depression, and become increasingly involutional without any improvement in their psychological/physical condition.

    The best treatment for depression is medication, not meditation. Meditation is not a healing or psychological repairing. Meditation is most useful to explore that which is beyond illness.

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