The Journey of a Seeker – My Story

In this post, I am going to talk about my spiritual journey and the two most influential people in my life, Osho and Sadhguru. I am going to walk you through the journey of my life and give you accurate description of the changes that I went through in my sadhana. Then I will provide an honest unbiased review of both Sadhguru and Osho. Finally, I will put the concept of spiritual enlightenment in a scientific perspective and try to explain it using the terminology of academic psychology.

My Spiritual Journey – Me to Me

Early years

I grew up in a Hindu family which required me to believe in a personal God and his family of Gods. My grandparents taught me that God had a family with children who had God relatives. I was asked to pray to them to have my wishes granted and threatened to be punished by God if I was morally wrong. My early childhood days were spent in listening to stories of mythology and singing devotional songs. I showed more devotion than any of the other children of my age in my neighborhood. Eventually, I began to fall in love with all these heavenly beings and had a deep desire to see them with my physical eyes. I was told that it was possible if I prayed enough.

In those early days, I have watched movies in which devotees performed Tapas (penance) to get a vision of God and to get their boons granted. They were shown to be sitting or standing with closed eyes in various positions for years with no food and water so that they can have such visions. Seeing those people in movies, I too tried to imitate them. I used to sit with closed eyes for fifteen to thirty minutes every day when I was seven years old. Unknowingly, I had tried to do my first meditation this way.

I had learnt to read very early in my life. When I was seven years old, I could read and understand stories in children’s magazines written in Tamil. This was going to help to me to learn some advanced topics in the years to come. The same year, I was also taught in school about Buddha. I was taught that Buddha attained enlightenment under a bodhi tree and I had no idea what it meant.

Introduction to Ramakrishna

When I was about nine years old, I happened to read the book ‘Gospel Of Ramakrishna’. Ramakrishna Paramhamsa was the guru of Swami Vivekananda. He was considered to be enlightened but was not as famous as Vivekananda. I was fascinated about the trances that Ramakrishna used to go through, a state in which he was immersed in divine bliss with no consciousness of the outside world. The trances are called Samadhis. I also read about the unbelievable stories of how he used to have visions of Goddess Kali and talk with her. His words were filled with pearls of wisdom. One thing he insisted was to stay away from women and gold. He considered the desires for women and gold to be the common obstacles to spiritual enlightenment. The Indian word for spiritual enlightenment is Moksha, the event which frees an individual from the cycle of birth and death and makes him to be directly united with God. This concept is same as salvation or the union with God in Christianity.

Reading this book increased my desire to see God in a physical form. Ramakrishna used to say that if somebody shed tears in the desire to see God, then he would definitely see God in this lifetime and attain liberation (enlightenment).Reading this, I immediately shed tears after shutting myself in the pooja (worship) room.

I was also impressed about the fact that Ramakrishna followed Christianity and Islam to see if they also led to the same goal of Samadhi. He was able to get the same results by doing sadhana in Christian and Sufi paths.

Exposure to Yoga and other concepts

After a year, I started reading a book about Yoga and came to know about Ashtanga yoga, the eight limbs of Yoga in the path of attaining Samadhi. Samadhi is the highest goal of Yoga but it required years and years of practising meditation, doing asanas and pranayamas (exercises manipulating the breath). I tried to do meditation often but ended up fighting with my thoughts and had no success in concentration. After seeing continuous failures in getting my mind to focus on a single object, I finally gave up the confidence that I could do it.

Then I started reading Bhagwad Gita and Periya Purnam (A collection of stories of 63 enlightened devotees of Lord Shiva). I had also read a few mythological books including Skanda Purana and Shiva Purana. I also read texts about Vedanta and self-inquiry but I could not understand them. Finally, I started to believe that God is one, formless but can show himself to devotees in the form they worship.

When I read more about science, I understood that many of the things which are in the religious domain are not accepted by science. One day I thought, ‘May be I should do something to create a bridge between science and religion’. I always dreamed of becoming a scientist when I was a child. I believed that if religion is approached in a scientific way, we can discover many things.

Teenage Years

During my teenage years, I developed depression and inferiority complex. I had trouble in forming friendships and I saw myself as unworthy. But I had a lot of ambitions. I had mastered the art of writing poetry in Tamil in classical metres like venba, asiriyappa, virtutham etc. I was known as a good poet and orator in my school, by the time I was 14 years old. Even though I had inferiority complex, I had absolutely no stage fear. But my depression deepened in the coming months and I began to show some abnormal behaviour in school. I used to shut myself in a classroom and cry without any reason. I also developed a crush on a girl and started convincing myself that it is love. I lived far away from reality and had developed a fantasy prone and neurotic personality. I clearly showed the traits of bipolar disorder. I used to be known as the most brilliant student in my class. But the depressive phases and my so called ‘love’ had made me to seek more time in solitude.  After recovering from depression to some extent and finishing my tenth grade, I wrote hundreds of poems about love, life and God during the summer vacation. By this time, I had also formed an image of an ideal self, a self that I wanted to be. Everybody has an actual self and an ideal self. The less they overlap with each other, the more anxiety they feel. My actual self and ideal self didn’t seem to even touch each other.

First, I wanted to be seen as normal by people and conform to the standards of society. I wanted to develop my social skills and interact with people with confidence. Then I wanted to be known as an accomplished poet or an author in the future. Finally, I wanted to marry the girl I loved and live happily ever after. Before I die, I wanted to make sure that my name is registered in the history. That was my ideal self. I realized I had to work really hard to achieve my goals.

Also, when I looked back on what I read about Yoga and attaining Samadhi, I realized that was not going to be possible. How can I ever stop my desire for money, women and other things? After all, everyone is striving for well being. If I stop going for things that will increase my well being, then what else I would do to bring myself lasting happiness? I realized that spirituality is not for me.

College years

I lived away from my parents when I was studying in a polytechnic college in Chennai. I initially stayed in a hostel but due to pathological ragging that was done by seniors in the hostel, I moved to a room shared with other students. I faced a lot of issues during those times but I have just made the long story short. I had chosen to study chemical technology but unfortunately in a few months I realized that it was not the subject I wanted to study. So, for the first year and a half, I did not score well in the exams.

In the fourth semester I took a decision. I decided to dedicate myself to studies, accomplishing my goals and showing ultimate devotion to God to earn his grace. I also tried to be morally perfect in every aspect. If God chooses to show his grace to people who are moral and devotional, then it should happen to me. So, I pushed myself to the extreme. The life for the 6 months was very intense and I gave my 100% in everything, in every moment of life.

During mid December of that year, I started to walk 2 kilometres in the morning at 4 am everyday to a nearby temple and pray for about an hour. Then I would walk back to my room. I did the same thing in the evening and I continued this for a month.

Here is the gist of my prayers: “Dear God.. you know me very well and you are aware of what I can do and what I cannot do. I am trying all I could do to change myself, work hard and also be a good person. But I have difficulty in controlling my impulses and exercising self-control. Why did you create me like this, with this kind of genetics? Please show me the way.. I don’t know what else to do. I have what you have given me as my available resources.. You gave me this body, you gave me these tendencies.. How can I alone be responsible to correct those tendencies and be a good, kind, hardworking person? You gave me the environment and genetic factors that made me neurotic, selfish and irresponsible. I tried my best and I am not able to change that. Is it fair if you punish me for something that I don’t have full control over? Please be kind and help me”..

I literally used to have a mental conversation with God everyday in the temple. In the mean time, I started analyzing my thoughts and behaviors seriously. Every time I behaved in a negative way, I sat and analyzed what went wrong. I made my thought process conscious and engaged in a deep contemplation every day.

In the mean time I started to wonder how much control an individual has over one’s behavior. Consider the following facts:

  • People with low levels of serotonin, a neurotransmitter produced by the nervous system, are predisposed to show impulsive activity and emotional aggression.
  • People who have high levels of testosterone are more likely to show aggressive behavior.
  • A brain tumor caused an individual to be sexually abusive towards girls. Once the tumor was removed, he became normal.

These psychological findings show that a person’s behaviour is highly influenced by hereditary factors, hormonal levels, other biological factors and the environment. They can even affect self control. So, somebody’s moral behaviour is not completely under his or her control.

“So, If God created me like this, is it fair for the God to punish me for the behaviour that is simply the result of my biology? Also, what kind of God he is if he chooses to favour the people who prays to him? I am willing to change and trying my best, so what is stopping from God to help me?”

I used to put these questions to God when I prayed. I reasoned with him a lot and I told him I really had no idea what to do more than what I was doing then. Whatever the problem was, I asked God to fix it. If it seemed impossible for any reason, I asked him to take my life and give me eternal peace.

When it came to studies, I made sure I dedicated a few hours each day. I pushed myself too hard and started to bite off more than I could chew, in all aspects. I remained alert about my thought patterns and behaviors and constantly monitored myself. I could manage all this until the end of the semester. After that, there was no way I could continue doing what I was doing. The grip that I had over myself began to loosen and I started losing my self control.

I did really well in the exams that semester. I had got the third highest score among my peers. But I had expected to come first. I did all I could do for this. I obviously worked harder than others but I still couldn’t reach my goal. My ideal self appeared to be so far away. I felt restless, anxious and unhappy.

In the next 6 months, I experienced a tremendous fear of loss. I started to get thoughts like, ‘what if I lost everything I have, What if I become a beggar?’…. I didn’t resist those thoughts, instead I waited to see what those thoughts are up to. Whatever bad situation that I imagined, I made myself mentally strong to face it. I told myself ‘I can face anything in my life!’… One of my favorite proverbs those days was ‘Hope for the best but prepare for the worst’..

I gradually started questioning everything in my life.. What is the purpose of this life after all? Why should I continue to live? Everything seemed to be meaningless. My rational mind started to question the existence of God. When I dug deeper into my mind, it seemed as if nothing had any purpose. There seemed to be no way to fulfill the expectations of mind. I thought I would rather die instead of having to suffer with my immature, neurotic and unpredictable personality.

Then I thought, ‘If I have decided to end this life now, then I have a freedom of doing anything I like… I can die at any minute when it seems to be impossible to live any longer.’… The idea that death is an open choice all the time gave me a sudden sense of freedom and peace. ‘Let me let this life going and see what happens’ I thought.

Introduction to the books of Osho

I got a membership in a nearby library later that year, in my fifth semester. That is where I saw a book by Osho. I had heard about him before but had no idea who he was and what he taught. So, I borrowed that book and began to read.

The first thing that caught my attention was what he said about meditation. He said that trying to concentrate and fighting with thoughts generate more and more thoughts as a result. He made very clear that meditation was not concentration. He suggested a new technique for meditation which was to witness my thoughts non-judgmentally, as an observer. He taught to observe my thoughts as if I had nothing to do with them. I was kind of already doing this and I felt it very easy and doable.

