Actual Freedom – Selected Correspondence by Topic

RESPONDENT: You continuously deride my experience with osho and with veeresh and with many others and with myself and you do not do that from a position of understanding – you do it from a position of pre-judgment of my experience.

RICHARD: If the end result of all your years of experience with ‘osho and with veeresh and with many others’ is typified by your (further above) real life example in a cafe then you are hard-pushed to justify your ‘you do it from a position of pre-judgment of my experience’ theory.

Anyway, whether I do or do not ‘pre-judge’ is beside the point at this moment.

RESPONDENT: You do the same for others. I merely represent a virtual class-action against you.

RICHARD: Hmm ... I would guess that these ‘others’ would have found another representative by now, if this ‘class-action’ had any existence outside of your fantasy, because your appraisal is dismal, your delivery feeble and your follow-through abysmal ... at the very least a representative would brief themselves thoroughly and read my responses carefully.

RESPONDENT: I respect your experience Richard. I am well aware I am pushing you right now; but that is because you insist on twisting everything I say to suit your own agenda.

RICHARD: I can assure you are not ‘pushing’ me one bit ... I have been challenged by experts.

RESPONDENT: The other day you insisted I am a follower of Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain. This was already after I had told you I am not.

RICHARD: You must be referring to the following information:

• [Respondent]: ‘I am so glad to have had the opportunity to have been a sannyasin of bhagwan who latterly called himself osho; and then announced there is no more ‘sannyas’ in his point of view; there are only ‘Friends of OSHO’ ... It is sad and cute and laughable that there are so many people on the planet still calling themselves sannyasins; or arguing that sannyas is not where it is at; when the man who made it all up – out of the ancient teachings – and energised the whole phenomena in the 1970s and ‘80s on planet earth; stated clearly a few years before his death, that it had been great; it had worked; now it could finish. Some of the most PERCEPTIVE and FREE humans on the planet were drawn to the event over a few decades and some of us got the point. Some did not’.

I do comprehend that, after being ‘a sannyasin of bhagwan’, you did indeed cease being a sannyasin when he said to ... and became instead a ‘friend of OSHO’ as he said to a few years before his death. How could I not comprehend this when you made it all so clear by emphasising that you did what he said to do by telling me that ‘some of us got the point. Some did not’? Of course I comprehend ... you even said that it is ‘sad and cute and laughable that there are so many people on the planet still calling themselves sannyasins’.

RESPONDENT: I tell you again I am not a follower of anyone.

RICHARD: Let me see ... when you were ‘a sannyasin of bhagwan’ you were what could be and has been described as a follower of Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain – a disciple sometimes known as a ‘Rajneeshee’ at the time – who supposedly was practicing total surrender to the master (if you were not a disciple practising total surrender to the master then you cannot describe yourself as having been ‘a sannyasin of bhagwan’).

Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain then came out with the notion, latterly known as ‘Friends of OSHO’, around about the time that the US authorities were scanning his credentials vis-à-vis entrance requirements (when he pretended to no longer be a religious leader replete with followers and came out with the farce that he had a lot of ‘friends’ he was living with in the good old US of A so as to be able to stay there). And, after he was no longer able to stay in the US (or pretty well anywhere else in the world), and wound up back in the Poona Ashram he had precipitously abandoned some years before, he declared that from now on he would no longer be known as ‘Bhagwan’, replete with followers (disciples known as ‘sannyasins’), but as ‘Osho’ ... replete with followers (disciples known as ‘friends of OSHO’).

That he found some references to ‘friends’ in Mr. Gotama the Sakyan’s words in regard to Mr. Gotama the Sakyan’s followers (disciples called ‘Bhikkhus’) that somehow would emphasise the devoted nature of the relationship between master and disciple only goes to drive home the point that a ‘friend of OSHO’ is most definitely a surrendered disciple ... or should be if they have understood him properly.

You did say to me that ‘some of us got the point. Some did not’ did you not?

RESPONDENT: You do not take my words at face value, you interpret them and twist them to illustrate that your simplistic classification scheme is correct. It is not correct and its only utility is creating dissent and malice and sorrow.

RICHARD: In this specific instance I disregarded your facile explanation of what a ‘friend of OSHO’ is and opted for Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain’s version ... I prefer fact to fancy any day of the week.

RESPONDENT: I repeat ... I am not normal; I am not spiritual, and I am not on your ‘third way’. How do you fit me into your paradigm Richard? I state I do not fit into your existing simplistic classification scheme and what do you do; you do not take my words at face value as you claimed you always do [and then get upset when I call your game in this respect] you attempt to squeeze me in so that you do not have to expand your scheme.

RICHARD: As I said: I opt for Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain’s classification ... I prefer fact to fancy any day of the week.

RICHARD: Therefore, if you could provide web page links, book titles, magazine articles, newspaper reports, manuscripts, pamphlets, brochures or whatever it is that you are privy to, wherein the words of the people can be found who have written about a [quote] ‘mode of perception’ [endquote] such as to occasion you to think it be the same as an actual freedom from the human condition, I would be most pleased.

RESPONDENT: A recent example for becoming ‘perfectly ordinary’ or ‘beyond enlightenment’, although inspired by Osho in the interpretation of his state can be found at the site of an Austrian [www.owk-satsang.com/]. The English version needs your overlooking grammar and spelling.

RICHARD: Both what Mr. Edgar Hofer and Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain mean by ‘beyond enlightenment’ is so piddling as to quite possibly qualify either of them for the title ‘Wankasaurus Of The Century’ ... were it not already taken. ()

RESPONDENT: As you have put all your cards on the table I will do the same: [quote] ‘Someone will come along after a while who will speak against my words and the scriptures that will have been made from them. There need be no fear! But a strange thing happens here and that is this: In the future, my work in this world will be furthered by the very person who speaks against me’. (Osho 1970).

RICHARD: As the remainder of that quote shows that he was doing the work of Mr. Gotama the Sakyan, and saying the same thing as the Vedas said (the Vedas are, loosely speaking, Hinduism prior to Mr. Gotama the Sakyan), he was clearly indicating that someone, someday, would be doing his work, saying the same thing he was saying, by speaking against him.

And, as these are your cards you are laying on the table, are you indicating that you are here to do Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain’s work (which is, loosely speaking, an admixture of Hinduism and Buddhism)?

RESPONDENT: Your ‘MALICE AND SORROW’ as being nursed in one’s own bosom (chest) is much more urgently speaking and hence more appealing to me, then the consideration of words that have become fossilised as stones (that is not to say that these are completely void of meaning and/or value) in the heart.

Thus I would rather say that as far as I am concerned it is you, who have fulfilled the prophecy of the old man Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain: [‘... someone will come along after a while who will speak against my words and the scriptures that will have been made from them’].

RICHARD: Perhaps it may be of assistance to re-read what he says (above):

• [Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain]: ‘In the future, my work in this world will be furthered by the very person who speaks against me (...) If one wants to work in favour of Buddha, he will have to speak against the Buddha (...) I know full well that I am doing his work (...) If for once and for all the mind can be emptied, something further can be done. But after this emptying process I will say the same things the Vedas have said’.

I am not furthering his work (the work of Mr. Gotama the Sakyan and what the Vedas say) as spiritual enlightenment was consigned to where it rightly belongs – the trash bin of history – over a decade ago now when an actual freedom from the human condition became apparent, as an on-going experiencing, for the very first time.

What do the words ‘beyond enlightenment’ signify to you if not being beyond Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain’s work?

RESPONDENT: Not to over-inflate the relevance of such a statement or make it into a bigger thing then it is, I for one would say it is least to say an interesting coincidence.

Hence you may have supported him inadvertently as you are an apt example of someone who has spoken against those words.

RICHARD: I have neither supported spiritual enlightenment inadvertently nor advertently. Furthermore I am not into deceiving people by trashing something (in this case spiritual enlightenment) only to resurrect that very something (in this case spiritual enlightenment) when I have got their attention.

Just the same as Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain lived, and spoke extensively of, nothing but the same-old same-old.

RESPONDENT: You’ll have to admit Richard, that this observation beats ‘the incomprehensible intelligence resonation theory’ by 20 miles doesn’t it?

RICHARD: Nope ... put bluntly (in view of our extensive discussions over several years): it sucks big-time.

RESPONDENT: As to: [are you indicating that you are here to do Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain’s work (which is, loosely speaking, an admixture of Hinduism and Buddhism)?] I would say Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain’s work has come to an end when he died.

RICHARD: If it had truly come to an end when he died how come thousands of otherwise intelligent people are still pursing spiritual enlightenment like all get-out ... not to mention those awakened/self-realised ex-sannyasins who are emerging from time to time teaching/preaching their version of the same message?

RESPONDENT: And, as to my work being speaking a mixture of Hinduism and Buddhism, have not you noticed that my ‘babbling’ is a little less primitive perhaps?

RICHARD: Not when you say that I am furthering Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain’s work (aka spiritual enlightenment) by speaking against him.

RESPONDENT: It is fun to correspond with you, I begin to detect a very subtle sense of humour in your style.

RICHARD: Ahh ... this is because I find so much about life that is irrepressibly comical and not because of any cosmic joke.

RESPONDENT: I just started reading Emperor’s New Mind again. I always wanted to know if Osho had read the older one but never knew who to ask.

