When in the opening thread I posted Osho's thoughts on reincarnation it was simply to show a different perspective on the subject; nothing more, nothing less. There was no intent or agenda to promote Osho, he was simply another human being with a particular perspective on the many variations of life especially as they applied to mind, spirit, and mystical aspects and the society that engages them. If Osho had been an obscure guru who never made it out of India chances are that I probably wouldn't have used him as a reference. But he did make it out of India and he did present his perception that eventually reached millions of people around the world. That fact alone qualifies him for study and examination.

Osho certainly challenged prevailing conceptions of what a guru should be and how he should conduct himself. But in some circles that challenge was seen as a threat and therein we see how Osho's story unfolded for the public via a media and government that we have come to learn are not the most accurate conveyors of the facts.

I quote the following from the meta-religion.com website:

Most of the media labeled him as dangerous. The governments of various countries joined hands not to allow him to stay in their countries, although as a person Rajneesh had no criminal convictions in those countries. It is the case of countries like Greece, Switzerland, Sweden, England, Ireland, Canada, Antigua, Bermuda, Holland, Germany, Italy, Uruguay, Jamaica, Spain, Portugal, etc. In his speeches Bhagwan has advocated drastic solutions to the problems of humanity, through nonviolent means and a creation of new power basis and new order.

Here we are at the core of the issue to say that Rajneesh was not allowed in those countries because of his ideas to challenging the social coherence of the country. Rajneesh's ideas were 'too much' for the establishment to find a better solution than trying to keep him at a distance. There was a wide spread belief that Rajneesh's philosophy was too anarchistic, although he did not intend to bring disorder but a new kind of order. (Appleton, 1987)

What I see there and what I sense by some of the comments in this forum is some type of fear even in just the mention of his person, let alone what he had to say. It almost takes on a tabloid approach to the subject such as has been increasingly seen in the media. It's no longer about the ideas, talents, intelligence or innovations of a person, it's about what drugs they did or are doing and who they're f--king.

If it had been the case that Osho's initial exposure to the public had been one of a criminal character and then he began espousing all his ideas, then it would have been similar to a serial killer who in jail says he has had a revelation and now is on the path of right thought and perhaps would even throw Jesus in as a reference. Regardless of his rebirth or even JC being his new best buddy the fact remains that he killed many people. Personally, I’m the type that would also be interested in what his new perceptions were but the first impression would be a tough one to dispel. 

Osho was not a criminal, yet some of the people on this forum treat him as if he had been one. If Osho had really been a criminal then the government would have locked him away forever. The activities of the government against Osho reached their peak with the salmonella poisoning incident in the Oregon county where Osho had the commune and with some of Osho's people accused of trying to murder an attorney. Consider that the media regarded the former as as a bioterror attack, probably the first one of its type in the U.S.

What was the outcome of both of these situations? Well, certainly nothing like an indefinite, expenses paid vacation at Guantanamo. There were some minor fines and Osho returned to India. The outcome of the case re the attorney shows that the principals involved were either put on probation and served at the most 2 to 5 years in jail and the latter usually reduced for good conduct. What these outcomes show is that there was a lot more to these incidents than what came to public view.

In short, what the majority of the public ended up with in regard to Osho is what particular elements in government and the media wanted the public to end up with. That, of course, is nothing new and as we look at something like 9/11 and all that has resulted from it, many have come to the conclusion that deception, lies and criminal activities are not confined to a few stereotypes here and there. Those activities can be operating anywhere.

I have not mentioned any of the above to promote Osho, what I do promote is an an awareness beyond the standards that are suspiciously promoted as awareness. What Osho promoted and did pales considerably when compared to what others have done in the guise of spiritual and democratic ideals. You think Osho is a fake? Well, if we're going to talk fakes then we'll find upon sober examination that we've been subjected to fakes of all types long before Osho and that we are still being subjected to them. It can even be said that some of the fakes have been established as institutions and that some of them have no trouble in enforcing their falseness.

Whether it be Osho, Billy Graham, The Seth channeling of Jane Roberts, Robert Monroe, Bruce Moen or anyone, anywhere, that has a view on what life is about or the potentials of what life can be, then where I go to immediately is what is being said. It is there where I will find the center of the story, it is there where I will either find some resonance or where I am repelled by the content. If someone came to me and said that Billy Graham was a spiritual con man or that Bruce Moen was in it only for the bucks, and I had not had any exposure to either, then I would go and read what that person has to say; I don't take what sheep say about the horse as gospel - I go to the horse directly.

Anyone who has taken the time to read even some quotes of Osho will recognize that there is a lot more there than fakery.  When he was once asked to summarize his teachings, Osho replied:

"My message is not a doctrine, not a philosophy. My message is a certain alchemy, a science of transformation, so only those who are willing to die as they are and be born again into something so new that they cannot even imagine it right now ... only those few courageous people will be ready to listen, because listening is going to be risky."

'To be born again into something so new that they cannot even imagine it right now'. That sure sounds like something for an afterlife forum, doesn't it? Well, apparently for some people such thoughts do not fit into their comfortable feelings about an afterlife; apparently, they've personally politicized something that should not be politicized, that cannot be politicized due to its monumental and transcendent characteristics.