Next, he said that God is not a person. There is no personal God. ‘That is what I thought’, I said to myself. He told that there is Godliness, which is the very essence of life, which is the very essence of who I am.

Third, He made very clear what ego is. One of the things that both shocked me and sounded true was the fact that even trying to be humble can be a subtle way for ego to show superiority over others. We tend to think we are more humble than others and that kind of gives us a humble ego. He made me aware that ego tries to find meaning in everything and attaches itself to it. It makes me to define myself with concepts and always makes me in a constant pursuit of enhancing itself. It maintains a story, the story of ‘me’ and makes us constantly to be identified with it and protect it all the time. He also revealed that cutting of the identification with this self-concept created by ego is enlightenment. It is just realizing our own nature which is hidden behind the veil of ego. That is what Buddha realized under Bodhi tree. That is what Ramakrishna found in Samadhi. That is what every individual is searching for. That true nature of yours is what people actually call God. God is not somebody who is sitting in the heaven, watching you and granting your true nature. Everybody has a potential to realize their true nature.

I realized that a new door was opened for me. A new possibility of attaining complete fulfilment in my life has been just revealed to me. I found it to be refreshing, exciting and illuminating. I continued to read many books of Osho and became addicted to it. In one of his books, he revealed his own story of enlightenment and how it happened to him.

(I will explain my own criticisms about Osho later in this post. I am listing whatever happened in a chronological order)…

Here is a list of facts and teachings revealed by Osho, a gist of what I understood from many books I read after that:

  • As you start witnessing your thoughts and be alert each and every moment, you will start noticing gaps between thoughts. The gaps will get bigger and you will soon be able to witness your unconscious patterns, emotions, moods and subtle sensations. Gradually your thoughts will reduce and you will come to a point where there is absolute stillness. Then suddenly, when you are least expecting anything to happen, enlightenment happens.
  • Then you realize you are what you have been searching for. Your true nature which is beyond space and time is revealed to you which leaves you absolutely blissful and content.
  • If you try to become a morally good person, it leads to suppressing your desires. Then you will become hypocrite. You will be a good person at the periphery, but in the center all those tendencies that cause immoral behavior will exist and erupt at anytime. But once you are enlightened, you will naturally be a good person.
  • The presence of an enlightened person radiates peace and love, and has the ability to quieten your mind. If you get to live near an enlightened person, your spiritual progress will naturally accelerate.
  • Love is another path to enlightenment. You can either start with witnessing or love.
  • If you pay attention to what you are doing and witness everything that happens inside you, than anything that you do is a meditation. Simple things like walking, eating will become a meditation if you are mindful, alert and witness every thought, sensation and activity that happens. It is important to have a non judgemental attitude.
  • When you live moment to moment like this, you will simply do what is required at the given moment. Preoccupation with past and future disappears. There will not be even necessary to make plans for the future. You will be absolutely satisfied with whatever the present moment brings to you.
  • He gave a controversial discourse series called ‘From Sex to superconciousness’ in which he said being mindful during sex can be a good meditation and become a doorway for enlightenment.
  • He insisted that there is no need to renounce the world to be spiritually enlightened. One can become enlightened by living a normal life as a householder.
  • Phrases like ‘achieving enlightenment’ or ‘becoming enlightened’ are actually wrong because we are already what we are looking for. We just have to realize or uncover that. He made very clear that words can be misleading and they are just like a finger pointing to the moon.

There are many other strange facts that he revealed in different discourses. He has given many examples of enlightened people who can leave their body at will. If they want to die, they will just shed their body like shedding their clothes. In one discourse he said that an enlightened person has an aura of 24 miles radius and anybody who is sensitive within that 24 miles radius will feel the effect of his presence.

He has talked about his past lives. In many of his early talks, he talked about various things regarding reincarnation, the time it takes for a soul to take a new womb, karma etc. He said that dreams during sleep will completely disappear after enlightenment.

He also mentioned in a couple of discourses that most of the time, enlightenment and death happen at the same time. Many people, when they get enlightened, immediately leave their body due to the extreme shock that they go through in their body.

I noticed a style in Osho. Osho had a tendency to exaggerate things. When he narrated an event that happened in the life of somebody who was enlightened, he often made his own screenplay and dialogues and made the story very dramatic. So, If somebody copies and rephrases what he said, it will be very obvious to people who have read many books of Osho’s discourses.

Also, he said many times that what he talks in his discourses is not at all important. His discourse is simply a device to silence our minds and make us receptive to his presence. Once we are receptive and available to his presence, then it can directly work on the seekers to progress in the path. He insisted more on a silent transmission than the content of his talks.

He also insisted that enlightenment should not be seen as a goal. That is a subtle way of ego entering through the backdoor. Enlightenment is not an achievement; it is simply uncovering our true nature. Everybody has the potential for it. But a desire for enlightenment can also be a hindrance in getting it.

He has contradicted himself many times and has openly admitted it. Life is full of contradictions. So, there is no way to explain about reality in a completely logical way. Sometimes it is natural for his statements to seem like contradictions. But whenever somebody asked about a contradiction, he often explained it to prove that in fact there was no contradiction.

Osho was very creative in his way of talking. His talks were filled with anecdotes, jokes, harsh criticisms against many popular people, repetitive statements and sometimes pointless gossip. He gave commentaries on Upanishads, Bhagwad Gita, Buddhist texts, Zen, Sikhism, Christian mysticism, Sufism and many more. He made very clear that all these paths lead to the same goal and explained the true essence of these paths.

Witnessing – Phase 1

As soon as I started reading Osho, I have also begun to put his witnessing meditation into practise. His witnessing meditation is an age old technique which is called Sakshi Bhav in Vedanta, Shikantaza in Zen and Sati (Mindfulness) in Buddhism. In the recent years, science has found substantial evidence for the role of mindfulness meditation in decreasing stress and increasing well being.

Soon, I went to my native place for my semester holidays and I got enough solitude to practice witnessing. A month earlier, I was practicing his other meditations like dynamic meditation, gibberish meditation and more. I created my own therapy based on his various meditation techniques and I do believe that it resolved a lot of unconscious issues.

As I progressed in my witnessing meditation, I started feeling calmer and peaceful. The thought process gradually slowed down. I continued to do it every day with great involvement. One day, when I was staring at the ceiling witnessing my thoughts, there was a brief moment of stillness with no thoughts. There was an absolute clarity and peace of mind that I had never encountered before. For the first time, I realized that I can exist without thoughts. It gave me a clear and firm knowledge that thoughts are not me.

This was like a Eureka moment. An immediate excitement followed that gave me a new strength and peace which continued for the next six months. I went back to college for the final semester, which is the happiest period that I had in the entire three years. This momentary realization was a confirmation that there is something indestructible. I interpreted it as a glimpse of my essential nature. Osho used to call this Satori.

After this, I was able to concentrate on a single task for hours and be immersed in it. Recently, as I began to learn psychology, I realized that there is a name for this. It is called ‘flow’. Flow is the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. In essence, flow is characterized by complete absorption in what one does. These states were very common and occurring everyday when I was immersed in a task. During those states, there was no feeling of my individual existence. It was as if I had disappeared.. There was just pure awareness, focus and a sense of being alive.

I felt that the complete flowering of enlightenment is very near. But I also remembered Osho saying that there will be many beautiful moments that you will pass through. Don’t make any of those moments your home. Just keep going. You may feel that you have arrived but it is not necessarily so.

I talked to one of my close friends regarding this and I started to explain him about the beauty of meditation. I also told him that I felt like I might be enlightened soon. But I was wrong. After about six months, the initial excitement of this Eureka moment faded. But the feeling that there is something indestructible and everyday occurrence of flow continued and never stopped.

As I continued to read Osho’s books, I felt very unfortunate that there was no enlightened master like Osho at present time that I could meet and ask my questions. I felt that if there was someone like him around, then he could guide me on my spiritual path.

Encounter the enlightened – The First Satsang With Sadhguru

In January 2003, I saw a wall post regarding a satsang at Marina beach, Chennai. It was titled ‘Encounter the enlightened’ in Tamil with the photograph of a man with a long beard. He looked like Osho. I saw the name ‘Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev’ printed in the wall post. It was to be held on January 22, 2003. As soon as I saw it, I made up my mind to go there.

It was a beautiful evening at Marina beach with thousands of people gathered. Sadhguru spoke about many things which were similar to what Osho had said about enlightenment. He spoke in Tamil flavored with Kannada accent, sounding like the dialect of actor Rajinikanth. Most of his views were matching with the views of Osho. When he gave us instructions for a guided meditation, he asked everyone to focus in the middle of one’s eyebrows. I remember him saying ‘Just keep a slight focus in between your eyebrows, but don’t concentrate’. This instantly reminded me of Osho. ‘So, there is someone here who is enlightened’, I told myself. But it seemed almost impossible to approach him as he was already quite popular.

He spoke about his foundation called Isha Foundation based in Coimbatore which conducts Yoga programs all over the state. At the end of the satsang, his book ‘Encounter the enlightened’ in Tamil was on sale. But I had no money to buy it. I returned home with mixed feelings; A happiness on having seen another modern day enlightened Guru and a disappointment for not being able to buy that book.

After finishing my course in Polytechnic, I noticed a weekly article in Anantha Vikatan authored by Sadhguru, with a title in Tamil that translates to ‘Desire for everything!’.. This again reminded me of Osho’s advice saying that we should not repress our desires. At the same time, another clean shaved guy with the name Nithyananda showed up with his own article in Kumudham which introduced him as another enlightened modern day Guru! But for some reason, he didn’t quite appear enlightened to me, may be because he didn’t have any beard J..

My Career in BPO and My First Isha Yoga program

After spending a few months at home reading books by Osho and searching for a job, I started working. After working in two different companies in various profiles, I finally got a job with good salary in a call center in Chennai. I started earning money, made new friendships, faced a lot of ups and downs and changed four different companies in about 5 years time. I had stopped reading spiritual books and went ahead with life. Finally, I saw an announcement for Isha Yoga program which was to be conducted in Anna University for two weeks. (or one week, I don’t remember). I enrolled in the program with my friend.

I had a good time over the whole program. We were given detailed information about Isha and its activities for social welfare. I also came to know more about Dhyanalinga, which is said to give you the same effect that you will get in the presence of an enlightened guru. They said that if one sat in front of Dhyanalinga and closed his eyes, he would automatically become meditative. According to Sadhguru, the Dhyanalinga has all the seven chakras that a human being has. It has been consecrated in such a way that the energy and peace that radiates from Dhyanalinga is the same as the energy and peace radiated in the presence of someone who is enlightened. We were taught a kriya called shambhavi mahamudra, which had to be practiced twice a day. At the end of the Isha Yoga program, I immediately enrolled for the upcoming next level program called Bhava Spandana. It was a three day residential program in Isha Yoga centre, Coimbatore.