RICHARD: Whether he read that particular book or not I do not know ... but Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain was well aware of quantum physics’ impact upon the susceptible Western mind. Vis.:

• [Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain]: ‘The success of science is rooted in Aristotle, but man’s failure – the failure of his joy, the failure of his love, the failure of his capacity to sing, dance and celebrate – is also rooted in Aristotle. But there are clear-cut signs of revolt, particularly within these last thirty, forty years – many great scientists have revolted against Aristotle. The first one to revolt was Albert Einstein. Aristotle is very absolutistic: A is absolutely A and never B, man is absolutely man and never a woman. He believes in the absolutes, and Einstein brought the idea of relativity. He said absolutes don’t exist; there are only relative things (...) this is a totally different world: old categories lose meaning, old absolutes disappear. And then came the theory of uncertainty – because up to now science was aware only of the superficial world of matter. It has not penetrated into the mysteries of matter as mystics have done in the inner world; they have penetrated into the mysteries of consciousness. And when they penetrated the mysteries of consciousness they became aware that it is not Aristotelian at all (...) now the days of Mahavira are coming: Albert Einstein has made the way for it. As the physicist entered deeper into the mysteries of matter he was very much puzzled – Aristotle works no more, helps no more (...) for example: matter does not exist at the deepest level of matter; matter is only apparent, it is ‘Maya’. Shankara said it thousands of years ago: it is illusion. By ‘illusion’ he does not mean that it does not exist; by ‘illusion’ he simply means it appears to exist – something else exists. Don’t be deceived by the appearance. And the scientist found himself entering more into the world of Shankara than into the world of Aristotle. Matter disappears, there is only energy – energy moving so fast that you cannot see its movement and it gives you the idea of solid matter. Nothing is solid, everything is liquid. And when there is nothing solid, what meaning can the word ‘liquid’ have? Then a new problem arises: if there is nothing solid, what do you mean by ‘liquid?’ Liquidity had meaning only in reference to solidity; the moment solidity disappears, liquidity disappears ... and you are dumb, in awe. Only energy is, and the ways of energy are very paradoxical, very mystic. One particle of energy jumps from its place to another place; it is continuously jumping (...) the ultimate particle of matter simply disappears from one place and appears at another place and you cannot find it in between at all (...) it moves into a totally different dimension which is not known at all and may never be known at all, because it is the unknowable (...) mystics have always talked in paradoxes; now physicists are talking in paradoxes. And the reason is the same: mystics entered reality through their being and came across the mystery; physicists are coming across the same reality from another door – the outward door. I am not in love with contradictions – they can’t be helped. Existence is a paradox’. (Edited transcripts from ‘Be Still And Know’, chapter 7. Copyright © Osho International Foundation. Author: Osho. Publisher: Rebel Publishing House.). So as to ascertain whether these edited transcripts have been taken out of context, or not, the full version may be accessed at the following URL: www.osho.org/news/askosho/askosh64.htm).

KONRAD: You say: ‘This, and Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain’s depiction of himself as being a spiritual entity hovering around the body, is why I said that comparing me to either Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain or Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti was indeed an exercise in futility ... but your response shows that you are apparently unable to grasp this simple fact and instead choose to introduce all manner of things extraneous to the subject at hand and wax eloquent about them as if it were meaningful to do so’.

That text I sent you from ‘The book of Secrets’ is almost identical to your Actualism. That is not fiction, but fact. Read it, and you will see that this is so. There is only a minor point where he deviates. He asserts that you can be without a Self and still have emotions. You on the other hand, assert that without a Self there are no longer emotions. This only means that you do not say anything different from him, except of being more extreme, and being more selective. Basically your ‘observations’ are exactly in the same direction as that text in ‘The Book of Secrets’ I quoted. You and he even agree on the point, that thoughts stand in the way of ‘seeing the world as it is’. <snip>

RICHARD: Regarding what you have to say about Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain: at the very end of the text you sent from ‘The Book of Secrets’, page 1109 to 1112, Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain makes it perfectly clear that there is indeed a spiritual entity present:

• [Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain]: ‘Suppose your passive form to be an empty room, just like an empty room, with walls of skin – empty. Go on dropping into that emptiness. A moment will come sometime when you feel everything has disappeared; that there is no one, nobody, the house is vacant, the lord of the house has disappeared, evaporated. In that gap, in that interval, when you are not present inside, *the divine will be present. When you are not, God is*’. [emphasis added].

How could what he is saying, that when the body is empty of ego (aka ‘the lord of the house’) the divine or god is present, be equated with what I report about my experiencing (that there is this flesh and blood body only when both the ego and soul are not)? Yet look at what you have to say in this e-mail about actualism:

• [Konrad]: ‘That text I sent you from ‘The Book of Secrets’ is almost identical to your Actualism. That is not fiction, but fact. Read it, and you will see that this is so’.

How could Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain saying that the divine or god is present when the ego is not be ‘almost identical’ to actualism when it is the direct opposite (I report that there is neither divinity nor gods in this actual world)? Only someone who is purblind could possibly say that this is ‘not fiction, but fact’ ... yet there is more lack of discernment on your part to come as you go on to say this:

• [Konrad]: ‘Basically your ‘observations’ are exactly in the same direction as that text in ‘The Book of Secrets’ I quoted’.

How could Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain saying that the divine or god is present when the ego is not be ‘exactly in the same direction’ as my observations when I clearly say that there is this flesh and blood body only (neither the divine nor god present)? Your ability to invent things is staggering to say the least ... yet you have the temerity to say the following:

• [Konrad]: ‘Since it is not I, but you who are denying facts, who is the one who lives in a fantasy world?’

How could Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain saying that the divine or god is present when the ego is not be proof that I am the one ‘denying facts’ and not you? Yet despite this blatant evidence that I do know what I am talking of and that you do not you still try to make out that it is me that is living in a fantasy world. Look at what you go on to say:

• [Konrad]: ‘I consider the above [Richard’s comments regarding Konrad’s fantasy world] just to be a form of projection. You accuse me of doing that what you yourself are doing. You can check for yourself’.

How could Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain saying that the divine or god is present when the ego is not be evidence that I am indulging in ‘a form of projection’ (when I say that I decline to be drawn into your fantasy world) when it is patently clear that it is you who is fantasising that it is ‘almost identical’ to actualism and that my observations are ‘exactly in the same direction’ as Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain’s? Yet despite this clear example that what I am saying is 180 degrees opposite to what Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain is saying you continue to assume that it is me that is at fault and not you:

• [Konrad]: ‘It is clear, that you are unable to follow my arguments. It is the easy way out to blame me for your own inability to grasp what I am saying’.

How could Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain saying that the divine or god is present when the ego is not be a demonstration that I am taking ‘the easy way out’ and that it is my ‘inability to grasp’ what you are saying when it is demonstrably obvious that what you are saying is not in any way supported by the facts? Yet you go on to imply that I need to come to your level of understanding:

• [Konrad]: ‘A discussion is only possible when there is a degree of comparable development. And when you show more openness to facts. I suspected that much’.

These condescending sentences of yours reminds me of how you finished your initial e-mail to me:

• [Konrad]: ‘I know that you will not accept anything of what I say here. Therefore this is an exercise in futility’.

Indeed it has been ‘an exercise in futility’ so far ... but do you see why it is? Just in case you do not I will give you a clue: you invent things about me – and criticise your own inventions as if you are in fact criticising me – and then have the effrontery to try and bamboozle me into considering that it is me that has been at fault all along.

Also, you say that I am acting too much from the impression gained from past e-mail discussions with you and that you have changed since then:

• [Konrad]: ‘I think you act too much on the picture you have from me from the past. I have gone through a tremendous growth the last couple of years’.

What I see is that your manner of conducting a (supposedly) mutual discussion has not changed one iota.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

P.S.: The text you sent from ‘The Book of Secrets’, page 1109 to 1112, is in a section called ‘The First Technique’ ... and the section called ‘The Second Technique’ immediately follows on from that one and describes what eventuates when the divine or god is present when the ego is not. I will quote the relevant passage here (it is the fourth and fifth paragraph in that section) so that you can see for yourself what happens:

• [Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain]: ‘... whatsoever you are doing, be there in that activity so totally that the end is irrelevant. It may come, it has to come, but it is not on your mind. You are playing, you are enjoying. That’s what Krishna means when he tells Arjuna to leave the future in the hands of the Divine. The results of your activity is in the hands of the Divine, you simply do. This simply doing becomes a play. That’s what Arjuna finds difficult to understand, because he says that if it is just play, then why kill, why fight? And Krishna’s whole life is just a play. You cannot find such a non-serious man anywhere. His whole life is just a play, a game, a drama. He is enjoying it immensely but he is not worried about the result. *What happens is irrelevant*’. [emphasis added]. (originally from ‘Vigyan Bhairav Tantra’, Vol 2, Chapter 39; ‘Sunyawad – The Philosophy of Emptiness’).

As killing a fellow human being is irrelevant to the divine or god it means that anyone who takes Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain seriously, and empties the body of ego and thus allows the divine or god to be present, could very well wind up in court one day pleading that it was divine will or god’s will that prompted them kill somebody.

This is why I stress that one must empty the flesh and blood body not only of the ego but of the soul as well else the soul (‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being ... which is ‘being’ itself) can and will, from time to time, act upon the instinctive urges (the instinctual passions) which it is comprised of without any consideration of the results of its impulsive actions. Despite Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain saying that ‘the end is irrelevant’ the results of one’s actions are indeed relevant ... as everyday cause and effect clearly demonstrates.