When we are dealing with the concept of an afterlife we are dealing not with some pat and uniform stroll from here to there regardless of how desperate we may want that to be the case. We are dealing with a complete overhaul of our state of being. We'd like to think that in the afterlife we'll be reunited with so and so and that all our problems will be a thing of the past, life's a holiday on Primrose Lane; sure sounds sweet and even I would certainly enjoy some of that. But for all we know an afterlife could mean a transition into realms where locating so and so and problems are not even up for consideration, much less for resolution. Even the most critical aspect of self-awareness, of your identity, may end being no more significant than dust particles in a tornado. In other words, my friends, the universe in all its vast glory and power will do whatever it damn well pleases with regard to our little, self-important butts.

Osho was no more and no less another human being like ourselves who ventures into his or her mind and spirit to see what is what. He was no different in that respect than I or anyone else on this forum. If for some reason you don't think he is as virtuous as is needed for acceptance then ask of yourself how virtuous you are or have been in your own life. Have any of you come up with a body of work like Osho or for that matter like any other controversial teachers? Will any of you have the following be said about you once you passed from this life?:

"The legacy of his ideas will not be easy to disappear. Here we have a case in which a charismatic leader having an original philosophy dared to challenge what few of religious leaders have done. We wonder if we were able as humanity to understand fully his message, both from inside and outside the movement. Certainly, as history has shown so far, the radical ideas are those which produce a quantum leap for humanity. Jesus was also in the situation to be persecuted for his radical ideas in Judaism."

Well, like they say, anything is possible and maybe somewhere down the line your person and your ideas will be referred to in like terms. But I'm not holding my breath. What I've seen here from some in this particular thread is a type of closed-mindedness passing itself off as righteous appraisal. In a way I'm a little disappointed, not because of whether Osho is a viable subject for discussion or not, in the end he's really not the issue. The real issue is openness to ideas no matter where they're coming from. Examining an idea does not mean that you accept completely the person who puts the idea forth. One can examine the ideas of someone from the most saintly to the ruthlessly criminal and find knowledge that even in the least summation let's us know how the particular individual came to be, what led him or her to regard their life such as it is or was. That's the reasons why I used the example of Albert Einstein in a previous post. That I wonder at his theories and views on life does not mean that I would agree with the attitude he took with his wife.

When we regard ideas from others we are regarding ideas from those in our "family", the family of human beings. Sometimes some in the family end up in not so nice circumstances. Sometimes we can't make heads or tails as to what the situation is.

Allow me to give you an example of this:

When you mention the name of Charles Manson to anyone, it is doubtful that you'll receive no reaction unless the listener is either too young to know or has been living a life in some remote destination in the world. Even here on this thread if it was a toss-up between Manson and Osho then probably Osho would come up smelling like flowers. But anyone who has taken the time to study Manson's life as a child and young boy knows that much of what happened to him was decidedly not the best for a young innocent. Abuse, going from foster home to foster home, frequent juvenile detention, all of them eventually contributed to who Manson became.

Years ago, I lived in the Los Angeles area. I was a teenager at the time and like most others I would get together with friends and drive around town and even out of town for fun in the mountains, desert or seashore. On one of those occasions we went up to a large park area in the north of Los Angeles. We'd all hike around and generally act like teenagers. At one point I went off hiking by myself and came upon a house on the trail I was on. As I passed this place outside of the fence surrounding it I noticed someone on the porch squatting and looking off in another direction; he became aware of my presence and looked over in my direction. In my friendly manner I stopped for a moment and raised my hand in greeting. He nodded silently and gave me a smile. Both of us just stood there and looked at each other with no verbal exchange for what had to be a half-minute. What immediately came to me in this quick exchange was the energy that was coming from the individual, it wasn't so much that you could see the aura of this person as you could feel it. As I walked away and for a little time afterward I wondered about that person and the strange "vibes" that emanated from him. By the next day he was no longer a consideration in my mind.

It was only years later that I realized that the individual sitting on that porch was Charles Manson. I made the connection from the pictures I had seen and one of them showing the same hat that he was wearing the day I saw him. And the place where I was hiking in? The Spahn Ranch.

On that day long ago when Manson and I looked and smiled at each other I walked away thinking there was something strange about him but never did I equate it with the strangeness that would cause the murders of those people in Hollywood. To me he was simply another character in the cast of many characters in Los Angeles at that time with his own type of charisma. As I think about this and consider afterlife aspects it is inevitable that among the many people I've encountered that Manson also be considered. His life is a sense an afterlife of a previous life and so one wonders the whys and wherefores of the circumstances between them. Is it karmic that Manson ended up where he did? Or is it as Osho said something forced upon a being, someone who really had nothing in a previous incarnation to warrant such an inheritance? I really don't know. What I saw that day was a young man on a porch with a friendly smile and some different energy radiating from him. Nothing more, nothing less.