I arrived in Isha Yoga centre in the evening on the first day of Bhava Spandana. We were asked to submit our mobile phones, bags and money as there will not be any contact with the outside world for three days. I went to the dome of Dhyanalinga for the first time and meditated for fifteen minutes. To be honest, I just felt a normal relaxed state and stillness and nothing much in the presence of Dhyanalinga. The atmosphere was definitely conducive for meditation but I felt nothing more than how I would usually feel when I meditated in my home or room. May be I was not receptive enough or maybe the effects of the linga are overrated…  But usually, according to Sadhguru and Osho, trying to figure out such things with our rational mind is not going to work. Their usual argument is, our logic cannot figure out something that is beyond logic. But I had an immense trust on Sadhguru. So, I was confident that I was on the right way.

I felt very insecure on the first night of Bhava Spandana. I felt like I had been disconnected from the outside world. But the next morning, the insecurity disappeared. I participated in all the meditations in BSP with 100% intensity. Some of the meditations involved action and were similar to the concept of dynamic meditation by Osho. The feelings of oneness and peace I felt there was not new to me since I had already experienced that with my witnessing meditation. But the three days were very beautiful and the overall experience was good.

After the BSP program, I came back to Chennai and my regular routine started again. A lot of things happened in my life then which gave me extreme suffering. I used to become emotionally dependent on certain people that I liked a lot; If the people I liked didn’t give me the same attention to me, it made me to suffer and become anxious. That was exactly what was happening in those days. It took a few months for me to become alright again.

Exploring Spirituality further

I had bought two books by Sadhguru, ‘Encounter the enlightened’ and ‘Mystic’s musings’. The book Mytic’s Musings was about many things that any rational person would never want to believe in. But I had no problem with that because of the trust I had in Sadhguru. I always remembered what Sadhguru said, ‘Don’t believe me or disbelieve me! Don’t come to a conclusion about anything by yourself. Be ready to say I don’t know and be a seeker’… Osho has said the same thing many times. It has always been my own approach to life too.  I finished reading those two books and watched a lot of videos of Sadhguru’s talks.

I continued my meditations and I had many peak experiences. Peak experiences were described by psychologist Abraham Moslow as “rare, exciting, oceanic, deeply moving, exhilarating, elevating experiences that generate an advanced form of perceiving reality, and are even mystic and magical in their effect upon the experimenter”. In the mean time, I read the teachings of Ramana Mahirishi. I also came to know about Eckhart tolle and his awakening experience. I read three of his books, ‘The Power of now’, ‘A New Earth’ and ‘The Stillness speaks’.

I came across the teachings of another Indian guru named Poonjaji. Soon I discovered that there are many people who claim to be enlightened, especially in the west. Some of them I read about were Gangaji, Andrew Cohen, Ramesh Balsekar, Mooji, Joan Tollifson etc. I read their testimonies about the awakening experiences. Are each of one of them really enlightened or they just had some peak experiences and glimpses of their reality? There seemed to be no way to find out. Can we really draw a single line called ‘Enlightenment’ in someone’s life which is the ultimate line after which there is no progress further? Is everyone who claims to enlightened talk about that same line? I emailed a couple of these people and got answers too. They said that their enlightenment was a gradual process and not something that occurred in the single moment as Osho described. They also didn’t have a totally thoughtless mind, ability to leave the body at will or memories of previous incarnation. Did Osho exaggerate the effects of enlightenment by saying that there would be no thoughts or did these people just conclude that they were enlightened with no basis to support their claim? I had no answers to these questions.

I had already integrated Karma Yoga, Gnana Yoga and Bhakthi yoga in my life and made my life itself a sadhana. Every moment was an opportunity for me to explore the depths of unconsciousness and clear out the clouds which were hiding my own reality. The concepts of Advaita taught me ‘acceptance’. I learnt to accept the life as it is.

My Marriage and the life after

I got married in December 2008. The first two years of my marriage were spent in a lot of conflicts and quarrels between me and my wife. I became addicted to alcohol and started drinking twice or thrice a week. I started learning about PHP programming, chess tactics, astronomy, photoshop and many other things. Photography became my new hobby. Nothing much happened in my life those days. I used to go to Ramana Mahirishi’s ashram in Tiruvannamalai with my wife whenever I got a chance and spend time in meditation.

Two years later, I moved to my own native place, Tirunelveli and got a job there. I spent my time in learning, writing articles and trying out new things on the internet. New interests always popped up and got me going. The moments of flow helped me to stay on focus.

After another two years, I moved to Coimbatore. I started exploring places nearby. I climbed mountains and hills on weekends and took pictures. I enjoyed trekking in various places of Nilgiris. I had stopped drinking alcohol and started experimenting with cannabis. It seemed to be a magic herb. It enhanced my creativity, focus and compassion. We had no kids and there were no big responsibilities. I used to visit Isha Yoga centre occasionally but wasn’t thinking much about enlightenment or spirituality. I didn’t think anything about the future or the past. Living in the present moment was quite satisfying but there was still something incomplete in me which was yearning for fulfillment.

On May 5, 2014, I climbed the Velliangiri mountains. It is a holy mountain near Coimbatore. Isha Yoga centre is right at the foot of the mountains. Sadhguru himself had spent time there and he had said that many enlightened people left their bodies there and their energy can be still felt in the mountains. There was no one to accompany me to trek the mountain so I went all by myself. I started walking uphills at about 7:30 AM and reached the summit by 1:30. The mountain is very steep and difficult to climb. The view from the top is amazing. I had the darshan of the linga in the summit, took rest for about 30 minutes and started walking downhill. I took many photographs and finally reached the bottom at about 7:30 PM. The experience was wonderful.

The Major ‘Change’ – Is it Enlightenment?

The trip to Velliangiri mountains triggered the seeker in me and I decided to go deep in meditation as much as I could. I started paying attention to every moment, every thought and every sensation. I made very clear to me that whatever I observe, perceive, think, experience and know is not me. I witnessed all the passing emotions and moods as a passive observer.

I went to Isha yoga centre every week, took bath in Theerthakund and meditated for an hour. I spent almost half of the day there. In the office, my nature of job was to talk to the customers over the phone during the whole night and answer their questions. I became deeply involved in the present moment and enjoyed my work. I soon stopped thinking about many things in the external world. I noticed my thoughts slowing down leaving a peaceful, clear stillness in the large gaps between each thought. Very soon, I started feeling intense euphoria at times which lasted for hours. The quality of my work increased, the clarity in my voice and speech increased and I started to feel waves of bliss in my head. It was like a cool breeze flowing in my head.

Soon, I stopped my interactions with other people. It was not my conscious decision but happened automatically. I couldn’t believe that all these things were happening to me. I didn’t feel any intense negative emotion or anxiety but almost the whole day at my work was filled with bliss and peace. Soon, the psychological boundaries between me and the world started to disappear. I started getting a lot of attention and I was pretty sure that something tremendous was happening.

I went to attend Sadhguru’s darshan that happened in the Isha ashram on June 18th and 19th, 2014. I felt one with the whole universe during the entire satsang. The feeling of oneness with the world was then continuous. Whatever I did seemed to happen without much of my conscious will. Everything I did was spontaneous like a river flowing down the hills. The doer in me seemed to have completely disappeared and everything seemed to be happening out of cosmic will instead of my own will.

It was a huge blessing. Every day at work, I felt tremendously happy and satisfied. For the first time in my life, I felt complete and fulfilled. I wondered, ‘Is it really possible for me to suffer ever again?’… I felt like the king of the whole world.

I went to another satsang that was held on July 12, 2014 (Guru Purnima day). I remember getting on the bus feeling so light as if I had no weight on the body. Everything seemed to be so transparent. During the entire satsang, I was immersed in my Self. That night while I was lying on my bed, there was a sudden clarity. It seemed that my search was over. There was nothing else to achieve and nothing more to do to make me complete.

The days after the change

The excitement and the wave of bliss were gradually reduced in the days to come. Though I no longer felt the waves and breeze of bliss in my head, being peaceful and complete has been the normal state of my mind from those days of transformation to till date.

Though I had no doubt that the journey as a human being in my life was over and it wouldn’t matter if I die at any moment, the transformation didn’t exactly fit into the description of enlightenment as implied by Osho and Sadhguru. When I thought about it later after the next two years, I noted down my observation of the changes it had made in my thinking, well being and my way of life:

  • Self image is no longer important to me.
  • My past no longer plays a role in giving me a mental identity in my mind.
  • I cannot think about future the same way I did before. In a sense, I seemed to have lost the sense of time. I don’t and can’t rely on an event in the future for satisfaction.
  • I stopped feeling that there is an ‘other’. The psychological boundaries between me and the world disappeared. A lot of concepts in Psychology doesn’t seem to apply to me or relevant to me. For example, I no longer felt the psychological self-consciousness and cognitive dissonance.
  • Emotions like sadness and fear seems to have disappeared. But I continue to show the sign of a sudden fear in my facial expression and bodily movements. (For example, if a moving vehicle suddenly comes close to me enough to hit me, I respond to it in the usual way. But it doesn’t have the same impact on my mind as it did before. May be it is so subtle but I don’t usually feel fear or sadness)
  • I continue to feel angry when I am disturbed by others. As a person, I always used to be high in neuroticism and easily angered ever since I was a child. It seemed to a genetic factor. It makes sense to assume that meditation or an awakening experience doesn’t mysteriously change a person’s genetics. But the factors that will make me angry were reduced completely. I could easily change my mood from being angry to being normal.
  • It is not like feeling continuous bliss and being drugged all the time. But there is always a peace and fulfillment and there is no longer a feeling that something is incomplete.
  • The thoughts have not completely disappeared but they have been tremendously reduced. My thinking is usually not about the past or the present. For example, at any moment I may be thinking ‘May be there is life on one of the moons on Saturn’, or ‘How come humming birds are really too small? They are cute’… I hardly think about me.
  • There is absolutely nothing paranormal. I don’t have any memories of past life and have never seen a damn aura in my life.
  • Biological drives like food and sex motivates my behavior as usual. But motivation theories like expectancy theory or goal setting theory doesn’t seem to apply for me much. I am not driven to do something because I will get something as a result in three months time. I have to remember to consciously involve myself to do it. But I will do something to get a bottle of brandy to drink this evening. These days I have developed a conscious practice of planning ahead and thinking about doing things which are necessary for the future. The drawback with that is, I may completely forget to do it.

Also, while some changes obviously occurred as an immediate result of the transformation, some changes are gradual and still occurring within me. It took a long time to learn to live with this transformed personality and there were challenges that I faced. It is hard to put it in language, because in one way or the other, it will be misleading.

I continue to learn by my experience with this new phenomenon (in fact, people will say that it is not a new thing, it is just a person’s real essence which was and will be always present. That is true… But it is still gives a new outlook. The way it affects our behavior and our experiences is new).