So why does he propose that one empty the flesh and blood body of the ego and allow the divine or god to be present irregardless of the everyday consequences of doing so? The last sentence in the section entitled ‘The Fourth Technique’ clearly shows why killing and/or being killed on planet earth is irrelevant:

• [Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain]: ‘... if you die within to your inner space, you will attain to the life which never dies, you will attain to amrit, to immortality’.

This is a very self-centred and self-seeking approach to life on earth ... something that all metaphysical peoples are guilty of. The quest to secure one’s immortality is unambiguously selfish ... peace-on-earth is readily sacrificed for the supposed continuation of the soul after physical death. All religious and spiritual and mystical quests amount to nothing more than a self-centred urge to perpetuate oneself for ever and a day. All religious and spiritual and mystical leaders fall foul of this existential dilemma. They pay lip-service to the notion of self-sacrifice – weeping crocodile tears at noble martyrdom – whilst selfishly pursuing the eternal after-life.

The root cause of all the ills of humankind can be sheeted home to this single, basic fact: the overriding importance of the survival of ‘Self’ by whatever name.

RESPONDENT: So I sought teachers, and I found teachers and followed them and found myself led toward the realm of the ASC – messianic immortality, God consciousness, Divine Love and so on. Not that I claim to have achieved these for more than occasional moments here and there, but that was my direction, this would be the final solution, I believed. This pursuit went on for 30 years. Then I came across your web site tangentially, in a funny way. I was linked to it through Satsang MLM, a site that made fun of the non-duality gurus. That site is no longer on the net and I miss it.

RICHARD: Curiously enough the authors of the ‘Satsang MLM’ website tried to make fun of an actual freedom from the human condition as well. Vis.:

• [quote]: ‘ACTUALISM: A non-spiritual spiritual path in the opposite direction of all other non-spiritual spiritual paths, created by Professor Richard of Byron Bay University, (Fellow of the Royal Academy of Non-Spiritual Spirituality, Hon. Reader Emeritus of Other People’s Mail)’.

I say ‘curiously enough’ as one of the authors of the now defunct website has met me on a number of occasions in the years gone by – once we discussed life, the universe, and what it is to be a human being living in the world as-it-is with people as-they-are, for several hours in the privacy of my own home – yet he still shows a remarkable lack of understanding as to what actualism is ... it is most certainly not a ‘non-spiritual spiritual path’ which is in the opposite direction to ‘all other non-spiritual spiritual paths’ as the very first words on The Actual Freedom Trust website make crystal-clear:

• ‘Actual Freedom: A New and Non-Spiritual Down-to-Earth Freedom’.

Also, I am none too sure how these (few) examples can be misconstrued:

• [Richard]: ‘I have no religiosity, spirituality, mysticality or metaphysicality in me whatsoever.
• [Richard]: ‘I am mortal. Death is the end. Finish. If you do not become free here and now whilst this body is breathing you never will.
• [Richard]: ‘I am a thorough-going atheist through and through.
• [Richard]: ‘All gods and goddesses are a figment of passionate human imagination.
• [Richard]: ‘There is no ‘Intelligence’ running this universe.
• [Richard]: ‘This universe has always been here and always will be ... it has no need for a creator.
• [Richard]: ‘I am a fellow human being sans identity ... neither ‘normal’ nor ‘divine’.
• [Richard]: ‘As this flesh and blood body only I am this material universe experiencing itself as an apperceptive human being ... as such it is stunningly aware of its own infinitude.

Plus many more examples ... yet there was more misconstruing on the website whilst it was on-line:

• [quote]: ‘Philosophical ENLIGHTENMENT (also semantic ENLIGHTENMENT) includes sub category of ‘intellectual Enlightenment’. This is especially useful for academics and failed architects who once actually held a hammer etc. It also includes the sub-sub category ... 180 degrees wrong Enlightenment where after being enlightened for 9 years you then recant and become actual once again. See our upcoming interview on ‘Philosophically Enlightened Reality Virtually’ – PERV – with Professor Richard of Byron Bay’.

Apart from the laboured exposition of their ‘Non-Spiritual Spirituality’ theory it is pertinent to point out that in order to be satirical satire has to be able to accurately hit its mark and expose absurdity ... as an actual freedom from the human condition is entirely new to human experience – it had no existence prior to spiritual enlightenment – the words ‘and become actual once again’ are a dead giveaway that the authors are only making mockery of something they have invented.

Or, if I may mix metaphors, they are but tilting at straw-men.

*

RICHARD: ... in order to be satirical satire has to be able to accurately hit its mark and expose absurdity.

RESPONDENT: Yes, I’m corrected there. I often wondered why the author(s) of Satsang MLM expended so much energy to put down the Advaita teachers and what they would offer instead.

RICHARD: Presumably they would offer a direct relationship with Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain (aka ‘Osho’) instead ... one of the authors wrote to Peter a few years ago:

• ‘My relationship, as absurd as it might seem to you, is with Osho not the inner circle or other sannyasins’.

The reason for the ‘Satsang MLM’ (Multi-Level Marketing) website was, basically, that the authors objected to the advaita/ nonduality peoples associating themselves/their truth with Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain/his truth ... and thus raking in lots of loot by tapping into the lucrative ‘Sannyasins’/‘Friends Of Osho’ market.

Initially they published their objections in a short-lived printed magazine – called ‘Byron Satsang’ – before creating their website. Vis.:

• ‘In this day and age of Free Market Economics and Globalisation what better than to market Freedom and Truth. Globalisation of the world economy means that wherever there are sannyasins there’s a ready made market. There are many options open to you and in this article we will go over some of the basic issues in becoming a Satsang Service Provider (SSP). This Byron Satsang Special should be enough to get you started in your own business and on the road to financial independence. (...) First steps on the road to becoming an SSP: Well, all you have to do is say that Papaji told you to go out and give satsang. Of course since he’s now dead you could say that he came to you in a dream and asked you to look after his followers. This line works really well and has been market tested by [name deleted]. When questioned by sceptics about why he followed the sannyas market and stole Osho’s customers he claimed that Osho had come to Papaji in a dream and asked him to look after his sannyasins!’ (‘Byron Satsang’, circa early 2000; published by Sw. Yakaru and Sw. Karajaal).

RESPONDENT: I was reading many of the Advaita web sites at the same time. I did enjoy a laugh at their expense though and I’ll admit that laughing at the expense of others may come from malevolence. I knew the site poked at you, I didn’t understand what they were getting at. I thought that I might if I kept reading, then the site disappeared.

RICHARD: I have no idea as to why actualism featured on their website at all ... it has nothing to do with Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain whatsoever (let alone ‘guru-circuit’ marketing).

RESPONDENT: My intro to you through them was something like, ‘this is the funniest site on the web if you’ve got a couple of days to read it’. I went to your site and wondered what was supposed to be funny ...

RICHARD: It says a lot about the human condition that peace-on-earth should be deemed a matter of derision.

RESPONDENT: ... and how anyone could read it in two days. It has taken me months and I still have miles to go.

RICHARD: Just in case all the words ever get too much here is a précis:

Or even more succinctly:

RESPONDENT: [I think you had the bad luck, while you were looking for enlightenment], to meet blind teachers and vagabonds, like Peter and Vineeto, like Osho with his Rolls Royce’s and his orgies.

RICHARD: No, I never met any teachers (aka seers, sages, masters, gurus, and so on) at all before I became enlightened – I was entirely ignorant of the whole milieu of spirituality/mysticism and its attendant master/ disciple phenomenon – and only came across the writings of Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain 5 years later when I met the woman who was to become my second wife and who was what was called a ‘Rajneeshee’ at the time. As she rapidly became an ex-Rajneeshee, when we started to live together, I learnt a lot from her about what he had to say ... plus I also read many of his books (about 90 all told), watched several videos, and listened to numerous tape recordings, so as to get it straight from the horse’s mouth.

Why do you say he was a ‘blind’ teacher?

RESPONDENT: Krishnamurti is a special case.

RICHARD: Do you realise you are saying, in effect, that you had the good luck to meet a special teacher?

RESPONDENT: Once he called Osho murderer, because Osho was blackmailing a woman to destroy her if she had to live him.

RICHARD: I have been told that the ... um ... special teacher criticised the blind teacher but have never seen any of it in print ... perhaps you could supply the relevant quote?

RESPONDENT: Krishnamurti never spoke for enlightenment, unless he was speaking with cultures that were understanding only this word, instead of truth etc.

RICHARD: Which probably means that being ‘truth etc.’ refers to the same thing as being enlightened

RESPONDENT: You tried to underestimate him, by using certain sort sentences of him.

RICHARD: If you can provide an example where I have done so I will be only too happy to attend to it.

RICHARD: All genuinely enlightened beings point to a single edifying moment of awakening (with a variety of descriptions).

RESPONDENT: Who would you recognise as enlightened?

RICHARD: To give but three persons from the last 100 or so years as an example: (...)

• Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain said: ‘Just before the twenty-first of March, 1953 a new energy arose out of nowhere ... those seven days were of tremendous transformation, total transformation. And the last day the presence of a totally new energy, a new light, became so intense that it was almost unbearable as if I was exploding, as if I was going mad with blissfulness ... it was a shattering experience. The past was disappearing ... the mind was disappearing; it was millions of miles away ... by the evening it became so difficult to bear it ... something was very imminent, something was going to happen ... I felt a great presence around me in the room ... I felt a throbbing life all around me, a great vibration ... a great storm of light, joy, ecstasy. I was drowning in it. It was so tremendously real that everything became unreal. The walls of the room became unreal, the house became unreal, my own body became unreal ... that night for the first time I understood the meaning of the word maya ... that night another reality opened its door, another dimension became available. Suddenly it was there, the other reality, the separate reality, the really real ... call it god, call it truth, call it Dharma, call it Tao ... I walked towards the nearest garden ... for the first time I was not alone ... something was pulling me ... I was just floating ... I was not there. IT was there, call it god, god was there ... and I was just carried away ... carried by a tidal wave ... everything became luminous, it was all over the place, the benediction, the blessedness ... the whole universe became a benediction ... I must have been there by clock time at least three hours ... but it had nothing to do with clock time. It was timeless ... there was no time, there was no passage of time; it was the virgin reality; uncorrupted, untouchable, unmeasurable ... since that night I have never been in the body. I am hovering around it ... since that day the world is unreal ... that night of March twenty-first, the person who had lived for many, many lives, for millennia, simply died. Another being, absolutely new, not connected at all with the old, started to exist ... that night the death was total. It was a date with death and god simultaneously’. (‘The Discipline of Transcendence’, Vol 2, Chapter 11; © Osho International Foundation).

RICHARD: ... this is the lifestyle I am living: I enjoy normal things: I live in a normal suburban duplex; I eat at normal restaurants; I meet normal people at cafés; I chat about normal things; I have normal pastimes ... to be able to freely live this normal lifestyle in a seaside village is why I set out to become free of the human condition all those years ago. I never intended – and I do not intend – to become some sort of latter-day atheistic-saviour of humankind wherein I cannot live a normal lifestyle. I do indeed value my privacy highly ... which is one of the reasons why I chose the internet to share my discovery of peace-on-earth with my fellow human beings. You have been persistent in attempting to intrude into this normal living – and thus violate both my lifestyle and that of my companion and associates – so as to make me into some kind of public figure-head replete with publicity photographs and pay-as-you-participate workshops ... even though I have been consistent in providing pertinent information, relevant reasons and articulate answers. <snip> I have said before that the words and writings promulgated and promoted by The Actual Freedom Trust fully explicate the workings of an actual freedom from the human condition and a virtual freedom in practice in the market place (which means there is no meditating in silence or living in a monastery shut away from the world). I have pointed out that there are no celibacy or obedience requirements or dietary demands or daily regimes of exercise ... nor is one is excluded by age or racial or gender origins. I have emphasised that there are no courses to follow or therapies to undergo or workshops to endure or any clique to join ... I have been emphatic that there are no fees to pay. Furthermore, not only are there no prescribed books to study, the latest count shows that more than 3.1 million words are available for free on The Actual Freedom Web Page. It pleases me immensely that the way to access an actual freedom from the human condition is available for free.

RESPONDENT: ... are you aware how much in the above paragraph you draw from the teachings of the spiritual mystic and ratbag OSHO ...

RICHARD: You are joking, I presume? Where did Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain ever demonstrate that an actual freedom from the human condition is to be found in practice in the market place? He consistently lived and thus practicably demonstrated a spiritual freedom – which definitely includes meditating in silence – and proposed ashrams/communes (aka monasteries) all around the globe ... and personally lived shut away from the world in one himself. He certainly came out with some concepts about his brand of the ‘Tried and True’ spiritual freedom being applicable in the ‘market place’ – that I will not deny – but I am somewhat surprised that you chose to believe empty rhetoric, over the evidence of your eyes, for it is obvious that he did not and could not live in the market place.

As for all the courses, therapies, workshops, books to read, tapes to listen to, videos to watch and fees to pay ... the sannyas world is built upon – and financed by – more courses, therapies, workshops, books, tapes, videos and fees to pay than I can even begin to count.

RESPONDENT: ... who was for some time enlightened and then left that behind ...

RICHARD: Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain stuck rigidly to his enlightenment to the very end ... he dictated the words himself to be carved in marble upon his epitaph: ‘never born; never died; only visited this planet’.

RESPONDENT: ... to be a normal human being in company with his friends thus initiating the (mis)-organisation, Friends of OSHO.

RICHARD: Shall I put it this way? Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain did not live a normal lifestyle; Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain did not enjoy normal things; Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain did not live in a normal suburban house; Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain did not eat at normal restaurants; Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain did not meet normal people at cafés and chat about normal things ... Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain was not able to freely live a normal lifestyle.

He was a prisoner of his own making on this paradise called earth.

RESPONDENT: I am so glad to have had the opportunity to have been a sannyasin of bhagwan who latterly called himself osho; and then announced there is no more ‘sannyas’ in his point of view; there are only ‘Friends of OSHO’.

RICHARD: Hmm ... I do recall him first coming out with this notion around about the time that the US authorities were scanning his credentials vis-à-vis entrance requirements. That is, when he pretended to no longer be a religious leader replete with followers and came out with the farce that he had a lot of ‘friends’ he was living with in the good old US of A ... so as to be able to stay there.

RESPONDENT: And my point of view is that ‘OSHO’ refers to a way of life ...

RICHARD: If you say so ... but I read somewhere it refers to Mr. William James’s notion of ‘oceanic’ as in ‘oneness’ or ‘ocean of oneness’ (the timeless and spaceless and formless realm that all religionists, spiritualists, mystics and metaphysicists hallucinate about). The changeover to this nomenclature was introduced after his last discourse series, answering questions and commenting on Zen sutras, came to an end due to failing health. He explained that ‘oceanic describes the experience, but what about the experiencer? For that we use the word ‘Osho’’. And he describes just what is this ‘oceanic experience’ is. Vis.:

• [Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain]: ‘When you are a god, then all the mysteries disappear, then the whole existence is clearly available to you. All the doors are open, nothing is hidden. The whole splendour of existence is available, but it is available to a consciousness which has come to a peak where there is no subject and no object and nothing relating them, where the three have become one. This oneness is the Buddha hood, is your Buddha nature. Just pure oneness ... the oceanic experience. You have become the whole ocean. You are in your intrinsic reality nothing but a divine force, and the whole existence is a divine dance. (Osho: Rinzai: Master of The Irrational, Chapter 2).

Thus, rather than referring ‘to a way of life’ as your point of view says that it does, it refers to the ‘Tried and True’ inner reality that more than a few people have retreated into (and more than often retreated into on mountain-tops and in monasteries shut away from the world). I see the words <god>, <Buddha hood>, <Buddha nature>, <pure oneness> <divine force> and <divine dance> in that paragraph.

RESPONDENT: ... and secondarily as well; to a remarkable man who lived and died fully human and fully free.

RICHARD: I would agree with your ‘fully human’ summation ... but not your ‘fully free’ conclusion. All the God-men and Gurus across the ages and over all the continents have demonstrably been subject to anger and anguish from time-to-time ... Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain was no exception.

RESPONDENT: It is sad and cute and laughable that there are so many people on the planet still calling themselves sannyasins; or arguing that sannyas is not where it is at; when the man who made it all up – out of the ancient teachings – and energised the whole phenomena in the 1970s and ‘80s on planet earth; stated clearly a few years before his death, that it had been great; it had worked; now it could finish.

RICHARD: And, as this was but another concept (more empty rhetoric) it has never come about ... and never will. The hierarchical power base stemming from Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain’s surrender, to what he called ‘the unknowable’, so as to be able to live in what he called ‘the unknown’ will make sure of that.

RESPONDENT: Some of the most PERCEPTIVE and FREE humans on the planet were drawn to the event over a few decades and some of us got the point. Some did not.

RICHARD: And what was the point which the ‘some of us got’ exactly? I have asked more than a few of Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain’s sannyasins and ex-sannyasins and no one has been able to explain what the point is (they tend to repeat the phrase ‘keeping Osho’s vision alive’ over and again).

In what way does it operate, or work itself out ... as in how does it function in daily life in the market place?

RESPONDENT: Yes; Richard; meeting with a spiritual Master is as pointless as meeting with you.

RICHARD: Yet the succession of all the differing strands of spirituality and mysticism – lineage – depends absolutely upon ‘transmission outside of the scriptures’. And they all say, more or less, that words cannot convey it (or it is ineffable). This is the direct opposite of what I am on about (in case you had not noticed).

RESPONDENT: My next website MAY be called FriendsofRichard.com. I suggest you grab the domain name before someone else does ...

RICHARD: Why would I? It is impossible for me to have friends ... every body is equally special in an actual intimacy.

RESPONDENT: I do not own it yet; and I will be on vacation in Byron Bay for the next week or so; so it is a perfect opportunity for you to buy the name and make a new site ..

RICHARD: But why? The Actual Freedom Trust already has a domain ... any more would be too many. If you want it then go for it ... this imaginary ‘Richard’ that you keep referring to is your friend when all is said and done.

RESPONDENT: ... that will tell people your ‘original’ idea that has never existed in the whole history of humanity ... ?? ... that ‘the Marketplace’ is where it is at ...

RICHARD: As this is a ‘straw-man’ argument (wherein you invent something I did not say then criticise your own invention as if you are intelligently commenting on what I actually wrote) I will not buy into it at all.