I tell this story because on reflection it, among many other experiences that I've had, shows me just how strange life can be. Maybe Alysia or Nanner would say that it was mean to be that I met up with Manson on that day, that there was lesson and knowledge however brief to be learned from the encounter. I can't say that there was a lesson or whether it was just chance coincidence.

In summation, whether it's Osho, Manson or anyone else, there is a part of the story that we simply cannot see or understand. Due to our temporal status we can make all manner of judgments about whomever, but in the big picture of lives and afterlives there is simply information that we cannot grasp due to our position in the scheme of things.

The only thing that we can really do is listen and learn, and like Osho said in the previous quote, the listening will be risky. Challenges are life-long propositions, every day we are challenged in one way or another. Sometimes the challenge is easy arithmetic and sometimes it's complicated algebra. But whatever type of challenge it may be, we simply don't have enough existence time to judge things to their utmost extent. What happens when we do that is that we are really judging our particular level of understanding. And in the context of the universe and possible dimensions of existence that are out there, our level is particular and fleeting indeed.

______________

I had thought about answering Justin and some of the other replies but I figure the above will do in a general sense. As one poster mentioned the low energy that this thread came to generate I see it simply as a case where the opinions exposed become more personal and what presents itself as a view is nothing more than reiteration of reactions to the peripherals of material than the material itself.

This is my last post in these forums. My reason for doing so is not because of differing opinions, different views are what a forum is about. But to my figuring I think that if someone like Osho ends up being reviled for who he was rather than considered for his knowledge, then it’s only a matter of time before someone else is mentioned and the boards are knee-jerking left and right. To me it’s all about knowledge and what it contains whether good, bad or indifferent. Hitler was at one time an artist, a painter. I know what Hitler is about but regardless I want to see those paintings, examine them, make some aesthetic assessments about them. Who knows, maybe even learn something different about an individual who has come to be considered a scourge on the world. Anything less would be parochial.

Personally, I don’t fancy having to go through the drama of attitudes in order to get to the core of an issue. I brought up Osho’s ideas on the afterlife and next thing you know I’m getting a version of Fox News as to what a bad, bad man he was. There are a lot of people out there right now with a lot more bad on their minds than Osho would have ever contemplated. Osho’s gone, those other people are still around; you do the math.

I know there are some who have enjoyed my presence in this forum and to them I humbly bow in appreciation of their sentiments. As some have said that I was meant to visit here so it is that I am meant to depart. Life and the afterlife are very big places and you simply can’t hang around one place trying to learn just how big it is.

For those that wish to pm me, please feel free to do so. I’m sure that by the energy and graciousness I felt from you that we’ll discuss much in some other places and times. To all the others, no hard feelings and all in all I don't judge you to be either this way or that; there are just some things I've become comfortably indifferent to and resolve likewise. Or to be more accurate, I've become very selective about the memes I engage with.

I'll let Bob have the final word:


"Crimson flames tied through my ears
Rollin high and mighty traps
Pounced with fire on flaming roads
Using ideas as my maps
Well meet on edges, soon, said I
Proud 'neath heated brow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now. ...

Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats
Too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking
I had something to protect
Good and bad, I define these terms
Quite clear, no doubt, somehow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now."

Cordially

Desert

My response Justin would be to say: 'what or who is this ideal teacher?'. The one you are in a sense holding out for. Can we afford or are we in fact permitted to wait for him/her? And how if we meet him are we to recognise him? And how can his message possibly be pitched in a manner (even if it's 'true') that's simultaneously at the right level for everyone?

Realisation is no guarantee that a teacher can help you, only that he/she is seeing what's in front of him/her without the distortion of ego led delusion. Realisation is not some magic 'kazam' moment where the individual suddenly develops miraculous powers, it seems actually to be a very highly extended continuum that starts with the partial realisation demonstrated by quite ordinary people - possibly even some here. We all have our moments of true seeing.

Realisation is consequently claimable by all sorts of people at widely differing stages on the path without any requirement that they demonstrate infallibility.

Depending on the capabilities and life experience of such a person they may or may not have had time to fully integrate the new insight or have great teaching skills. Given time that's probably where they are headed as at least their experience and analysis will be true, but it's not a given.

It's only at very rare intervals in history that a Buddha or a Jesus capable of delivering a very widely applicable message is born. And even such people it seems while precocious still have to shed a certain amount of karmic crap to attain realisation.  And even then we are dependent on highly filtered texts and a most definitely not realised institutional culture for transmission of whatever view they espoused.

This is before we talk of the ability of the individual student to connect with and actualise teachings. There's so many issues of aptitude, intellect, stage of their view and so on that what they may take from them is highly unpredictable. Most could not accept Jesus' teaching at the time - he led a small group. Most ordinary minded persons entirely miss the meaning of even slightly higher teaching - it simply doesn't compute for them - never mind the highest possible.

The result of this is that it's not possible nor ever will be to create some one size fits all idealised universal learning environment informed by the input of only fully realised teachers. I'd be very cautious about any attempt to seek for that as it's unlikely to be very helpful.