I went through a great deal of suffering after this transformation when I lost my job in the next two years.  That is long story and I don’t want to go into that in detail now. I had to find a new job, had no money and depended on my parents for a couple of months. During those days, I actually missed my old job and the people. Then I realized that I had a subtle attachment with that environment which was not obvious. It took a while for things to settle down. But it was only temporary and soon it became like nothing actually happened. I have written more about what happened in the next three years after awakening in this post: Spiritual Enlightenment – Is it a Myth or Real?

 

   Osho and Sadhguru – What I noticed about them

Osho – A second look

So if this transformation is not enlightenment, then there must be another shift which is going to happen. But is that really true or enlightenment has been simply exaggerated and over rated than it really is?… Many stories of enlightenment from the west are same as my transformation. So, according to them, I am enlightened but according to Sadhguru and Osho, I am not.

This is something to figure out to prevent people from being misled. Scientific research about enlightenment is the only way to go about it. It is interesting to note that, Osho himself was completely not free of ego. To be exact, his need to feel superior seemed to be still there after enlightenment.

Let me give you some obvious examples:

  1. In the initial years, Osho regarded Nostradamus as simply a crazy man. This is what he said about his predictions:

“Nostradamus can be interpreted in any way you want. The sentences are not clear, the grammar is not correct. The words are such that you can fit them into any context you want”.

But just read what he said about the same man later, when it seemed like Nostrademus predictions about a great future teacher fit with Osho:

“Just a few days ago, I was seeing one of the most significant books to be published in this century, ‘Millenium’. It is a deep research into Nostradamus and his predictions. Eighty thousand copies were published – which is very rare – and they were sold within weeks. Now a second publication, a second edition, is happening in America, another is happening in England, and the book is being translated into many other languages – Dutch, German….

Nostradamus was a great mystic with an insight into the future. And you will be surprised to know that in his predictions, I am included. Describing the teacher of the last days of the twentieth century, he gives eight indications. Krishnamurti fulfills five, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi fulfills three, Da Free John fulfills four – and I was amazed that I fulfill all eight.

In this book ‘Millenium’, they have made a chart of the teacher about whom Nostradamus is predicting – that his people will wear red clothes, that he will come from the East, that he will be arrested, that his commune will be destroyed, that flying birds will be his symbol, that his name will mean moon…. Three hundred years ago that man was seeing something that fits perfectly with me – my name means “the moon.” And in their chart they have declared me the teacher of the last part of the twentieth century.”

Obviously, when Osho found this as boosting his superiority, he regarded the same man as mystic.

  1. Initially Osho didn’t criticize S.N Goenka and even asked his disciples to attend a Vipassana retreat by Goenka. But once Osho heard that Goenka in an interview had said that Osho was his student before, Osho started criticizing S.N Goenka so harshly.
  2. Osho always considered J.Krishnamurti as enlightened. When he heard that J.K had criticized him recently, Osho immediately reacted to it in his next discourse. He said that J.K was just in the border of enlightenment and is not enlightened yet. He also made the same statement in his last book Zen Manifesto.

Also, you will find a significant difference between what Osho has said in his early talks in India and the talks he gave in America. Even though Osho had his own rationalizations on that, anyone who carefully observes this difference can notice many things which clearly indicate that a lot of what Osho said about enlightenment could be just his opinions and exaggerations but may not be facts.

Osho had a really nasty habit of labeling people he criticized as stupids and idiots. His natural defense mechanism would usually come into play when he tried to rationalize things like this as “It is a device. I am just trying to shock you people”. But I don’t agree that many of the things that he calls as device were really consciously devised by Osho to help people towards their spiritual progress. It is pure rationalizing, one of the defense mechanisms of ego that you can observe in any human being. But I did believe that those were genuine devices when I was reading those hundreds of books of Osho. Some of them could be, but not all of them.

Many people who know Osho are probably aware that nitrous oxide was used during dental sessions with Osho. He dictated three books under the influence of Nitrous oxide. If you read those books, you will certainly notice that nitrous oxide did influence his clarity and thought process. But Osho has said that a drug will not impact an enlightened person’s alertness and consciousness in anyway. Also, it is more likely that Osho became addicted to Nitrous Oxide even though he denied it. That affected his thinking process a lot. When you read the books of his talks in the US, you will notice that those talks were just repetitive and pointless ramblings.

My assumption is that behavior, personality and opinions greatly vary between enlightened people because they still retain their genetics and even old habits. A person who was a jerk before enlightenment can retain some of those tendencies after enlightenment and a person who was like a sage before enlightenment may look like an absolute and perfect sage after enlightenment.

But they are just my assumptions. If you ask me ten years later, I may have a different answer. I am more inclined now to approach enlightenment in scientific way. For science, both skepticism and open-mindedness are necessary and important.

Osho’s Influence in the world

Osho definitely made a great contribution to the world. He brought spiritual enlightenment from the heights of great sages to the valley that most of the people in the world live in. He created awareness about enlightenment and showed to people that there is really a way to reduce a great deal of unnecessary suffering in the daily life.

Osho influenced many people who we believe today as enlightened. I can smell that influence in many books written by gurus who are alive today.

sadh

Image credit: https://twitter.com/DerekBaconART

How Osho influenced Sadhguru

Sadhguru has never endorsed Osho, even though he has talked about a lot of other mystics. In Mystic Musings, he claimed that most of what he knows came as a direct transmission from his guru. But it is certain that a lot of what he knows also came from Osho.

Enlightened people certainly share the same knowledge and experience of reality. So, in those aspects they can certainly rely on their own experience even though it may appear that one person might have copied the ideas of another person. But it doesn’t apply to everything. A lot of what Sadhguru knows seems to have come from the books by Osho. But I wonder why he never gives him credit.

Here are a few examples..

  1. Here is an anecdote given by Sadhguru:

“When you sit in front of a living Guru, you have many problems, judgments, likes and dislikes, because invariably you end up looking at his personality. People have left their Gurus for all kinds of frivolous things. This happened with J. Krishnamurti, a realized being and very wonderful man. There was a certain lady who was very close to him and deeply involved with his work. She was always around him and traveled to many places with him. Once when he was in Amsterdam, Holland, he went into a shop to buy a tie for himself. He was so meticulous about choosing a tie, because he was very conscious about everything and also what he wore. He could throw the tie away if he wanted to, but when he wears it, he wants it to be in a certain way. So he went into the shop and spent nearly four hours picking out one tie. He pulled out every tie in the shop, looked at it, put it on, and then said, “No.” It took him four hours to select just one tie. This woman watched and watched and watched, and as minutes passed, in her mind his enlightenment receded. She thought a man who could be so concerned about what kind of tie he wears couldn’t be enlightened, and she left him. Many such stupid things are done because of your judgments.”

Source: http://www.dhyanalinga.org/difference_qa.htm

How did Sadhguru came to know about this incidence? There is absolutely only one way he could have known this. You cannot find this information anywhere except in Osho’s talks. Osho knew this because the lady herself told Osho about this incident. You can find this anecdote from the book ‘The Book of Wisdom’ by Osho.

Here is a link to that excerpt:

http://oshosearch.net/Convert/Articles_Osho/The_Book_of_Wisdom/Osho-The-Book-of-Wisdom-00000012.html

  1. Sadhguru once told a story that supposedly happened when Aristotle met Heraclitus. Heraclitus was trying to empty the ocean with a spoon. You can read the whole story here:

    http://isha.sadhguru.org/blog/li…

    But Aristotle lived between 384–322 BC and Heraclitus lived between c. 535 – c. 475 BC. There is no way that this meeting took place.. Obviously, it seems there is some mistake…

    How did Sadhguru know about this anecdote?

Obviously, you cannot find the story of Aristotle meeting Heraclitus, except in a book of Osho. The story is from the book ‘Hidden Harmony’ – Chapter 5, by Osho.

Here is the link: http://www.osho.com/iosho/library/read-book/online-library-look-aristotle-flower-51daeb6a-147?p=5ae86f113210d477f5542e2c5aa6a6e5

So, did Osho make up this story? No… The story actually happened in St. Augustine’s life. Osho simply mismatched the names because memory doesn’t work perfectly all the time.

  1. In the same link, you can find Sadhguru criticizing the statement “I think, therefore I am” made by Rene Descartes.

But as far as I know, the first person who ever criticized this statement in the context of spiritual enlightenment was Osho. And, Osho actually made a mistake in interpreting Rene’s statement.

Just by reading that statement, anyone can misinterpret that as “Thought is the basis of existence, you cannot exist if you don’t have thoughts’….

But that is not what Rene Descartes intended to say. He said that you can doubt any belief or concept but you cannot deny your own existence. The doubt implies that there is a doubter. A doubter has to exist to doubt. If you don’t exist, you cannot doubt, and you cannot think. So, if you think, that actually means you exist. That is what he meant by saying ‘I think, therefore I am’.

Here is more clear interpretation of the statement that I found in a forum:

“I think, therefore I am” is a crude mistranslation of Descartes’s proposition. It misrepresents the essence of Descartes’s philosophy because most philosophers now regard the process of thinking as a kind of invisible mechanical action (i.e. stimulus-response).

Historians, philosophers and many scientists have repeated this mistranslated phrase for more than three hundred years. But Descartes’s meant something entirely different, as can be seen when “cogito ergo sum” is read in context.

The Latin word, cogito can mean “I think”, “I know” or “I am aware”; ergo always means “therefore” in any context. However, sum can mean “I am” or “I exist”. To suggest that, “I know, therefore I am” would be wrong as it’s possible to accept wrong knowledge as correct.

If you read Descartes’s Philosophical Writings in context, it becomes obvious that he was concerned with awareness rather than with thinking or knowing and with existence rather than being.

Properly translated, Descartes’s phrase should therefore read: “I am aware, therefore I exist” – a subjective rather than a mechanistic generalization. No machine can be self- or globally aware, no matter how many sensors are attached to it.

In fact, the philosopher Spinoza translated cogito ergo sum as “I am conscious, therefore I exist”. Even that’s wrong, although it’s closer to the truth than the usual lazy mistranslation which has unfairly earned Descartes’s the reputation of being a crude reductionist.

It’s true that he stated the obvious: that physiological functions are pseudo-mechanical. But he also insisted that man was much more than a machine because of his subjective awareness of the self and of the universe.”

How will a teacher find out if a student has copied another student? If both made the exact same mistake, then one person must have copied another.

Sadhguru simply used Osho’s example without realizing that Osho himself has interpreted it in the wrong way.