RESPONDENT: ... not the monasteries or the mountain tops. But they are nice also.

RICHARD: How can 6.0 billion people fit on the world’s mountain tops? How can 6.0 billion people live in monasteries shut away from the world?

RESPONDENT: By the way my friend [name withheld], who is also not a sannyasin anymore, has a music thingy in production called ‘In the MarketPlace’ ... perhaps he should check with ‘You’ first whether or not the concept is available in your estimation.

RICHARD: Why? I do not have the corner on the words ‘market place’ any more than Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain has. Just to be sure I typed the phrase ‘market place’ into ‘AltaVista’ ... and it came up with 295,921 pages to visit. And as for the ‘concept’ that the words refer to ... concepts mean nothing to me.

I live the actuality and, as the actual cannot be copyrighted or trademarked, it is freely available.

RESPONDENT: Richard; it is a pity you never made it to Pune; or to the Humaniversity.

RICHARD: I did not have time too ... I was too busy getting free of the human condition instead.

RESPONDENT: You are a natural ...

RICHARD: Au contraire ... what I did was very, very unnatural.

RESPONDENT: ... and you would have enjoyed immensely the show; and the play; and the ideation.

RICHARD: Nope ... sickness dressed up as liberation appeals to me not at all (to experience life as a ‘divine dance’ means that all the suffering goes on).

RESPONDENT: Congratulations on becoming aware that ‘In the MarketPlace’ is where it is at; 20 years or so after the movement began. Success on your ongoing immersion in actuality Richard.

RICHARD: Some one had to do it ... empty rhetoric is such a pale substitute for the actuality.

As these are your very own words that are hanging you I again ask: where is the ‘slander’ ?

RESPONDENT: I was able to discard the concept of God long back in my early twenties, because of Osho’s teachings but then I was able not to replace it with Osho (as Vineeto did) again because of Osho’s teachings.

RICHARD: Then I would hazard a guess that you missed the main thrust of his ‘Teachings’. Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain said: ‘The only difference between me and you is that I have realised that I am God and you have not’.

RESPONDENT: Again I will not be able to quote in inverted commas, but Osho in his very early lectures warned his disciples against replacing him or any Guru with God.

RICHARD: Are you suggesting that he had it correct in the beginning but that he became corrupted as the years rolled by until what he said in the end was the direct opposite to what he said at the beginning? Because he urged his disciples to realise that they are god on numerous occasions. Vis.:

• [Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain]: ‘When you are a god, then all the mysteries disappear, then the whole existence is clearly available to you. All the doors are open, nothing is hidden. The whole splendour of existence is available, but it is available to a consciousness which has come to a peak where there is no subject and no object and nothing relating them, where the three have become one. This oneness is the Buddhahood, is your Buddha nature. Just pure oneness ... the oceanic experience. You have become the whole ocean. You are in your intrinsic reality nothing but a divine force, and the whole existence is a divine dance. (Osho: Rinzai: Master of The Irrational, Chapter 2).

RESPONDENT: Again my interpretations here. I guess Osho saw with experience that so called ‘gnana marga’ is not comprehensible by most people and the ‘bhakti marga’ (the path of devotion) suits most individuals. But I am not a spokesperson of Osho and would not like to explain on behalf of him.

RICHARD: But ‘bhakti marga’ is the way or path of divine devotion in any school ... the very word ‘bhakti’ (from the Sanskrit ‘to revere’ or ‘to allot’) means in practice to ‘Surrender to God, Gods or Guru’. Bhakti extends from the simplest expression of devotion to the ego-decimating principle of prapatti, which is total surrender and unconditional submission to God (often coupled with the attitude of personal helplessness, self-effacement and resignation). ‘Bhakti yoga (‘Union through devotion’) for example, is the practice of devotional disciplines, worship, prayer, chanting and singing with the aim of awakening love in the heart and opening oneself to God’s grace. How on earth can you say that Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain ‘warned his disciples against replacing him or any Guru with God’ when he instructed them to surrender to him – Bhagwan The Master Of Masters – in total trust and love?

RESPONDENT: If you want me to explain all the sayings of Osho, it will be difficult for me because these things are said to different people in different circumstances.

RICHARD: Yet his central message remained true for all people for all time. Vis.:

• [Respondent]: ‘What is your message in short?’
• [Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain]: ‘Parinirvana’. (Osho: The Book of Wisdom, Ch. 28).

RESPONDENT: I am no authority on what his central message was.

RICHARD: No, but he is. When asked for his message in short he replied: ‘Parinirvana’. Now, contrary to popular belief, Buddhists are not actively pursuing peace-on-earth per se.

According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica the Buddhist’s Ultimate Reality is called ‘Parinirvana’ (Complete Nirvana) or the freedom of spirit brought about by release from the body. In the Buddhist analysis of the human situation, delusions of egocentricity and their resultant desires bind humans to a continuous round of rebirths and its consequent ‘dukkha’. It is release from these bonds that constitutes Nirvana, or the experience of Enlightenment. ‘Nirvana’ – in Buddhist religious thought and spiritual philosophy – is but the initial goal of the meditation disciplines and practice in that it signifies the transcendent state of freedom achieved by the extinction of desire and of individual consciousness. That this is only the inaugural objective is very clear to the discerning eye because – while liberation from rebirth does not imply immediate death and thus release into the Ultimate Reality – the physical death of a perfected person (an Arhat or a Buddha) does. Thus while the immediate aim of the Buddhist path is release from the round of phenomenal existence with its inherent dukkha by attaining Nirvana (the enlightened state in which the fires of greed, hatred, and ignorance have been quenched), Nirvana is not to be confused with total annihilation because, after attaining Nirvana, the enlightened individual will continue to live, burning off any remaining karma until the state of Final Nirvana (Parinirvana) is attained at the moment of physical death.

It is pertinent to acknowledge that Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain specifically dictated the words to be carved in marble on his Samadhi: ‘Never Born, Never Died, Only Visited This Planet’.

RESPONDENT: A little bit long quotation from ‘Nirvana The Last Nightmare’ by Osho Rajneesh. [quote]: ‘THERE are a thousand and one poisons, but nothing like idealism – it is the most poisonous of all poisons’.

RICHARD: Whilst not going so far as to say that it is ‘the most poisonous of all poisons’ I have no hesitation in saying that the actual is infinitely superior to the ideal any day ... given that ‘idealism’ means: ‘Existing only as an idea, confined to the imagination, not practical; the practice of performing or pursuing ideals; imaginary, visionary’.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Of course, the most subtle: it kills you, but kills you in such a way that you never become aware of it. It kills you with a style. The ways of idealism are very cunning. Rarely a person becomes aware that he has been committing suicide through it. Once you become aware, you become religious’.

RICHARD: May I ask? Have you become aware that idealism was killing you? If so, are you now religious? Because you did say:

• [Respondent]: ‘After this small satori experience I happened to read Rajneesh’s book ‘Nirvana The Last Nightmare’. And I have understood he had the same experience and far more that I want to know. This is my meaning to be disciple of him’.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Religion is not any ideology. Religion does not believe in any ideals. Religion is to become aware of the impossibility of idealism – of all idealism. Religion is to live here and now, and idealism goes on conditioning your mind to live somewhere else’.

RICHARD: By clearly defining religion as ‘to live here and now’ then his ‘here and now’ is a metaphysical ‘here and now’ (a timeless and spaceless void) and has nothing to do with the secular ‘here’ – as in walking and talking, eating and drinking; urinating and defecating – and the secular ‘now’ as in the clock marking the passage of the sun through the sky ... would you not agree?

Secondly, as a secular consciousness is happening at this place in material space and in this moment in phenomenal time as a tangible flesh and blood body only, then where do you consider a religious person’s consciousness resides? Remember, Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain repeatedly said: ‘I am not the body’ ... and the body is most definitely here in physical space and now in observable time. Could you throw some light upon this matter for me?

Interestingly enough, Mr. Gotama the Sakyan said: ‘The Tathagata (...) is the essence which is the reality of matter, but he is not matter (...) he is neither here, nor there, nor anywhere else’. Is it not strange that he would clearly say that he is ‘not here’? How about this one: ‘The Tathagata has neither whence nor whither, and therefore He is called ‘Tathagata’. Is it not curious that he is ‘not whence or wither’ because a flesh and blood body has certainly come and gone? And last, but not least, Mr. Gotama the Sakyan said: ‘Since I became Buddha, there have passed infinite, boundless, hundreds, thousands, millions, trillions, myriads of eons’. As the Buddhists text place him circa 500 BCE (2,500 years ago) would you say that he comprehends time, as measured by the physical phenomenon of day and night, as we mere mortals do ... or is he highly confused?

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘And only the now exists. There is no other way to live. The only way is to be here. You cannot be there. The tomorrow is non-existent, it never comes, and idealism believes in the tomorrow. It sacrifices the today at the altar of the tomorrow. It goes on saying to you, ‘Do something – improve yourself. Do something – change yourself. Do something – become perfect’. It appeals to the ego. Idealism belongs to the world of the ego. It appeals to the ego that you can be more perfect than you are; in fact you should be more perfect than you are’.

RICHARD: I am curious ... have you stopped idealising about becoming perfect? If so, how do you experience yourself living life each moment again? Did his advice work? Would you describe your experience of yourself as an ever-present perfection ... as a result of applying this ‘do nothing about being malicious and sorrowful’ approach? Or have you settled for second-best – having not done anything about eliminating malice and sorrow – thereby participating, as per your default settings, in the perpetuation of all the wars and rapes and murders and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicides?