My personal view is that at this level it's entirely relative and circumstantial. We each inhabit a bubble in what feels like a generalised reality but which is actually unique to ourself - with common factors limited only to those aspects we choose at some higher but unconscious level to make concensual.

At a given moment every single one of us has a specific lesson they need to learn. The magic of existence is that somehow the cosmos conspires to deliver precisely what we need at the time, no matter what shennanigans we go on with.

We don't have to grasp after a perfect teacher.

After that we're back to what I've been trying to post. Everybody can teach us, some are more helpful than others and some very helpful indeed by virtue of the higher and view altering truths they transmit. Our ability to learn from others is likewise peculiar to our personal circumstances in the broadest possible sense. And vice versa by the way in terms of harm and being led astray.

An ant stepped on by a realised teacher is not going to benefit from this. On the other hand as I've said before a starving man can benefit greatly from his worst enemy if he feeds him after taking him prisoner.

Our task is to navigate through this morass drawing on natural goodness/grace/wisdom to help us find our way - to recognise the lessons life presents to us, and to draw the right conclusions from these.

There's ultimately no guru but ourselves, but equally everybody and everything is our guru.....

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  Truth is truth, no matter how its worded or what form it comes into.   There are plenty of sources, that when i tune into them, beyond just reading their words directly or what others say about them, i get very positive, expanding, and more loving vibes than not.    Most of these, i would not consider "enLightented".   

  So, i'm not speaking against listening to "unenLigtented" sources.   I quite like Bruce Moen's work, some of Bob Monroe's, Rosalind McKnights, and much of Cayces for example and none of those "channels" do i consider fully and completely enLightened.    But then there is the perfect Teacher, Yeshua who transcends all time and ages in his simply put and more importantly purely LIVED wisdom. 

And that's part of the crux of the issue.  I care less about what a person or teacher actually says, then how they live their life.  It's the example that matters more, is more affecting, than the actual word teachings.  And again, the vibes i get from tuning into them.   

  I've run into plenty of sources who intellectually, their words sounded pretty interesting, sounded wise at points, etc. but because i felt an underlying offness, imbalance, or slower vibratory pattern, i decided to not get any more involved. 

   There is, such a thing as being too open minded, i believe.   Astrologically, its like the sign Gemini.    Extremely flexible and open minded sign pattern (not talking of individuals who have same highlighted), but because their energies are so diffuse, scattered, because it tends to think that everything and nothing has "truth" in it (Gemini is the ultimate, natural agnostic)...well oft it doesn't get anywhere deeper in it's searching.   

  It oft becomes curious george and jack of all trades in many things, but master of none. 

Quote:


  Well said, and i mostly agree.  Did i say differently?   Btw, but wouldn't you say that a true "master" teacher would tend to have a higher success rate in reaching and teaching people than say a lower level guide type, or the average Joe who has his or her moments of clarity and very brief but fuller attunement? 

   Isn't there a relativity that needs to be considered?    When there are master teachers there to tune into, then why focus on those whose development is less than, about equal too, or only slightly greater than your own?
Quote:


  I guess we have different definitions of what "Realization" is and means.   Mine is quite simple.  There is a Source Consciousness, and when one fully and all levels, only resonates too and becomes a channel of that Consciousness, then can they truly be said to be fully "realized" or enLightented. 

  That Source is perfect, and one must become PUL incarnate to fully attune to that Source.   Such a person can fully and completely tap into any info they want too.   

  What they, or even Source cannot do, is to know how and what we are going to choose with our Freewill, because that is totally in the hands of the individual though of course there are probability patterns most always. 

  Certain outer "signs" and indications become apparent, btw, when a person is that attuned to Spirit, Source, and PUL.    They do not age, do not get sick, do not die natural deaths, they transcend completely space/time, just as the some 1800 year old person that Monroe met after asking to meet the most spiritually mature person living in his space/time.   That person could easily, say, appear to a thousand, a million people at the same time, both in the "flesh" as well as in nonphysical. 

  Seems to me, to some extent you are kind of parroting what you've read about realization from teachers who themselves were not fully realized and who also seem to be parroting from sources also not completely realized either.   Why i say that, is because in my more Eastern oriented and curious days, i read similar theories and beliefs as what you are saying regarding the issues of realization.   

Quote:


  Then they are still in the process of "relative realization" and still subject to space/time limits and illusions relatively.   

Quote:


  I use to believe in my younger and less discriminating days, that there were somewhat numerous completely realized Teachers who have come to the Earth during slower vibrating cycles.   I now believe that they are much, much rarer as far as actual public teachers.    There is only one public and historical teacher who i have tuned into and believe completed the process of full transcendence of time/space while he "physically" lived and then he dramatically drove that important point home.   He's the only one that left behind possible physical "evidence" or suggestive proof of that dramatic point. 

There may be others who have, but who i haven't tuned into yet, or gotten repeated guidance verifications about as well as numerous credible and more accurate than not psychic sources also vouching for this person and their claims and life.
Quote:


  Certainly, but all the above is not quite applicable to the points i'm trying to make to begin with. 