  1. Sadhguru once said that seventy percent illness are created by the mind..

http://isha.sadhguru.org/blog/video/the-symptoms-of-an-ill-mind/

Is it a fact? How did he come up with 70%.. Why not 72%? Why not 80%…

Because, Osho also said the exact same thing: http://www.osho.com/read/featured-articles/body-dharma/the-mind-and-disease-hypnosis-and-health

  1. Read the following excerpt from Sadhguru:

“So, this is…this whole idea of right and wrong, good and bad is all human nonsense. Existence is not human centric. They have always told you… many religions of the world have been going about telling people “You are made in God’s own image” and once you are in God’s own image naturally the place that you live They believed this for a long time, isn’t it? Even now they are insisting. You’ve heard of this guy Copernicus? Copernicus was one of the first guys who came and said, “Earth is not the center of the universe; not only not the center of the universe, it is not even the center of the solar system.” And he promptly died. That’s not bad thing; it’s a good thing because the next man after him, when he uttered the same thing the local church decided to skin him alive. They wanted to peal his skin off and the skin would not cooperate. So, they decided to burn him alive. The next significant man who has uttered the same thing was Galileo; he said the same thing. Then they got ready with the skin peelers. Then he said, “No, no, no, no; earth is the center of the universe and the cosmos. What is my problem? (Laughter) As you say earth is not only the center of the solar system and not only the center of the universe; it is the very center of the cosmos. Anyway I do not know what is the center of the cosmos, you want to assume. I want to save my skin. That much I know.” (Laughs)

So, today science has proved to you that definitely earth is not the center of the solar system, in the universe you are just a miniscule. Tomorrow morning if you and your planet disappears, if it evaporates nobody is going to miss it. Hmm? The whole solar system evaporates tomorrow morning it will be just a small vacant place that nobody is going to miss in the existence, nothing is going to happen. Yes? God won’t come rescuing you. It’ll just pooff it will go. This is a good thing. This whole idea that I am made in the image of God has left man so crude and he has been walking upon this planet so wantonly without any concern for any other life on this planet, simply because he believes he is in the image of God. If you knew that your life is as significant or as insignificant as that of an ant – it is actually.”

–  From http://isha.sadhguru.org/blog/video/are-you-looking-for-solace-or-a-solution/

Now read this excerpt from Osho and you will find that the above excerpt is the exact rephrase of what Osho said. It sounds almost like Sadhguru had just read this before coming to the discourse:

“Human beings have thought of God in human terms. It is natural. We have said that God created man in His own image. If horses could think they would deny this: they would say that God created horses in His own image. Because man has created the philosophy, he has made himself the center.

Even God must be in our image. He must have created us in His own image. Man’s ego has asserted these things. This is not knowledge, this is not knowing – this is simply an anthropocentric feeling.

Man feels himself to be the center. We have thought that the earth is the center of the universe and man is the center of creation. These conceptions are false imaginations, dreams of the human ego. God has not created anybody in His own image because the whole is His image. The trees, the earth, the stars; the animals, men, women – everything that exists is His image, not just man.

Then too, we have divided the world into good and evil. The world is not so divided: good and evil are our evaluations. If man did not exist on the earth there would be neither good nor bad. Things would exist, things would be there, but there would be no evaluation. The evaluation is man’s: it is our imposition, it is our projection.”

–  From ‘The Eternal Quest’ by Osho

  1. Both men surprisingly had the same views about nations:

“Someday, we must overcome the idea of a nation. Such a silly idea – someone draws a line and that becomes so immensely important. These boundaries have become meaningful only because there is such inequity in the world. If there was no inequity, if for example, Mexico and the United States both had the same level of economic prosperity and wellbeing, would one side be guarding the borders with guns, barbed wires and all that, and would the other side be digging tunnels to get here? No. Whoever wants to go in either direction could do so – no one would care. But in our lifetime, we may not see the abolishment of national borders. Europe has done reasonably well, but it looks like they are beginning to step back from the European Union because those who have, do not want to share with those who do not have.”

By Sadhguru – From http://isha.sadhguru.org/blog/lifestyle/does-it-matter-where-you-live/

Osho said the same thing:

“NATIONS HAVE BECOME out of date – but they go on existing and they are the greatest problem. Looking at the world with a bird’s eye view, a strange feeling arises that we have everything – just we need one humanity.

For example, in Ethiopia people were dying – one thousand people per day – and in Europe they were drowning billions of dollars worth of food in the ocean.

Anybody looking from the outside will think humanity is insane. Thousands of people are dying and mountains of butter and other foodstuff is being drowned in the ocean. But Ethiopia is not the concern of the Western world. Their concern is to save their economies and their status quo. And to protect their economic structures, they are willing to destroy food which could have saved the lives of thousands of people.

Problems are worldwide – solutions have also to be worldwide.

And my understanding is absolutely clear, that there are things somewhere where they are not needed, and somewhere else the very life depends on them. A world government means looking at the whole situation of this globe and shifting things where they are needed.

It is one humanity. And once we think of one world, then there is only one economy.”

  • From ‘Hari Om Tat Sat’ by Osho

http://oshosearch.net/Convert/Articles_Osho/Hari_Om_Tat_Sat/Osho-Hari-Om-Tat-Sat-00000005.html

  1. Here are a couple of comparisons as well:

Sarada giving the knife to vivekananda:

http://oshosearch.net/Convert/Articles_Osho/Early_Talks/Osho-Early-Talks-00000010.html

http://isha.sadhguru.org/blog/sadhguru/masters-words/stories-swami-vivekananda-life-inspired/

Alexander and immortality:

Osho https://oshostories.wordpress.com/2012/05/09/alexander-and-immortality/

Sadhguru http://isha.sadhguru.org/blog/yoga-meditation/history-of-yoga/when-alexander-chased-immortality/

  1. Have you heard about a story told by Sadhguru about Ramakrishna’s obsession over food to keep his body alive? Try as much as you can to find out the source of the story and you can only find this story in Osho’s talks. I have read in many places Ramakrishna liked certain fruits and sweets. But the conversation between Sarada and Ramakrishna regarding the obsession over food and Ramakrishna saying that it is necessary to keep his body alive seems to be just an imaginary incident created by Osho. Even if it was true, it is highly unlikely that both Osho and Sadhguru somehow independently got access to this information which is not found in any other sources.

I have all three volumes of ‘Gospel of Ramakrishna’ which is the most honest account of Ramakrishna’s life incidents. When you read the book, you will feel like watching a movie. Everything that happened was exactly recorded by the author and there is not even a single place where it is mentioned that he had an obsession over food and he was often checking the kitchen to find out what is cooking. But Ramakrishna always used to ask for a glass of water which was necessary for him to come out of Samadhi.

9. Sadhguru narrates a story of Svetaketu in a podcast:

Svetaketu and the Cows

But you can’t find this story of Svetaketu as narrated by Sadhguru in Upanishads… Because it seems that the story is a mixture of two different stories from Chandogya Upanishad, one story is of Svetaketu (His father questions him if he has known that which cannot be known) and the other is the story of Satyakama (the one who is sent to forest with 400 animals)..

So, how did Sadhguru come up with this story? You guessed it. Osho made this mistake of mixing up the two stories:

http://www.osho.com/iosho/library/read-book/online-library-supreme-svetaketu-taught-78d59dde-9b0?p=867d5652b07d80469abc69481a91e28f

10. Sadhguru says in a discourse that there are two paths :

“Fundamentally, on any Spiritual path, there are only two types of spiritual processes in the world – the path of Samadhi and the path of Pragna”

This is actually a Buddhist distinction, but usually the terms Samatha and Vipassana are used, instead of pragna and samadhi, respectively. Osho was the one who used these terms when talking about this distinction. Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev also used the same terminology and even gave the same examples given by Osho.

Check my post here: https://nellaishanmugam.wordpress.com/2017/02/24/path-of-samadhi-and-pragna-talks-by-sadhguru-and-osho/

So, It is very obvious that Sadhguru has read books of Osho and greatly influenced by him. I respect Sadhguru a lot for all the phenomenal work that he is doing for this world. But while he is taking a lot of effort to give credit to Adiyogi, why did he fail to give credit to Osho? He hasn’t even talked about him in his discourses.

                                             Spiritual enlightenment and Science

We think we are rational human beings. But unfortunately it is not so. Every human being’s thinking is naturally biased, which is a nature’s way of helping human survival. We must consider all the cognitive biases that can happen when people interpret their own enlightenment. Cognitive bias can influence our logical thinking in various ways. No matter how intelligent a person is, he is not free of cognitive bias. I used to believe that enlightenment destroys the bias, but if you observe the enlightened people and their talks, you will find out it is not true.

Many reports of spiritual enlightenment are self-reports. The individuals who go through a spiritual experience and shift their centre from self-concept to their being, they often try to conform to the believed standards of enlightenment. It is natural, because a human being as a social animal wants to conform to the standards of society. Conformity is studied by social psychologists.

Only a few people have revolted against the conventional standards and proposed some new standards. Osho is an example. But still, they don’t completely ignore all the standards as they cannot completely avoid conformity, which is a human tendency when it comes to social behaviour.

For example, almost all enlightened people agree with existence of Karma.. Sure, we all know that natural laws exist. But Karma is not explained as a natural law all the time. They imply that something from an individual continues to another new born individual and affects him. But did they really come to that conclusion with some knowledge that they gained out of their own experience and interpreted that knowledge in unbiased way or are they simply repeating what has been said? Is the role of collective unconsciousness (Carl Jung) understood falsely as the role of karma?

Some people report that they remember their previous reincarnation. But you also need to know that there is something called ‘False memory’ which is a psychological phenomenon wherein a person recalls something that did not occur.

Interestingly, when scientists did research about reincarnation, they analyzed reports of past life memories from various people and found that most of the people who report such memories come from the eastern part of the world. The obvious reason is the fact that reincarnation is a belief which mostly comes from the East. So, obviously when they have false memories, they associate it with reincarnation. While false memories are not intentional, some people are also likely to intentionally make up such stories.

How about seeing auras? Can it be Synesthesia? (a neurological phenomenon that causes cross wiring of senses)..

I am not saying that all these claims of seeing auras or remembering past lives cannot be real.. It could be. I am just suggesting all the possibilities. When it comes to science, you have to be both open minded and skeptic. But people are usually inclined more towards believing or completely denying.

But I assume that there is certainly a link between enlightenment and neural plasticity. Scientists now believe that mindfulness meditation can rewire the brain. An enlightened brain could be a completely rewired brain that inhibits the activity of sympathetic nervous system when there is no need. SNS is supposed to be activated when an animal feels that there is a threat for life. If a lion is chasing the deer, then SNS of the deer activates its fear and makes it to run fast. But as human beings evolved from being an animal to human, the SNS gets activated even for trivial issues and makes human beings to suffer. Rewiring the brain through meditation or self-inquiry may be the way to get rid of this human suffering.

The most reasonable way to study enlightenment is to study the brains of enlightened people. Scientists can observe many things from techniques like fMRI and PET scans. They have been already studying the brains of mediators but only a couple of so called enlightened people have volunteered to have their brains studied.

