Listening to discourses
Jeroen
Luminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlands Veteran
I was contemplating the other day, on what exactly happens to me when I listen to an Osho talk. Say he is talking about a Zen story where a hapless student is given a koan, and then eventually the master reveals something of what the student is supposed to learn. I find that I place myself in the shoes of the student, and absorb the teaching. Something about how to see, what to do, how to be.
These things don’t stay with me long, the mind soon forgets the words. Yet the teaching is absorbed. So this morning I was thinking on the burdens people give you, spiritual burdens disguised as teachings especially, and I was put in mind of this quote…
“Anybody who tells you to do this or that should not be called a teacher. Instead they may be called a butcher. A teacher releases you from all activity, all concepts, all burdens. For thirty five million years you have been doing. And when you finally reach a true teacher, he will not ask you to do anything. He will say, “My dear son, just come and sit quietly. Be quiet. That is all. Don’t do anything.””
— H. W. L. Poonja (Poonjaji, Papaji)
I have a great deal of respect for Papaji, because he always used to tell his visitors to stay and come to Satsang (“meeting in truth”) for two weeks, because in that time they could absorb all he had to say, and after that they should leave. He was not interested in building up an ashram or a movement, he would just live on his small government pension and give Satsang to whoever came.
The path to Freedom and Truth is very much about unburdening oneself, letting go of dictates and shoulds . So if a discourse or teaching tells you, it would be good if you did this, or if you were like that, or even presents you some ideal of the spiritual man, just remember, eventually you will have to drop it again.
Comments
I refer to it as learning by osmosis. In the presence, or even the recorded or written words of a realized master there is a transmission beyond words. Some kind of energetic or direct transmission.
I guess it feels to me like while living in renunciation of the world this is good and possible. Living in it, I think, requires more of a balanced way of life. When you have bills to pay, children/parents to take care of not doing anything isn't very wise or ethical.
Papaji meant just to Be Quiet while in Satsang, he didn’t believe in any kind of meditation or spiritual practice or sadhana. He was an eminently practical man who even still played cricket in his later years, besides being a respected guru.
Osho had very different views on this, he tried to build a worldwide movement and even a commune where people could come and live. That story was told to a certain extent in the Netflix docu series Wild, Wild Country which was part of the events of my childhood. But eventually afterwards he realised it was difficult to provide the full range of services.
For example it was a fact that if you got seriously ill in the Osho commune you were more or less on your own to arrange specialist healthcare in a hospital outside the commune. So it was not as carefree as you might at first have thought. That’s one of the reasons why Osho switched from looking into communes towards providing a meditation resort, where you might visit for a few weeks or a month every year, while working in the world outside the rest of the year.