  You talk about the man i prefer to call Yeshua for example.   Well, he spoke and taught very, very simply, and mostly by living the example of the principles he less occasionally espoused via speeches, etc.

  If the person could be reached at all, he was the one to do it, because he could relate it to their relative and present level in the moment.   

Quote:


Again, truth is truth no matter the words and forms involved.   But at the same time, there is such a thing as relative degrees of truth and untruth.    Speaking on a whole, and on average, those who fully align, attune to and channel that which is TRUTH, LIFE, and CREATIVE FORCE and CONSCIOUSNESS ITSELF, will and can transmit the highest truths possible via the outer, but they also work with the inner of a person and peoples at the same time. 

Sometimes it's just enough to be in the presence of such a person, their radiation has a tendency to "lift up" and balance other people's energy fields, if they are at all open to it to begin with. 

   Sure, no teacher can "make" this happen for anyone.  It's always a freewill process, and dependent on many various intertwining factors when it comes to the "student". 

But again, what does this have to do with my point that it's just wiser and pragmatic for people to try to look to those have are fully Realized or at least near same?   Instead of spending needless time and energy on separating the Wheat from the chaff?   

  Again, how can they/we tell, when so many sources whether "guru", priest, channeled types speak flowery, wise sounding words?   By how the person behind those words and outer teachings, lived their lives for others, and by the fruits that they and their teachings have directly produced.    And i don't mean like Christ and  Christianity.   Christianity was highjacked a long time ago and isn't directly Christ's teachings anymore.   
 
Quote:


  It is extremely relative to the individual who is primarily and imbalancedly existing in the relative reality, and yet, there is another reality that co-exists simultaneously, which can be tapped into also.   It's largely a matter of an individuals spiritual developement towards that Universal Standard, which is Source and PUL Consciousness. 

  And more specifically and personally, there was one, a Spirit who took on flesh and became the perfect example while in the flesh, the Universal Standard if one would but open their hearts and minds to the non religious version of him.   Unfortunately, so many choose not too because they equate corrupt, political-religious forms and systems to his person as if he had anything whatsoever to do with the twisting of his ways and teachings. 

Quote:


  Certainly.   Yet we find as individuals and as humans collectively speaking...we tend to be quite a stubborn lot, wouldn't you say.    If we weren't, and if the whole thing was easier, there would be many more in physical who completely transcend space/time and who are fully attuned to Source and PUL Consciousness and who are, think, feel, and act ONLY from that "space" so to speak. 

Quote:


   There is no such thing as complete "non grasping".   I'll put it a different way.   A wise source, the Edgar Cayce's guidance once said something like, "The only way to transform destructive habits, is to replace them with constructive habits."   

  If one is going to grasp, and we all do from the most 1st chakra centered type people, to the very Elders to themselves, "grasp" at something.   Another way to put the term grasping, is to say what one concentrates and focuses on. 

  Its not the concentration and focus that is the problem in and of itself, it's what one is focusing and concentrating on which either facilitates expansion or limitation, see?   

  It is far better, speaking on average, generally, and holistically, to concentrate and focus on those sources who are fully enLightened, or at least near so.   
Quote:


Certainly, but again only relatively speaking.   A person struggling with alcolohism and who is very self centered and focused on that which is destructive in the outer and inner life, well to be sure they can speak truth and have their moments of clarity.   

  More often than not, though, they are what i call "unconscious" teachers.   We are not talking about unconscious teaching so much as folks who set themselves up as conscious teachers.

Again, if Osho hadn't proclaimed himself as fully enLightened (and an Avatar to boot), i would not address him so persistently as i've have.    But i see him, his example and teachings as relatively more harmful than quite a few others, and part of that is because he was not that which he claimed to be.   

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  I would refer you to my 7 fields of Wheat analogy or parable.   And again, we are not talking about the average interaction of people wherein mostly unconscious teaching and learning is done, but we're talking specifically as someone who deliberately, repeatedly set himself up as a channel of truth unqualified, someone who referred to themselves as fully Realized.

  I occasionally disagree with some of the things that people here say, but rarely, rarely do i address their deeper intents, motives, and them as a person...  Why, because not a single person here is claiming full Realization.    That in and of itself, speaks volumes for the teachers/students here, and its speaks volumes that so many Eastern Gurus have claimed this about themselves.   

 
Quote:


  Yup, and sometimes our gifts to others like on a forum such as this, believe it or not, is in disagreeing and pointing out things others would rather not  hear, see, or don't agree with.    Kind of like the saying that a true friend doesn't tell you what you want to hear, but tells you what they honestly think, feel, and believe.   

  I personally would much rather have a person speak to me in a direct, simple, open, and honest manner than a charming, silver tongue manner that so many politicians and other manipulators have adopted as their way to influence people...   Certainly by looking around, such folks who subtly and hiddenly manipulate have been a lot more successful than the very direct, open, and honest types?

  Says something about human nature and our collective degree of receptivity to greater truths, does it not?

Quote:


  Relatively speaking, i agree.   We need to learn how to go within more, and stop relying so much on outer sources and info so much...