 

Author: Shanmugam P

I am a blogger and a self-published author. My book "The Truth About Spiritual Enlightenment: Bridging Science, Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta" is a guide to the ultimate freedom, bliss and oneness. The book is based on my own experience. My book "Discovering God: Bridging Christianity, Hinduism and Islam" shows how all three major religions of the world lead to the same truth. I am a past student of Sri Jayendra Saraswathi Swamigal Golden Jubilee Matriculation Higher Secondary School, Sankarnagar, Tirunelveli District.

221 thoughts on “The Journey of a Seeker – My Story”

  1. Found your post via Dharma Overground and read the whole way through. Really enjoyed your story and appreciate you sharing it – thank you. May you your practice continue to grow as your state further integrates!

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  2. Hi

    I am also from India
    After reading this post i would like to talk with you
    Is there any way to contact you ?

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  3. I have just read the first half of your writeup above. Will read the rest soon and comment. I think I will benefit greatly from it.

    I saw a TV interview of Arun Shourie by Vir Sanghvi the other day on CNN-News18 (available online). You may be interested in his book that is about to come out: “Two Saints: Speculations around and about Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Ramana Maharshi” (the interview was held in this connection). I am waiting for the copy I have ordered online.

    (I respect Shourie but he seems to have fallen into what I call the Scientific Trap. Anyway I think the book will help me at least a bit.)

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  13. Your story is interesting, there is very much similar things happening in my life too.
    I’m currently studying civil engineering

    Thank you very much.

    How to contact you?

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  14. I happened to come across videos of Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev on You tube, after watching one I went on to watch another and then another and so on and got influenced a lot. But I also came across articles and videos where people referred to him as fake. Whatsoever I really like his talks and wish to visit his Ashram once for some lessons but again I found people warning on various blogs etc. about the dangers, I was doing lot of research on internet when I happened to come across your writing on Quora and from there I came here. I really enjoyed reading your blog. The comparisons between Osho’s teaching and Sadhguru are also interesting. Thanks for the wonderful post.

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  15. Thank you very much for your sharing, it’s very informative. 🙂

    You are questioning why Sadhguru is greatly influenced by Osho but never credited Osho about his anecdotes and stories. Sadhguru had explained this as below:

    “Its not that I have not spoken about Rajneesh-I have. It’s just that his approach was different than what we have taken so it is not necessary for me to speak about Rajneesh. I don’t speak of JK also because his approach is very different as well.”

    I’d say Sadhguru makes use of Osho’s anecdotes as tools to convey his ideas, rather than he’s been ‘influenced’.

    If he credits everything he uses, would it be a huge burden? We use language to communicate, but we don’t credit the language every time we speak.

    Maybe the emphasis should be put on what two different approaches they take. I am very curious about this.

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    1. He doesn’t even talk about Osho at all, let alone giving credit to Osho…But he talks about all other mystics and even those list of mystics is also exactly same as Osho’s list.. In my more than 13 years of spiritual journey, I have certainly learnt to find the difference between being influenced by someone else vs just quoting someone else anecdotes; more than that, I have certainly learnt many things by observing, reading and listening to so many people who have taken up Guru’s role today…. So, I can definitely say that Sadhguru’s behavior is a little fishy… But this is not to say that he is a conman or badman altogether… He has done many things which are good, just like any human being who has some authority and power will do… He is promoting a lot of things about our culture including native martial arts like kalaripayattu, which is awesome… But, when it comes to enlightenment and guiding people towards it, I have a question mark about him..

      I have already answered many such comments before in Quora.. You can go through the following answers especially the comments section:

      https://www.quora.com/Has-Sadhguru-copied-the-ideology-and-thoughts-of-Osho/answer/Shanmugam-P-12?srid=hJCJi

      https://www.quora.com/Is-Sadhguru-a-conman/answer/Shanmugam-P-12?srid=hJCJi

      https://www.quora.com/Is-Sadhguru-really-enlightened/answer/Shanmugam-P-12?srid=hJCJi

      https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-Sadhguru-Jaggi-Vasudev-has-hurt-some-women-including-his-wife/answer/Shanmugam-P-12?srid=hJCJi

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  16. Hi Shanmugam, thanks for sharing your experience about enlightenment. I found it genuine and inspiring. Have enjoyed also reading about Ramakrishna and Osho.
    I wonder if you’ve had the opportunity to get familiar with other famous spiritual leaders such as Yogananda, Nisargadatta, Papaji, Adiashanti, and if you have formed also an opinion about their prevalent message and enlightenment ‘technology’.

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    1. thank you Chris.. Yes I am familiar with all of the gurus you have mentioned.. Have read some parts of ‘Autobiography of Yogi’ and Yogananda’s book about Jesus Christ. Have seen Papaji’s videos and read a book as well. Read Nisargadatta’s ‘I am that’ and have also watched some of Adyashanthi’s videos…

      Don’t really have specific opinions about Nisargadatta or Adya but I did find their teachings useful.

      Papaji was quite different. One thing that I found weird about him was that he declared most of his disciples as enlightened. But he did say later that he simply did that to ‘get the leaches off his back’.. I have heard that many people found his guidance quite useful. I recently read Sam Harris book ‘Waking up’ where he shows his high opinion about Papaji but he also points out how he was culturally biased. Of course, from what I have observed, all human beings are subject to bias whether enlightened or not.

      Regarding Yogananda, I have mixed opinions. When I read his book, the style of writing itself reveals that he is probably influenced by a lot of confirmation bias. I feel that there are certain things that he overlooks when he interprets Bible. For example, the 4 Gospels are actually written many years after Jesus’s death and I don’t think those Gospels do complete justice in revealing what exactly Jesus preached. And Yoganda, although says that he had direct contact with Jesus, places those Gospels as full authority to explain Jesus’s teaching. From what I read in the book so far, he doesn’t seem to have even a single doubt that the way things are explained in Gospels may have even slightest deviation from what Jesus actually spoke.

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  17. Thank you sir for sharing such a comprehensive and wonderful experience of your life. There are lot of questions which linger in my mind but I don’t know where to go. could you please help me?

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      1. According to my observations or rather perceptions, I have a clue that nature itself could be called as ‘GOD’. What I am thinking is that if the natural principles are fabricated in favor of us and therefore if we do something good(my view is that good and bad are absolute and defined by nature itself) then we are on the god’s(nature’s) side . This idea is also called pantheism.I want you to shed light into it. Thankyou

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        1. Pantheism, according to the definition in Wiki, is “Pantheism is the belief that all reality is identical with divinity,[1] or that everything composes an all-encompassing, immanent god”

          This is similar to what Advaita Vedanta teaches. Everything is Brahman. Chandogya upanishad says that just like all vessels of clay, though having different forms are made up of single source, the entire universe springs from Brahman and is Brahman itself…

          Now, this oneness of everything is something that is realized experientially. Enlightenment is just the experience of reality without the distinctions that has been superimposed on it. When the personal boundaries of ‘me’ vs ‘world’ disappears, you automatically feel one with the universe. In that oneness, you realize all that exists. That is what we call as Brahman. You can use any name you want, the name is not important. So whether you call that as God, Shiva, Krishna, Brahman, doesn’t matter.

          But the word ‘Pantheism’ may mean different thing to different people. I don’t really prefer to use that word for it. I don’t even use the word God, because it has the same problem.

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          1. But could it be a possibility that nature itself regulatess the system of not only materialistic things but also the human consciousness. Also could it be true that the cause and effect process of nature judges between good and bad

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            1. Good and bad are just the ideas of mind… If a lonely bull is roaming in the lion’s territory, it is not good for the bull but it is very good for a lion.

              There is nobody other than humans who is judging whether something is good or bad…

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              1. Then this world is unfair.The logic of being vegetarian only because animals would feel pain has no meaning. Good and bad emotions are just an illusion. A criminal lives life of prosperity and an honest man succumbs against the hostility of criminals and the list of such examples goes on. Justice has no universal meaning. It is an artificial design.

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                1. Yes, existence is not always fair towards us.. Life is totally unfair. An earthquake can happen right now and take my life as I am typing this message.

                  We as a human beings should have compassion to not to cause suffering to others. Nobody else is monitoring what we do and grant reward or punishment according to that.

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                  1. Sir couldn’t be a unique answer to all these questions and shouldn’t we hunt for the answers which would fit into physical as well as moral aspects of the life. If not then we are compelled to behave in a way our circumstances as well as hormones make us to act. Something looks really missing

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                    1. There are lot of atheists in the world who don’t believe in God. But they are not acting according to how their hormones prompt them. Many of the atheists I know are really good people.

                      In fact, belief in God has actually caused a lot of violence more than anything else. Human beings don’t need a supernatural judge to act good and be nice. All that is needed is proper education and proper upbringing. And we have meditation to go beyond a lot of our compulsive behaviors.

                      When you go deep into meditation, it will automatically make you behave in a way that doesn’t cause suffering to others.

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                    2. Sir, do you believe in soul? Please tell us something about anadmaya Kosh

                      On 18-Sep-2017 10:27 PM, “Shanmugam’s Personal Blog” wrote:

                      > Shanmugam commented: “There are lot of atheists in the world who don’t > believe in God. But they are not acting according to how their hormones > prompt them. Many of the atheists I know are really good people. In fact, > belief in God has actually caused a lot of violence more t” >

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                    4. Soul according to me is something which is not materialistic. It is the very identity or the ‘self’. Is it true that we are just a complex system of atoms which somehow become conscious or something else?

                      On 02-Oct-2017 10:59 PM, “Shanmugam’s Personal Blog” wrote:

                      Shanmugam commented: “What do you mean by the word ‘soul’? Please define it and I will give you the reply..” Respond to this comment by replying above this line

                      New comment on *Shanmugam’s Personal Blog *

                      *Shanmugam* commented on The Journey of a Seeker – My Story .

                      in response to *saurabh mishra*:

                      Sir, do you believe in soul? Please tell us something about anadmaya Kosh

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                    5. If you call the absolute reality, the sakshin or the witness as soul, then yes it does exist.. (you can’t deny your own existence)

                      Koshas are little similar to the Buddhist concept of 5 aggregates.. When you witness your mind and your body, first you witness the physical form which is annamayakosha, then there is your life energy which is pranamayakosha, then there is your manas, the part of the mind which has to do with your likes and dislikes, emotions etc, then there is vigyanamaya kosha, which is your discriminatory power; finally the witness or anandamaya kosha, which is usually referred to as sat-chit-ananda (truth-conciousness-bliss)..

                      These concepts are just used as teaching techniques or devices….

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                    6. Is it immortal?