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘But each moment is perfect, and it cannot be more perfect than it is. To understand this is the beginning of a new life, is the beginning of life’.

RICHARD: Of course, in order to know that this understanding is ‘the beginning of a new life’ one must be comparing it with an old life that has ended ... would you not agree? Otherwise the words ‘the beginning of a new life’ – having no context – are meaningless. Yet (further down this page) Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain bags comparing and comparison like all get-out. Vis: [Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain]: ‘You say, ‘How can I be perfect? I still have anger in me. How can I be perfect? I still have sex in me. How can I be perfect? I still have violence in me. How can I be perfect?’ You are comparing. Comparison is the disease, the very illness’. A strange business, non? Perhaps you might explain for me ... seeing that you understand Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain experientially and say that I do not. Vis:

• [Respondent]: ‘One big question arises. This is your attitude to Rajneesh. This is your understanding about Rajneesh. From my understanding and experiences, your understanding is wrong (...) I know it is wrong existentially’.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘To miss this is to commit suicide’.

RICHARD: As approximately 6,000,000 people have ‘missed this’ – and they are still walking and talking, eating and drinking; urinating and defecating – he is either outrageously wrong in his observation that they are committing suicide or is referring to missing out on the immortality that is bestowed upon one by realising the ‘Deathless State’ (as epitomised in some scriptural adages: [Buddhism]: ‘There is, monks, an unborn, a not-become, a not-made, a not-compounded (...) therefore there is an escape from the born, the become, the made, the compounded’. [Christianity]: ‘For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? (...) he that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal’. May I ask? Is this your aim? Because you did say:

• [Respondent]: ‘After this small satori experience I happened to read Rajneesh’s book ‘Nirvana The Last Nightmare’. And I have understood he had the same experience and far more that I want to know. This is my meaning to be disciple of him’.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Then you go on destroying this moment for the moment which never comes. Then you go on destroying this life for some life which exists nowhere. You go on destroying this world for some other world – some paradise, some moksha, some nirvana’.

RICHARD: Hmm ... a trifle disingenuous, do you not think? The whole aim of the spiritual search is to attain Moksha, Nirvana and so on ... is it not? Indeed, Mr. Gotama the Sakyan’s very last words drive this point home succinctly. Vis.: ‘The Blessed One addressed the Bhikkhus, saying: ‘Behold now, Bhikkhus, I exhort you: All compounded things are subject to vanish. Strive with earnestness!’ May I ask? Was not Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain’s aim, prior to 1952, to strive for ‘some paradise, some moksha, some nirvana’? I am asking you this because you did say:

• [Respondent]: ‘From my understanding and experiences, your understanding is wrong. Your criticism against Rajneesh seems to be valid in logical sense. But I know it is wrong existentially’.

I do so look forward to your considered response on this vital matter.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘To sacrifice the present for the future is to be trapped into death’.

RICHARD: Here, once again, is this reference to achieving the ‘Deathless State’ via living in the religious ‘here and now’ ... because, as everybody now living is going to physically die anyway, they are already ‘trapped into death’. Unless you become enlightened, of course, as Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain did ... then you can have inscribed on your tombstone: ‘Never Born, Never Died, Only Visited This Planet’. Interestingly enough, Buddhism reports that ‘The Tathagata is not born, does not die’. May I ask? Is to not ‘be trapped in death’ your aim? Because you did say:

• [Respondent]: ‘After this small satori experience I happened to read Rajneesh’s book ‘Nirvana The Last Nightmare’. And I have understood he had the same experience and far more that I want to know. This is my meaning to be disciple of him’.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘To live the moment, to live it totally and freely, is to delight in existence, is to celebrate it. And that is the only way of being; there is no other way. Idealism has put you on a wrong track. The first thing to be understood: you ARE perfect’.

RICHARD: Anyone who understands that ‘you ARE perfect’ , is sucked in badly ... being subject to malice and sorrow was never ‘my’ idea of being perfect all those years ago. May I ask? Do you understand that ‘you ARE perfect’ ? Because you did say:

• [Respondent]: ‘Your describing Actual Freedom seems far better than my present state. So it seems to me attractive. But because I don’t know your so called Actual Freedom, I can not evaluate your statements from my experience. Your criticism against Rajneesh seems to be valid in logical sense. But I know it is wrong existentially. So I cannot help concluding that I cannot trust your statements about Actual Freedom’.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘If somebody says to you that you have to become perfect, he is the enemy – beware of him! Escape from him as soon as possible. Don’t let him poison your being. Don’t let him destroy you. He may have been destroyed by others; now he is doing the same to you’.

RICHARD: Golly gosh ... you had better stop communicating with me right-smartly, eh? You must not let me ‘poison your being’ ... you had better escape from me before I ‘destroy you’.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘He himself may be a victim. Have compassion on him, but don’t allow him to destroy you. He has not lived his life. He has only hoped; he has not lived. He has only dreamed; he has not lived. He has only prepared, planned, he has not lived’.

RICHARD: Please send your compassion to: P.O. Box 1404, Byron Bay, 2481[now changed], Australia because, according to Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain, I apparently need it ... which I find strange as I experience perfection each moment again, twenty four hours a day, three hundred and sixty five days of the year.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘The idealist mind goes on preparing for something that never happens. It is a nightmare. It goes on preparing and preparing – infinite preparations for a journey that never starts. It goes on planning in a thousand and one ways – subtle, cunning, clever – but the whole thing is pointless, because each moment it is denying life. Life is knocking at your doors each moment and you are denying it, because you say you are preparing for it. You say, ‘How can I receive the guest right now? I am not ready’. By and by you become so accustomed to preparing that preparation becomes your life. You have missed. This type of mind is constantly missing, and the more it misses, the more it plans desperately – to go somewhere, to reach somewhere, to attain something, to be somebody. And the misery of all miseries is that it is not going to happen. Life was already available. You need not prepare for it’.

RICHARD: If, as Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain says ‘you need not prepare for it’ then I guess that all one has to do is sit around in a deck-chair on the patio sipping a drink, eh? Seeing that ‘you ARE perfect’ then there is nothing that one needs to do, apparently ... what joy it must be being a sannyasin!

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘You are already entitled to enjoy it. By just being alive, you are already ready. Because you breathe, you are already capable. Because you can be conscious, you are already ready. Nothing is lacking. Once you take the first wrong step, the whole journey goes wrong. The first step defines and decides your whole life. Never try to be perfect, otherwise you will be caught in a dead routine – preparing and preparing’.

RICHARD: Indeed ... given that ‘you ARE perfect’ it would be silly to try to be perfect ... would you not agree?

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘You can watch yourself, you can watch others. People who have become addicted with idealism live a life of ritual, of empty gestures. They are always waiting: some great thing is going to happen. It never happens of course, because it cannot happen that way. It is happening right now, here, and their eyes are fixed somewhere there, far away. It is happening at close quarters. It is already happening near your heart. Where your heart is beating, it is already happening’.

RICHARD: Could you clarify for me just what this ‘it’ that is already happening ‘near your heart’ is? Could it be ... god?

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘And they are looking at the sky. So they make a life of routine, dead routine. They move like dead corpses – waiting and waiting and waiting. And every day they know death is coming near: they become more and more desperate’.

RICHARD: Ahh ... here is reference to that ‘death’ business again. And ‘desperate’ about it this time ... after all, if ‘it’ does not happen one will have to be reborn in another body and have to do this business called being alive all over again. Otherwise, why be desperate about death ... given that death is the end, finish. Oblivion.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Their whole life will turn into a mechanical routine. Really if you want to live, you have to be spontaneous. Life is spontaneous. Be available to this moment. Allow this moment to lead you. Don’t plan for it. Otherwise you will live in empty gestures, obsessed with a dead routine, just thinking as if ... if you plan your life completely, some day or other the great happening is going to result. You think life is a result? Life is not a result; it is already there. It is a grace. Nothing is to be done to attain to it’.

RICHARD: Well, well, well ... the word ‘grace’ means unmerited divine assistance given to a human being for their regeneration or sanctification – it is a virtue coming from a god – resulting in a state of sanctification. May I ask? Is this the ‘it’ that is happening ‘near your heart’? As grace is the spontaneous gift of the divine favour in the salvation of sinners – and the divine influence operating in humans for their regeneration – then grace requires belief in an imaginary god. No wonder that sannyasins all around the world are not becoming enlightened by the thousands ... their belief, faith and trust are not strong enough to manifest the delusion that they too are god like Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain.

Whereas an actual freedom is all one’s own doing – it is in your own hands – and nobody can set you actually free but yourself.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘What have you done to be born? What have you done so that you can breathe? What have you done so that you can be conscious? What have you done so that you can fall in love? It has happened. It is a sheer grace, a gift. Yes, let me tell you – life is a gift. Don’t think that it is going to be a result. Once you think it is going to be a result, it is never going to be there at all’.

RICHARD: I begin to see more clearly now why you are not doing anything to rid yourself of malice and sorrow ... Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain says if you do something then ‘it’ is never going to ‘be there at all’ . Do nothing! God is going to do all the doing for you ... it is called grace.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Then there are a few people who will go on waiting and waiting, and they will die. Almost ninety-nine percent of people die this way. Their whole life has been a sheer wastage’.