  And yet at the same time, if we didn't have the Yeshua's come here, boy with this world be even more imbalanced and slow going than it is.    We humans still yet need standards and examples, because the world and its influence seems too powerful for most.   

  Like Albert, the more i've opened up to the non religious Christ and Yeshua, the more i have gained.   If he or someone like him hadn't lived in relation to my space/time cycle, well i probably would be more confused than i am now.   

Meanwhile, yes, other individuals who have not fully attuned to Source like him, have been teachers to me both in a conscious and unconscious sense, and i'm grateful for their help.   As always, when the student is ready, the teacher appears. 

But to be honest, life itself and outer conditions and suffering has been much more the teacher for me than most individuals for the most part.   At the same time, that doesn't mean that we should become passive in relation to our fellow selves in the sense of not at least trying to help people understand the pitfalls of certain paths, belief systems, and ideals.   

  If i said to myself, "well, people will learn one way or another through mistakes, suffering, and through their own direct experiences ONLY." and then decided to only keep to myself, to never speak up about my truth, my perceptions, my understandings, relating my experiences, etc., then my energies would become stagnant within themselves, i would become over imbalanced to the Yin force.   

  It's in the way that you do the above which matters, its important to try to do it respectfully and more impersonally.    But sometimes its even necessary to act in a controversial and non p.c. manner.   Sometimes it's necessary to be direct and blunt. 

  If most everyone was only very Feminine, very gentle  and very subtle in manner, very passive and Yin in other words (too much imbalance to the Yin and one can become apathetic), well the World would soon become completely over run by those who seek to control and dominate the rest of their fellow selves.    Yang energy and expression, structure, firmness, activeness is just as important as the former Yin attributes and expressions.   

  The Right brain, the purely Yin polarized expression believes and says, "everything is completely alright the way it is, no need to change anything at all, Kum by yah...."

   The other side says, "No, everything is not alright, let's try to make the world and ourselves better (less limited and negative).  Let's be active."

Again, its an issue more of balance than anything.   I hope that some will read my words and at least consider more deeply and in a non prejudiced manner, what i am trying to get across.   I hope its a catalyst for those interested in various Eastern Guru's like Osho, to think more out of the box and to go more within and question more from that space and not mostly from an intellectual one which tends to mostly consider the outer forms more than anything.   

  Meaning in other words, the Apple can look very good and healthy on the outside (especially from a distance or at a casual glance), very shiny, plump, and juicy looking, but the inner flesh be rotten and/or riddled with worms.   I've learned in my own direct experience, and looking at the experiences of others, that the ability to discern more deeply between the outer form and inner truth is not necessarily easy and automatic for most people, particularly when it comes to written words and teachings from that perspective (like books, or reading stuff on the I-net).

My last on this also, in respect of both the 'Osho' and the 'proselytising' threads - although this question about the true and proper nature of teaching and learning is much broader.

The core view I've been struggling to get across is the idea that the reality of teaching and spiritual learning is in reality so utterly vast, varied and complex, and yet so utterly banal that we miss (or fail to recognise) what's all the time going down all around us. (we're so stuck in a narrow cliche of what this 'must' be)

And that having missed it we can be inclined to rush around in circles looking for the one great enlightened teacher 'who will set me on my way'. Which pursuit easily becomes a substitute for getting on with it, for taking responsibility for ourselves.

The master/pupil route is demonstrably not the way it is for almost everybody. It can of course happen that way for a very few, but the real work is done when each and every one of us is brought to the experience and lessons we need. In every manner and sort of situation. Your life is a teaching. Every person you meet is a teacher. Whether and how much they help is circumstantial, and depends on both parties. But it's happening now, and every now - not at some mythical point in the future when it's all going to somehow fall into place.

I'd propose that our task if there's anything we can do to help ourselves to open and accelerate our learning is to reach out to life. To take ownership of ourselves, to be pro-active, to engage with confidence that while it may get uncomfortable at times that basic goodness, Grace or whatever will see us right.

If we persist in resisting engagement, in sticking in some eddy of life while holding out for some mind made perfect ideal of a teacher or teaching context (the arrival of heaven on earth for example) we risk either deferring our own learning, or becoming overly attached to some belief system. Neither of which seems healthy,  but we can perhaps console ourselves that no matter what we think it's probably going to deliver the lesson we need anyway.

There's been various acknowledged Masters at differing stages in history, and they've been critically important establishing bodies of broadly correct teaching and the vehicles to propagate them throughout history. (all subject to the vagaries of language and those propagating - very little Buddhist teaching goes right back to the Buddha, but purports to represent his views. Ditto for Jesus) There's likewise been many other necessarily more mixed teachers like Osho who for a variety of reasons haven't necessarily received universal acclaim, but whose work has served to present and interpret these teachings in the required multiplicity of ways for many more people than otherwise would have been the case.

Which with again the involvement of an incredibly complex chain of cause and consequence has created the very rich (as well as very risky) learning context in which we (very lucky) people find ourselves early in the 21st C. Meaning that there's such a wealth of knowledge around for us to draw on in deciding just how we should engage with life.