                      On 02-Oct-2017 11:12 PM, “Shanmugam’s Personal Blog” wrote:

                      > Shanmugam commented: “If you call the absolute reality, the sakshin or the > witness as soul, then yes it does exist.. (you can’t deny your own > existence) Koshas are little similar to the Buddhist concept of 5 > aggregates.. When you witness your mind and your body, first you wi” >

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                    7. Thats what vedanta says…

                      But anyway, when you die nothing actually disappears.. Everything merges into existence.. your body merges with the earth. The energy in the body is also not lost, as we know that energy cannot be destroyed.

                      There are many metaphysical theories regarding these things… . I am not sure whether consciousness will survive after death- it may or may not.But nobody can be certain about what happens to consciousness after death. We don’t have an answer based on evidence yet.

                      But you will not worry about all these things once you are spiritually awakened… Once you feel that you are one with existence, death appears to be an illusion.

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                    8. Sir is it sensible to think that this gigantic universe is designed (say it is self designed) then also we could say that the whole universe is consciousness in itself. If you talk about the oneness with the nature then can we think that the creator of this conscious being is in itself conscious ( literally conscious) and thereby the whole universe is conscious.

                      On 02-Oct-2017 11:21 PM, “Shanmugam’s Personal Blog” wrote:

                      > Shanmugam commented: “Thats what vedanta says… But anyway, when you die > nothing actually disappears.. Everything merges into existence.. your body > merges with the earth. The energy in the body is also not lost, as we know > that energy cannot be destroyed. There are many me” >

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                    9. Yes.. it makes sense to think that way.. But do we know for sure? Unless we know it for sure, we cannot say that with certainty.

                      There is a mystery in the existence.. We can fall in love with the mystery, we can write poems about it, we can do research, we can philosophize about it and come up with metaphysical theories; But we don’t have a definite answer yet.

                      But there is a way to become a part of the mystery; In fact, you already are! But you feel separate and limited now. If you get into serious spiritual practice, these questions will stop bothering you one day.

                      Thats why Buddha refused to answer such questions. Instead, he guided people to actually practice the techniques he gave to end their suffering. You can find more details about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_unanswered_questions

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                    10. Sir , please help me to achieve this. I am searching for something but I myself don’t know what for.

                      On 02-Oct-2017 11:40 PM, “Shanmugam’s Personal Blog” wrote:

                      > Shanmugam commented: “Yes.. it makes sense to think that way.. But do we > know for sure? Unless we know it for sure, we cannot say that with > certainty. There is a mystery in the existence.. We can fall in love with > the mystery, we can write poems about it, we can do research,” >

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                    12. Sir thank you so much. Actually this “thanks” word can’t express how grateful I feel for you.

                      On 02-Oct-2017 11:53 PM, “Shanmugam’s Personal Blog” wrote:

                      > Shanmugam commented: “Go to this link: http://www.satrakshita.com/ > witnessing_a_simple_phenomenon.htm Read this and also read all the links > which are given in the bottom. What Osho calls as ‘witnessing’ is the only > practice that I did in the long term. ” >

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  18. Was Osho/Rajneesh enlightened? Was he a saint? I haven’t read his books, maybe out of prejudice. But I would like to provide some information which younger people may not be aware of.

    Before he moved to the U.S., there were bad rumours about his Pune ashram which, of course, were denied. I recall an article in The Illustrated Weekly of India (which was published by the Times of India group) with a picture of a row of benches with two or three naked Westerners on each bench.

    A lot of European men had settled in the Pune ashram and married Indian women. When Rajneesh moved to the U.S., many of these men divorced their Indian wives so that they could marry Americans and live in the U.S.! I can’t give you the source of this report.

    In the Oregon ashram, Rajneesh had a fleet of Rolls Royce cars. As far as I know, he lived a life of great luxury. They also had a TV channel which was reported to show what can be described as adult material.

    After a few years, the U.S. govt kicked him out. I don’t recall the circumstances; maybe there was a deal and he escaped arrest by agreeing to leave. He returned to Pune and died a few years later. After that his followers changed his name as they do to dead emperors in Japan (Hirohito became Showa).

    Such a man should not be compared with Ramana Maharshi or Nisargadatta Maharaj!

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    1. Yes, I am aware of all the controversies surrounding Osho. Yes, He did have a lot of Rolls Royces. But I also know the man through what he has talked all his life… Here is what he said about his Rolls Royces: http://www.oshoworld.com/biography/innercontent.asp?FileName=biography8/08-20-rolls.txt

      Anyway, there is no way to prove whether he is enlightened or not. This goes back to the whole issue that I have raised. As I said, enlightenment should be studied by Science. And as far as I have observed, enlightenment doesn’t make anyone morally perfect…

      But the impact he made in my life is so much. I cannot write about my spiritual life without mentioning Osho.. It is impossible!

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          1. That site is down now also. The point I wanted to make is that the ability to go into nirvikalpa samadhi is not enlightenment or liberation (it may be the first step). The mind should become completely pure. Therefore, a person who is fearful or boastful is not enlightened. This seems to apply to Rajneesh and Jaggi. I must admit that all this is just based on what I have read, not personal experience.

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            1. I agree that nirvikalpa samadhi itself is not final. Because, it is temporary and the person returns to duality once he comes out of samadhi. Ramana Maharishi says that Sahaja samadhi is final, which is nothing but living without duality but still retaining body consciousness and being able to function in the world as everybody else. Ramana has also clarified that not everyone goes through nirvikalpa samadhi and it really depends on the prarabhda karma.

              In the Advaitic tradition of the lineage of Shankara, nirvikalpa samadhi is not discussed at all.

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          2. The reason for my mentioning Silva here, although it isn’t directly related to your experiences, is that Jose Silva claimed that he had scientifically analysed the working of the brain/mind and created techniques which were experimentally verified. Reading this material may help some of your readers (who wrote above) answer some of their questions. I don’t think you need this, you have progressed much further as far as I can see!
            The site http://www.josesilva.net gives a summary and could be a starting point. There seem to be at least two organisations at present, one run by his son Jose Silva Jr and the other by his daughter Laura Silva Quesada. (Jose Silva (1914-1999) had 10 children.)

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    2. Robert Adams on Osho

      You said “Such a man (Osho) should not be compared with Ramana Maharshi or Nisargadtta Maharj!”

      Read what Ed Muzika had to say about this.

      ……..Robert almost always refused to comment on whether he thought one or another teacher was enlightened. I remember asking him once about Rajneesh, because he had the bearing, far off look and soft voice of Robert. Robert nodded and said yes, that he was. All of the other times I asked any such nonsense questions about anybody, he would say no. For Robert, enlightenment was a rare, rare thing……

      https://o-meditation.com/2010/09/20/robert-adams-on-enlightenment-and-gurus-ed-muzika/
      Robert Adams on Enlightenment and Gurus – Ed Muzika

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  19. Namaskaram
    I just read your blog and that is great. And i have a question that what we call those people who can know everything about our whole life just being in their presence and cure the people even without touching them.
    I know a guru who have these kind of ability

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    1. Namaskaram Kapil… thats an interesting question..

      Let me first tell you what our scriptures say regarding these special powers called Siddhis…Patanjali yogasutras lists tons of those siddhis which can be acquired in the process of spiritual sadhana. But acquiring these siddhis are not the intention of a spiritual sadhana; it only focuses on one and one thing only: Moksha or liberation (spiritual enlightenment). Also, many gurus warn about these siddhis. They can distract one from a spiritual path and make him get stuck without ever getting the actual liberation. So, a person who has siddhis is not necessarily enlightened. Usually spiritually enlightened people are less interested to exhibit any siddhis even if they possess them. Also, not all these spiritually enlightened people have any siddhis either.

      What I said above was just a summary of what all these scriptures say and what I have heard. But I don’t believe in things just because they are said in scriptures.

      I have encountered a person who was blind and living in a crematorium. He could actually say certain things about the present for eg. He could find out something that was going on inside my mind that I had never revealed to anyone. (it was not something that is ambiguous but very clear). But he made a future prediction which actually did not come true. Based on this, I can say that some kind of extra-sensory perception may exist with its own limitations. I am using the word ‘may’ because I have learnt in my life that what seems to be real is not always real (Take a simple magic show that we have watched, as an example)

      Also, I know that 999 out of 1000 people who claim that they know everything about your life are probably fake. They use techniques such as hot reading and cold reading.

      You can read about them up here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_reading

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_reading

      And regarding curing diseases immediately, I am totally skeptical about it. Did you encounter such thing in a stage performance or the person cured a serious disease of someone whom you know very well? What kind of health issue was that? How much money does that person collect for such a thing? (He should be a millionaire by now if he was genuine)…

      By the way, no offense intended. Don’t take it as a disrespect towards whoever that Guru is.

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      1. yes , i have met such people personally even today i met him and one who is receptive can feel the positive energy in his room
        yes i have seen so many cases like that he cure the people even without touching them . Some of the cases i have seen with my eyes like he lets the people get rid of negative energy
        of course he charge good for that but also he assure that in future that negative energy will not disturb them again in their life.
        and one more thing i have seen with my own eyes that he can do “Shakti path” only with his presence and he performed this on one of friend . I know osho can do shakti path by touching the person and transmit energy to them and i have seen such video of osho in which he perform shakti path by touching the person on his center point of eyebrows.
        one more thing i would like to add is that i believe in Aura. yes it does exist ,i don’t know why you don’t believe in such things but i assure you that these things really exist .
        Whatever i have read,learn,listen i come to a conclusion that he is Enlighten

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        1. Belief is actually a poor substitute for knowledge… We try to fill in some gaps in the knowledge by using our beliefs. Human beings have always come up with their own imaginary explanation whenever they encounter something that cannot be explained by what they already know. Also, we are quick to form conclusions about things.

          Even if you see a shade of light around a person, you shouldn’t immediately give a mystical meaning to it. Instead, you need to find yourself the reason why it happens. There are people who can see things that other people can’t see, simply because of some differences in their nervous system. Synesthesia is a good and interesting example.

          Yes, It is possible to see what they call as auras. But it doesn’t mean that all the beliefs that we attach to auras need to be true. Read this article: https://www.csicop.org/si/show/the_aura_a_brief_review

          Also read about placebo effect and confirmation bias. And I suggest you read Sam Harris’s ‘Waking up – spirituality without religion’. He talks about ‘pointing out instruction’ that he received from a guru which caused an epiphany for him. And he gives a rational explanation for it as well.

          The answer ‘I don’t know’ may be something that people don’t want to hear or say, but it is more genuine than a belief. Even Osho taught the same thing…

          Thats why I don’t believe in things… I either know or don’t know.

          What is the name of your Guru? Is the information about him available online? Also, what kind of diseases he actually cures? If I look him up, I can comment about him more.. (Osho talked a lot of imaginary diseases that can be cured by placebo.. If you have got convinced that you have some negative energy then a cup of water given by your favorite Guru can cure it, not because the water has healing properties. It happens because of placebo effect)

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  20. Readers may be interested in “The Silva Mind Control Method” by Jose Silva, a Mexican-American, and other books by him like “You the Healer”.