RICHARD: Yea verily ... god’s grace cannot do its trick because all these people are waiting. A peculiar business, is it not, that merely by waiting you can put a stop to grace?

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘One percent of people, sometimes, by chance, accident, become aware that they are wasting their life. Then their whole training and conditioning takes a subtle revenge. The day that they become aware they have been waiting for something which is not waiting for them, which is not going to happen, they start saying that life is meaningless. First they were waiting for some meaning; now, because that meaning is not happening, they say life is meaningless. First they were waiting for some purpose; now, because it is not happening, they say life is purposeless. ‘Ask Jean-Paul Sartre. He says, ‘Man is a useless passion’. It does not say anything about man. It does not say anything about life. It does not say anything about existence. It simply says that Sartre has missed. It simply says that he was waiting for some utilitarian end to be fulfilled in life and now he has become aware that it is not going to be fulfilled. He was waiting for some meaning. Now, seeing it, realising it – that that meaning is not going to be – he says life is meaningless. Life is neither. It is neither meaningful nor is it meaningless’.

RICHARD: Speaking personally, I experience life as simply bursting with meaning. I am living in peace and tranquillity; a meaningful peace and tranquillity. Life is intrinsically purposeful, the reason for existence lies openly all around. Being this very air I live in, I am constantly aware of it as I breathe it in and out; I see it, I hear it, I taste it, I smell it, I touch it, all of the time. It never goes away ... nor has it ever been away. ‘I’ was standing in the way of meaning being apparent.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘If really there is no meaning, how can life be meaningless?’

RICHARD: How? Well, given that ‘if really there is no meaning’ for him then ... um ... is it that ‘life be meaningless’ because there is no meaning for him, perchance?

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘If there is no purpose, how can life be purposeless?’

RICHARD: How? Well, given that ‘if really there is no purpose’ for him then ... um ... is it that ‘life be purposeless’ because there is no purpose for him, perchance?

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘For life to be purposeless there must be a purpose’.

RICHARD: Not so ... for life to be purposeless there must be no purpose.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘For life to be meaningless, for even the word ‘meaningless’ to be meaningful, there must be a meaning’.

RICHARD: Not so ... for life to be meaningless there must be no meaning. And for the word ‘meaningless’ to be meaningful there must be no meaning.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Life is neither. It simply is there in sheer beauty, with no purpose’.

RICHARD: Do you not find it a bit odd that he would say that life is ‘there’ ... rather than ‘here’? After all, he did say (above) that ‘The only way is to be here. You cannot be there’.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Look at the trees. Look at the sunlight. Just ... it is. What is the purpose of the sun rising every day in the morning?’

RICHARD: Just a guess, mind you, but maybe it has something to do with the sun’s heat and light energy sustaining carbon-based life-forms and all that. Seems like a quite reasonable purpose to me ... without the sun there would be no carbon-based life forms at all.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘What is the purpose of trees blossoming?’

RICHARD: Just a guess, mind you, but maybe it has something to do with the bees being attracted and thus fertilising the reproductive organs of the blossom with the pollen that sticks to their rear legs ... procreation and all that. Seems like quite a reasonable purpose to me ... without plant-life procreating all sentient beings would cease to exist.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘What is the purpose of birds singing?’

RICHARD: Just a guess, mind you, but maybe it has something to do with communication – on a rudimentary animal level – between the birds.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘No purpose. I don’t say purposelessness; I simply say no purpose. It is’.

RICHARD: This repetition of academic philosophic sophistry becomes silly ... do you not agree? Either there is purpose ... or there is not. Either there is purposelessness ... or there is not. As the word ‘purposelessness’ means ‘lack of purpose’ then it is the same thing as saying ‘no purpose’.

This form of wanking is called tautology.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Drop your search for meaning, because that search either will destroy your whole life and you will live in misery, or, one day if you become aware, then another anguish will surround you – the anguish of meaninglessness’.

RICHARD: According to his logic (above) he cannot say ‘meaninglessness’ ... just ‘no meaning’. Therefore this translates as ‘the anguish of no meaning’ ... which amounts to the same thing.

Sophistry means being clever with words ... an occupational habit amongst philosophy professors.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Says Sartre, ‘Life is nauseating’. He must have been expecting too much. Now the fulfilment is receding further away and he feels a rumbling in the stomach, a nausea, an illness, a sea-sickness. He was expecting too much’.

RICHARD: Speaking personally, I expected everything – to be perfection personified – and succeeded ... therefore he did not ‘expect too much’ at all. He expected too little ... he set his sights way too small. Expect the best.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Now all expectations are turning into frustrations and life has become nauseating. It is not. Life has nothing to do with nausea, because it has nothing to do with your expectations. Once you get out of this trap of idealism, you are available to life and life is available to you’.

RICHARD: As Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain interchanged the word ‘life’ with ‘existence’ and ‘the universe’ and ‘god’ then this last sentence reads: ‘Once you get out of this trap of idealism, you are available to god and god is available to you’. In other words: ‘surrender to god’ and, as Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain was god, then it means: ‘surrender to Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain’.

Indeed, he oft-times said: ‘I am here for you; make yourself available to me’.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Somewhere Friedrich Nietzsche has said, ‘Where can I feel at home? Where?’ He must be seeking a womb, a home, a mother. He must have been a little childish. He must have been stuck somewhere in his growth. Why are you seeking a home? Life is not a home, but it is not homelessness either. It is. Simply it is. Enjoy it. Celebrate it. It is not going to become a home for you, but it is not homelessness either. The very search for a home makes life look as if it is homelessness’.

RICHARD: Maybe he was seeking a home because he listened to discourses from Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain? For example:

• [Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain]: ‘Just silently listen to your own heart and go on following it, you will reach the space where you can feel at home; where suddenly you realise who you are, where suddenly you feel a synchronicity with the whole existence’. (Source: Osho: The Invitation, Chapter 12).
• [Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain]: ‘There is only one miracle: the miracle of coming home. And that is possible, and I am ready to bless you and help you’. (Source: Osho: Zen: The Special Transmission, Chapter 10).

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Drop the search. The very search throws you away from life. You go on missing the present moment. So you can either wait – a futile waiting; or you can become angry – a futile anger’.

RICHARD: Or ... maybe you can do something about investigating the source of malice and sorrow.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘If you go on waiting, your life will be obsessed with routine. You will try to become an automaton. Let me tell you an anecdote: ‘Mr. Smith had killed his wife, and his entire defence was based on temporary insanity. He was a witness on his own behalf and was asked by his lawyer to describe the crime in his own words. ‘Your Honour’, he began, ‘I am a quiet, peaceful man of systematic habits, who virtually never bothers anybody. I get up at seven every morning, have breakfast at half-past seven, punch in at work at nine, leave work at five, come home at six, find supper on the table, eat it, read, watch TV, bed. Until the day in question ...’ Here he paused to breathe passionately. His lawyer said gently. ‘Go on. What happened on the day in question?’ ‘On the day in question’, said Smith, ‘I woke at seven, had breakfast at seven-thirty, began work at nine, left at five and came home at six. There was no supper on the table and no sign of my wife. I searched through the house and found her in the bedroom in bed with a strange man. So I killed her’. What were your emotions at the time you killed her?’ asked the lawyer, anxious to get the point on the record. ‘I was in a white-hot fury’, said the defendant, ‘mad with rage, simply out of my mind, and unable to control myself’. He turned to the jury and, pounding the arm of the witness chair, cried out, ‘Gentlemen, when I come home at six o’clock, supper has to be on the table!’’ That was his reason for killing his wife – not that she was in bed with a strange man. ‘Supper has to be on the table exactly at six o’clock!’

RICHARD: May I pass on this one? It is so trite it is not worth responding to.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Are you aware that you are also more or less obsessed with a dead routine? Why are people so obsessed with a dead routine? They are so obsessed with a dead routine because if the chain of their routine is broken, suddenly, underneath they see a futile life, a useless life, a meaningless life. Somehow they are trying to give it a feeling of meaning, an aroma of meaning. Somehow they are trying to forget that they are living uselessly, that they are not living at all. They make a dead routine; they follow it. Just by following it like a mechanism, they have a feeling that everything is going perfectly well’.

RICHARD: I have yet to meet someone who thinks that everything is ‘going perfectly well’ by following a dead routine ... they usually say that ‘there must be more to life than this’ ... or something similar.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘They get up exactly at the right time, they go to the office, they come home, they read the newspaper, they watch the TV, they take their food, they go to sleep – everything is going as it should go. A dead routine gives the feeling that everything is perfectly right’.

RICHARD: I have yet to meet someone who thinks that everything is ‘perfectly right’ by following a dead routine ... they usually say that ‘there must be more to life than this’ ... or something similar.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Underneath, everything is in chaos. They are missing life. Idealism, to me, means living for some ideal to be fulfilled in the future. Future is not part of time; it is only part of desire. Ordinarily you think that past, present and future are divisions of time. You are wrong. They are not divisions of time. Time is only present, always present, never otherwise. Past is just in the memory, in the mind. It is not part of time; it is part of the mind. And future is also part of the mind – the desire. Past, the memory; future, the desire. And between the two is the very small moment, the atomic moment of time which is present, which is always present. Time comes always as now. If you are missing the now, you are committing suicide’.