Like advising the guy not to grab the hot handle of the pan my thought on this is that if we persist in denying life and learning while holding out for or attaching to some mind made ideal of the perfect teacher (that doesn't mean we don't look for 'good' teachers, but that's (a) a pretty personal call, (b) discrimination and openness means we can draw on all where appropriate without having to swallow everything they say hook line and sinker, and (c) it's right to warn other where we encounter what's dodgy) that we're setting ourselves up for an unpleasant lesson where we'll be taught the futility of this.

While warning is fine we likewise shouldn't become fixated on the task of 'saving' others who may fall into the clutches of those we regard as dodgy.

There of course seem to be absolute truths, and yes we sense these through higher awareness. But it seems clear that when stated or applied at this level the rules purporting to embody them are far from absolutes.

None of this is suggesting that we should blindly follow teachers that we don't 'get', or about whom there's a whiff of gun smoke. But it's equally saying that except in the more extreme cases that we should not reject all about teachers who get criticised - approach carefully yes, be selective but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

I should say too that while as above we help others about to walk into trouble that there is a point (specific to every situation) where a limit is reached and where the individual's will must be respected. I was thinking more of examples like the church burning heretics at the stake to save their souls, or the child so insulated from life by his parents that he never properly develops.

I have to apologise Justin in that I didn't intend to be quite so confrontational. I should say as well that I don't claim any absolute knowledge (to do so would be against the very view I've just set out) in these matters - I could easily have sprinkled what I wrote with 'probablies' and 'possiblies' and made it much softer, but I didn't have the presence to do so.

But I was posing a very real question - specifically 'what is the alternative to the above, to living with this groundlessness and granularity?'. 'What the bleep do we know?'

I may have posted this before, but it seems apt:

Life unfolds
As time rolls out
While certain we decide the script
We circle endlessly in ego’s grip

The dream
Leads ever deeper into pain
Self reinforced but made from fear
Sees only what it deigns to see

And yet
Though blind resisting every step
Bathed in light all but ignored
Our path somehow revealed unfolds

Until
At last in retrospect
We dimly can discern the sign
That through life’s detritus spirit’s called

  No need to worry Ian/Vajra, i didn't feel you were overly confrontational.  In any case, i much prefer honest and direct communication to the kind that is nicey nicey on the outside, but you can sense gritted teeth, supressed dislike, and the likes in the inner of a person.  During my travels and communications in the New Age world, i've experienced more than a bit of the latter. 

  A thought occurred to me as well, that perhaps i don't know what i'm talking about anyway.   I've been told my whole life, since being a wee lad who occasionally moderately disagreed with someone about something (usually someone much older than i), continuing in the now, that i don't know anything because i'm "too young" to have any real wisdom and knowledge.    Spoken and unspoken, this has come across quite often for much of my life.  Perhaps "they" are right.
  Course, for most of my life, i was quite introverted and when i did speak it was usually quite brief.   Only in the last 7 years has "verbosity" been a trait and tendency of mine. 

  Anyways, i say perhaps and may, because i'm not totally sure either way, just something i'm entertaining at the moment.

  Not talking about Osho, but related to what Rogerscott said in the off topic section in regards to the Holographic Universe theory and also related somewhat to what Vajra said in his last post here on this thread, i would like to add that personally, i just don't read any more spiritual type books anymore.   

Not because i feel like i know everything or anything like that, but because i've come to the realization that i just need to live certain basic, core, and universal to many belief systems, principles and ideals in my everyday life.   That's where the real work gets done, in service and in being what you believe is important.

  Part of me was even whispering in my ear, before going to the Gateway Voyage program at TMI, that "you don't really need or have to go, just live your spiritual ideals more, be more loving towards others, go within more, meditate and pray more, get your diet and physical body more intune with the mental and spiritual..."

   I mean, i'm glad i went and very much enjoyed my stay there, but i realized before and especially after that this part of me was very much right. 

  I need to stop seeking on the outside so much.    Now, if i feel the need or the inner impulse to read a certain book in the future, i am open to that, but it's just that i'm not actively seeking that which is seemingly outside of me. 

  But, it's more complicated and shades of gray than that, because at the same time, i still hold Yeshua and his example in my minds eye, and constantly check myself and that livingness in relation to that pattern.   It helps me to correct myself and to be honest with myself about when i am erring...   Because self, the part of us which desired separation from it all, is mighty tricky and crafty at times in leading one astray from true spiritual livingness.    I've seen it time and time again in my own example (usually more so in hindsight, but such is life) and observed the same in others pretty darn universally.   

  I'm humble enough to realize the above, and to know that i still need some kind of an example to keep me more straight on what i've come to find is a narrow path indeed (narrow, but filled with joy and peace if one really learns to walk on it, and after getting through the uphill part).

  And while i respect many other examples out there, for me, i just don't want to hold any example which i sense is less than, about equal to, or slightly greater than my own, because i know they are still dealing with the same issues of occasional skewing, self dishonesty, inaccuracy that i can and sometimes find in this self.   Maybe less or more than in my own case, but still there as a pattern. 


  To Dave:  I believe i understand where you are coming from Dave, because for many years i too put Eastern belief systems and teachers on a pedestal.  After all, they talked about things like karma and reincarnation which i came to believe in and accept early on.   Quite a long while, and to be more exact from about age 13 to 24 or so, i put almost everything "Eastern" on an largely undiscriminating and non critical pedestal.   

  But the more that i've gone within, the more i've attuned to Source and balanced the physical ,mental and spiritual aspects of being a human, the more sharp my discrimination has become in regards to what other teachers and belief systems say or don't say (and the inner vibes).    And while i still find ideas and concepts that ring true with me, in Eastern teachers and belief systems, well i'm also finding a lot of skewing, error, inaccuracy, and occasionally some downright slower vibrating patterns.

  Now, i've been critical of Western thought and belief systems for longer in life, so its not like i've been or am innately prejudiced against the more Yin oriented East--as mentioned, i thought the East had most of the answers.   

   When i started to give up my deep interests in science, i started to see a lot of arrogance in both Western thought and teachers.   But, as i've gotten more intune and discriminating, i've seen or sensed quite a bit of "arrogance" in a lot of Eastern thought and teachings, it's just that on the surface its more subtle, hidden, and more introverted. 

   I think part of the reason why i vibed so much with Eastern thought, belief systems, and teachings is because for a long time in my life, i was also very Yin and very introverted, quiet, and usually very brief in my words.   Of course, some Eastern teachers seem to believe and have actively promoted and taught that this must be a sign of true wisdom and all that.   

  Funny that now i'm a much happier person than i've ever been even though i have definite tendencies towards verboseness and being actively communicative (i'm not saying the latter is a sign or indication of wisdom either btw).

Recoverer-
I view God as having more than one hand. We look to the bright, the upright, the proper and the socially correct (which is ultimately where those ideas arise), and there we find nice tidy saints on plaster perches. From them we receive a well filtered, but known safe and palatable Party Line. And, by following those ideas we learn, eventually, that it is bad form to rape and pillage, and that love offers a far better way to live. Minor irregularities, such as the Salem witch trials, the Inquisition, founding a church on the premise of convenient divorces, or on a need for a larger bank account, all can be swept under the rug.

The left hand works a bit differently. It gives us karma. It gives us the courtesan who rescued Siddhartha when he was starving, and nursed him back to health. It is the view of the perplexed prisoner who is to meet with the Roman Tribune, and who now wonders about the wisdom of tearing the Roman Eagle off public buildings.. This is the view of the murderer who awaits execution and whose mind turns to both rage at his capture, and regret for his victim. We also have the noble torturer who offers victims to be burnt at the stake the tender mercy of strangulation.

In between we have people who practice Tantra, the union of opposites by which to extract a truth.  Here is also where we discover a hippie whose approach to God is to OD on noxious substances, The Hindu who stands on one leg until the other is useless. We have the sexual union that replaces mystical union because that's all the body can provide, but which emphasizes the transcendence of orgastic states as divine. And we have the shamans and medicine men who practice their arts in a sort of shadow land of half spirit and half reality.

And we have a tremendous number of additional options. Perhaps that's why Hindu deities are drawn with four arms - they need to have enough digits to handle business on all fronts.

For every person in need, God arrives. The message that arrives might be in material, spiritual, abstract, or extremely material form. The point, at least for the needy person, is the essence of the message, and has nothing to do wth the medium The fact that we personally feel that these people are frauds reflects our posture in life, that they are inappropriate for us individually, a judgement based on our intellectual and ego-centric evaluation.

It is easy to reject. Unfortunately, as we reject God's works, however obscure and steeped in rotting blood, feces and semen, what we are doing is limiting access to God. As we reject Reverend Rapist, because he buggers little boys in the vestibule, we also reject the world in which God has placed us. "I am too good for that kind of thing."

We have the good fortune to be free of the filth that many others call home. But that is not because we are too good for that kind of thing, nor because we are too spiritually advanced to need further insights. Reincarnation suggests that we are free of it because we lived through it, got the message and transcended, so that we need less sexual and emotional "glue" to attach us to our task of learning the world. Now, from our superior posture, if we are to look down upon those whose lives, methods, and appearances do not suit us, we are dishonoring ourselves.

Like the Muslim who despises Jews, not realizing that by this both faiths are dishonored.

My readings of Rajneesh indicate that he had the basics of Vedanta well mastered, and that he decided to bring his message through a medium that definitely attarcted and retained a vast number of young people who otherwise would have gone off into the woods to exercize the same passions. By bringing them the message they needed, in a manner they needed it, he performed a service just as great as the Holy Spirit touching your heart in deep meditation. This was their langauge, their interests, their attachment to truth (sexual truth is still truth), and they learned to redirect their baser urges into higher ones.

That's the bottom line. - Rajneesh taught sexually active people to transform baser urges into higher urges.  - Is that not what all saints do?

More to the point, in between all this criticism, isn't that what we are supposed to be doing? How does all this negativity help?

dave