RICHARD: Once again this ‘committing suicide’ warning ... missing out on eternal life looms large in this discourse, I see.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Maybe it is slow, that’s why you are not aware. You are postponing life for some ideal? Then your life will become a dead routine, futile. You are simply wasting a great opportunity – but wasting for beautiful words. Somebody is trying to become perfect. Somebody is trying to become a sage. Somebody is trying to become a mahatma. Somebody is trying to become something else’.

RICHARD: Yet if one does not seek one will never find; if one does not explore one will never uncover; if one does not investigate one will never discover.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Be – and forget becoming. Becoming is the nightmare. Relax. You are perfect. Life as it is, is perfect each moment of it’.

RICHARD: Do you not consider that there is more to this business than merely relaxing? A human being – nursing malice and sorrow to their bosom – is not perfect ... that this is so obvious is evidenced by all the wars and rapes and murders and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicide that is endemic to all peoples of all cultures and all times.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Very difficult to accept it, because you have been conditioned for centuries. You have been given ideals and you go on comparing with ideals. You say, ‘How can I be perfect? – I still have anger in me. How can I be perfect? – I still have sex in me. How can I be perfect? – I still have violence in me. How can I be perfect?’ You are comparing. Comparison is the disease, the very illness’.

RICHARD: Methinks it is anger, violence and so on that is the disease, the illness ... not comparison. Without comparison there would be no basis for appraisal and decision-making.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘You are you. If anger is there, what can you do? You have to accept it’.

RICHARD: For the first thirty four years of my life, I too had this attitude ... then I stopped ‘accepting it’ and changed myself radically, completely, totally and utterly. As a result, there is no anger whatsoever in me ... and has not been for years and tears.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘If you try first to be beyond anger and then live, you will never live. Listen to me. Accept the anger and live. And I tell you – by living, the anger will disappear’.

RICHARD: Yet Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain has been observed to be angry from time-to-time ... so what is his advice worth?

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Transformation happens through living, not through preparations. The more you prepare, the more you become hung-up in the head. Relax. Enjoy. But the ego goes on like a hard taskmaster. It goes on saying, ‘Why are you wasting your time in small things, trivia? Become a great man! Become a Buddha, become a Mahavira, become a Christ!’

RICHARD: Aye ... if those peoples (Mr. Gotama the Sakyan, Mr. Mahavira, Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene) had never had the aim of becoming ‘a great man’ they never would have been ‘a great man’. If they had taken Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain’s advice and relaxed instead ... then there would be no Buddhism, no Christianity and no Jainism today.

In hindsight, maybe they should have taken his advice, eh?

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Christ was never trying to become a Christ, that’s why he was a Christ. He simply accepted himself – through that acceptance he flowered’.

RICHARD: This is simply a fabrication ... the Christian Scriptures make no mention of this at all.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Mahavira was not trying to become somebody else. He had no ideals. He simply lived his life, he simply did his thing, and life happened to him’.

RICHARD: This is simply a fabrication ... the Jain Scriptures make no mention of this at all.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘It always happens. It is always happening. It is not that life is not happening; it is that you are missing it. It is a simple fact. I am not talking philosophy. It is a simple statement of a fact. Right now look! What are you missing? Nobody is missing anything’.

RICHARD: Not so ... at last count there were 6,000,000 people missing out on perfection.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘I was reading one of Emerson’s essays. He says, ‘Man is timid and apologetic. He is no longer upright. He dares not say ‘I am’. He is ashamed before the blade of grass or the blowing rose. These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones’.

RICHARD: This is only a guess, mind you ... but it could be because roses cannot feel or think or read or write or talk. Consequently they wilt and die unless enough rain happens to fall ... unlike human beings who can think and reflect and plan for such a contingency.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘They are for what they are. They exist with god today.’

RICHARD: As god is a human invention born of the human psyche – and roses do not have a psyche – then this is patently incorrect.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Let this be the very foundation of your life: ‘They exist with god today’.

RICHARD: If one bases one’s life on a lie then one will be living a lie.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘They don’t refer to the former roses. They don’t compare with better roses’.

RICHARD: This is only a guess, mind you ... but it could be because roses cannot feel or think or read or write or talk. Consequently they wilt and die unless enough rain happens to fall ... unlike human beings who can think and reflect and plan for such a contingency.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘They simply are themselves and they exist with god today. ‘There is no time to them’.

RICHARD: As the sun moves through the sky and day becomes night for all carbon-based life-forms then this is patently incorrect. Roses exist only in time and space.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘There is simply the rose. It is perfect in every moment of its existence’.

RICHARD: This is so silly ... only sentient beings have feelings and only humans have thoughts. A rose has no sorrow or malice whatsoever ... nor love and compassion, either.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Perfection is not a goal; it is already there’.

RICHARD: Do you not find it a bit odd that he would say that perfection is ‘there’ ... rather than ‘here’? After all, he did say (further above) that ‘the only way is to be here. You cannot be there’.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘You are born perfect’.

RICHARD: This is a variation on the ‘Tabular Rasa’ theory so beloved of many philosophers down through the ages. It is false, however, as even a cursory study of genetic inheritance quickly demonstrates.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Only perfection happens in this existence, nothing else’.

RICHARD: Then what about all the wars and rapes and murders and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and sadness and loneliness and grief and depression and suicide? I would not call that perfect ... would you?

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Out of god, how can imperfection happen? Only perfection is possible’.

RICHARD: This is so puerile it is not even risible.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘The idea that you have to be perfect makes you imperfect in the present, because the comparison arises’.

RICHARD: May I ask? How does this gobbledegook pass for wisdom?

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘You go on comparing yourself with others. Somebody is more beautiful. Somebody is more intelligent. Somebody is more moral. Somebody is more sincere. Somebody is more healthy. Somebody is stronger. And you are crippled in these comparisons; such a dead weight falls on your head that you cannot move. But you have forgotten one thing – that you are you and you cannot be anybody else. Once you accept the fact that you are you and whatsoever you do you are not going to be anybody else, you are going to remain yourself ... once you accept it, a transfiguration happens’.

RICHARD: In 1980 I had a PCE – wherein I experienced life as perfection personified – that lasted for four hours. Then I reverted to normal. If I had not compared the one with the other I would still be normal today.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘You start living. Then you don’t bother about the future. Then you are not in the rat-race of being somebody else. Then you are no more comparative, no more competitive. Then you also become a rose under the window. You exist with god today’.

RICHARD: As god is a human invention born of the human psyche – and roses do not have a psyche – then they could not possibly ‘live with god’. And as a rose cannot feel or think or read or write or talk there is, of course, no way they can compare ... but, like all plants, they do compete for living space.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘If you are not existing with god today, you will be in a nightmare’.

RICHARD: Speaking personally, I am not ‘existing with god today’ ... yet there is a total absence of nightmare.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Buddha realised this. He was the first man to realise it in its absoluteness. He dropped all ideals’.

RICHARD: Not so. He did not drop the ideal of the ‘Deathless State’ – just as one example – because when he physically died he fondly thought that he was going into ‘Parinirvana’ (now there is an ideal if there ever was).

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘People would come to him and ask, ‘Is there god?’ and he would remain silent.

RICHARD: This stance is sometimes known as being agnostic ... and the people I have met personally, over many years that I have discussed these matters, who embrace this position have invariably been firmly convinced that this approach is the intelligent approach. Mostly they have been academics ... it is a variation on that hoary adage: ‘He who says he does not know, really knows’. I guess it makes them feel intellectually comfortable.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Not that there is no god, but once he says there is, a desire arises in you to achieve, to know, to be – and you are on the wrong track again’.

RICHARD: Mr. Mohan ‘Rajneesh’ Jain affirms the existence of god quite a bit in this discourse, I have noticed.

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘Buddha remained silent. He would not say anything about god. People would ask, ‘Okay, if god is not there, it is nothing to be worried about. Is there a soul inside?’ Buddha would keep silent, because once he says, ‘Yes, there is a soul’, then you are after it’.

RICHARD: As Mr. Gotama the Sakyan espoused reincarnation, it is quite clear, to anyone discerning enough to think for themselves, that he believed in a soul (by whatever name).

RESPONDENT: [quote]: ‘You have become such addicted chasers of shadows that any word, any hint will do, and you are on the track, running. Chasing has become your life. Chase something. Money, moksha – it makes no difference, but chase. Power, prestige, meditation – it makes no difference, but chase’.

RICHARD: Ah well ... he could be right, you know. There have only been 0.0000001 of the population enlightened ... all the other billions must have been going wrong somewhere. You may be well on your way to becoming enlightened with this ‘do nothing’ about eliminating malice and sorrow approach of yours. After all, one does not become enlightened by eliminating sorrow and malice ... one sublimates them by enhancing their antidotes. That is: without malice and sorrow there can be no love and compassion ... and love and compassion is what is ‘happening at close quarters’. Love and compassion is what is ‘already happening near your heart’.

Indeed, it is ‘where your heart is beating’ that love and compassion is ‘what is already happening’. Thus, all you have to do is to fondly imagine that this product of the tender side of the instinctual passions is god’s grace and be totally available and ... Bingo! You are no longer ‘becoming’ but are ‘being’ ... being love ... being compassion ... being god.

Yet ... is it fair to say that this discourse could be summed up as teaching you to simply stop idealising, stop waiting and just relax ... after all: you ARE perfect, eh?

If so, would you say that many sannyasins have adopted this approach?