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    1. It seems my comment above was too short and rather cryptic! Silva claimed to have developed a technique for meditating and solving problems including healing oneself and others, otherwise known as remote healing. He didn’t say it was instant. His organisation held classes in many countries including India. He wrote that earlier he used to train people to read auras but found that it was unnecessary. His books (paperback) are widely available. It appears that some people had some success with these techniques and some didn’t.

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  21. The web page of Ed Muzika was available just now and I made a PDF of it. I would like to send it to you. Would you please send me your email address?

    I was surprised to read that Shankara doesn’t mention nirvikalpa samadhi. How can I verify this? (I can’t ask for a reference if there is none!)

    I attended some lectures of Swami Chinmayananda and Swami Dayananda in the 1970s and 80s. The former used to mention nirvikalpa. He also emphasised the elimination of vasanas. The latter made it clear that understanding had to be through the intellect. He said that a quiet, alert mind could receive the truth from a guru. I think I wasn’t really qualified.

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    1. Thank you.. You can send the pdf to borris83[at]gmail.com

      Actually, the word nirvikalpa is somewhat synonymous with ‘advaita’, and in that sense, a person who is enlightened is experiencing reality without ‘vikalpas’ or as ‘nirvikalpa’…Shankara is also in agreement here…

      But when we say nirvikalpa samadhi, we often refer to a temporary state where a person loses body consciousness and immersed in his nature. It is this that Shankara didn’t consider as necessary. He doesn’t talk about it in any of his bhashyas and doesn’t say that it is a necessary step in self-realization.

      However, in the book ‘Vivekachudamani’, this nirvikalpa samadhi is mentioned in detail. But the authorship of ‘Vivekachudamani’ is debated and scholars generally don’t agree that Shankara is the author of ‘Vivekachudamani’.. I have also read it and it sounds completely different from his bhashyas.

      Swami Dayananda doesn’t even agree that there is an experiential side to enlightenment. He says everything is completely intellectual and even the word ‘anubhava’ means ‘understanding’. He used to make fun of samadhi experiences… If I find some links I will comment. But however, Swami Dayananda’s explanations sound a little misleading to me. Because I know that this oneness of non-duality is not mere an intellectual understanding alone.

      I actually initiated a debate with some western Vedanta teachers and one of them was a student of Swami Chinmayananda. But he had also adopted a lot of views from Swami Dayananda. I challenged him against his views with some scriptural evidence. You can read it here: https://nellaishanmugam.wordpress.com/2017/07/22/an-invitation-to-debate-swami-satchidanandendra-saraswati-vs-modern-vedanta-teachers/ .. Then I exchanged some emails with him, but I haven’t posted it in my blog yet.. I will be doing that soon.

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  22. Hi, I have enjoyed reading your article after a friend shared with me. As one who is also walking the path of awakening to their true “self”, it has given good food for contemplation and consideration.

    I have a comment on attempting to apply modern scientific approaches towards deeper aspects of existence. As one with a background and slightly more than ley understanding of the physical and human sciences, I have seen that current scientific philosophy of observe, associate with referent, replicate and make conclusions (finite tangible knowledge) is ill-equipped to address matters of enlightenment. The foundation for this reasoning is my understanding of how existence comes to be where I see enlightenment being to do with “concepts” outside the space/time – time/space continuum, thus not observable through the 5 aggregates of being. From my study and spiritual seeking, I have formed a world view as below (largely influenced by The Law of One – http://www.lawofone.info/ );

    THE CREATION AND US.
    There was, is and always will be, infinity, without boundaries or polarities, within this infinity there was the “potential” for awareness (which can be characterized by freedom of will – that which is seen as the first distortion from unity) and awareness arose, within this awareness, arose the potential for finity and finity arose, and thus the sequence follows – finity bringing forth ‘manyness’, onwards and onwards ad-infinitum.
    Within this infinite manyness, arose the ‘prime mover’ Love(Logos), that which has been called God by our peoples. This Love can be characterised by its focusing of intelligent infinity to give rise to ‘intelligent energy’, this energy being characterised by a distortion (i.e. movement from original state) or frequency, this frequency, we call Light, the foundation of the manifested creation or in other terms ‘densities of illusion’.
    This vibration, Light (along with its concomitants – space/time & time/space), can then be seen to be a projection of the Logos/Love, being its free-will distortions which we (all sentient beings), being a part of, experience as life and the creation/existence…. and follows that our moment to moment choices, being us, as ‘sub-sub-sub-sub…..logoi are, our free-will distortions as a part of the greater whole.
    And just as in the physical universe, from any point of observation, all directions are the same (cosmological isotropy), it follows that our religions tell us that the ‘Kingdom of God’ is within us. For everything manifest is a projection from portions of that original ‘concept’.

    It would be interesting to share perspectives with another scientifically inclined seeker.

    Namaste.

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    1. Hi Amwayi.. I understand what you are saying.. But the research that I am talking about has to do with observing the brain activity and structural and functional changes of the brains of the people who report spiritual awakening… It is definitely possible to narrow down the neural correlates of non-dual consciousness but it will take time. I have already written a detailed post regarding this here: https://nellaishanmugam.wordpress.com/2017/06/13/is-there-a-scientific-evidence-for-spiritual-enlightenment/

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  24. Shanmugam, Vanakam again! I read your life sketch. Very interesting spiritual journey! But I feel you have missed out some fundamental points about spirituality in general because of which you seem to have gone off tangent a little despite the interesting spiritual awakening that you have had. What those point are I hope you will come to know as we correspond. I have no doubt there is much I can learn by interacting with you.

    Let me start off by asking you some questions:

    1. You say that Paramahansa Yogananda “is probably influenced by a lot of confirmation bias”. Could you please elucidate this opinion of yours with more specific examples?

    2. You say you don’t believe in beliefs. But isn’t that itself a belief?

    Hope to hear from you soon. Thank you.

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    1. 1)Regarding Paramhamsa Yogananda, that is the overall impression that I got after reading some of his books. I don’t remember the details now, to give you examples.. May be if I read his books again, I will come with some examples..

      2. What I meant was, I don’t believe in anything.. I either know or I don’t know…

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      1. Hi Shan, (don’t mind my calling you so), you say you have read Yogananda’s Autobiography only partly. Why not read it completely and see if you can justify your opinion of him with suitable examples therefrom. I have read the Autobiography several times and I feel that he is one of the greatest spiritual luminaries of India and that is why I am surprised at your characterization of him as “influenced by confirmation bias”. Please oblige me. Tq.

        Sorry, I don’t think you have answered my 2nd question. To say, I DON’T BELIEVE IN BELIEFS is itself a BELIEF. Don’t you agree? I think you are a little confused about the term BELIEF. This I think is a very fundamental spiritual point you have missed in your spiritual journey. Knowing what BELIEF actually connotes is of utmost importance for your spiritual progress. BELIEF constitutes a very significant part of our lives. The IMPRESSION that you have formed of Yogananda is nothing but a BELIEF. You BELIEVED what you heard/read about Osho’s advice on meditation and then validated the BELIEF by practising what he had preached. Isn’t that so? I can go on and on but the 2 examples will suffice for now, Now, over to you for your comment. Tq

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        1. I didn’t get this impression after reading ‘Autobiography of the yogi’ but his book ‘The Second coming of Christ’.. This was only regarding his commentary on Bible and not regarding his meditation techniques.

          Anyway, let us forget Paramhamsa Yogananda for a minute. As much as I have seen, all people, whether enlightened or not, are prone to confirmation bias.

          It is clear that you are impressed by Paramhamsa Yogananda.. I admit that I don’t know much about him except what I have read so far. The only reason why I gave my opinion about his books is because someone in the comments asked my opinion about him.

          I don’t disagree in anyway that he is a great master. But one thing I have learn’t in my life is that no one is infallible or perfect.

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  28. Hi Shanmugan, thank you for this very genuine story of your spiritual journey. It was absorbing, at times amusing (“meditation techniques” that didn´t work), well structured and it seemd truthfull to me, after having had quite a lot of similar experiences on my own path.

    I also very much enjoyed your opinion about Osho and Sadhguru. I have aksed the same questions to myself: there seem to be so many enlightened or awakened people, but the “degree” or level of ripening or the way it happenes and progresses in their later lives seems to differ a lot as well.

    The other point for me as a spiritual seeker is also the question, whether any of these awakened humans are on the same path as me. With this I want to say that we have a lot of so called enlightened gurus, or saints, or how to call them- maybe even gods or paramahamsas, throughout history. But it does not automatically mean that their path and way of living and acting is proper for the specific student. Gurus, who went the path of ascetism, are difficult to follow by those involved in family life, gurus who lived in the past lived under other circumstances then us, it is also of big importance, as my own experience shows it, whether the person is a woman or a man, because some of the problems are simply different. It is also different for a child seeker, who is dependant on it´s parents and for an adult who has money or does not (you had this nice exemple from your life about the fact that you could not even afford one book by Sadhguru after attenting to your first meeting with him).

    So, having read your experiences with Osho and Sadhguru and also some of the “critical” points about some aspects of their acts, I am curious whether, after your awakening experience and the feelings that continue within your life (feeling of fullfillment),you still feel the necessity for having your own particular spiritual teacher or guru with whom you could speak about your present experiences?

    I would also like to ask if you had any experiences with Linga Bhairavi or also generally, if you have engaged in any practices with personalised gods or goddesses (like Bhairavi for example)? Was this part of your experiments on your path?

    Agnieszka from Europe

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    1. Thank you for a detailed comment about my post. I agree with the questions that you raised, they are very reasonable.. Thats why I stress the importance of bridging science and spirituality.

      Right now, I don’t feel the necessity of having a Guru. I don’t sense a consistent self in me at all and hence the life is very different now. It is almost like I don’t exist at all! I only exist as existence.. To put it metaphorically, the wave called Shanmugam has disappeared into the vast ocean of existence.

      I have experimented practices with personal God and deities but I don’t do that anymore. And I haven’t had any experiences in particular with Linga Bhairavi. I thought I did, but when I look back now, I can say that it was a placebo or probably have more to do with the attitude I had rather than Linga Bhairavi itself. I am skeptical about the claims on consecrated spaces made by Sadhguru, Because I have Linga Bhairavi gudi in my home for the last two years and there is no difference between being at home or office. None of my relatives who have visited my home have felt any difference as well. It can work as a device for devotion and surrender but nothing more than that…

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  29. You say, you have been enlightened.I know you don’t want to be called as an enlightened man.Are you aware of the fact that enlightenment is the most mysterious thing in universe??So obviously it must be the most confusing thing also.Many mystic have said that out of 100 enlightened people 90-95 percent people are not enlightened.Some are pseoudo gurus who want name and fame and rest are confused gurus who have read a lot of books about enlightenment.You say,you still have thoughts which come by themself?? You still have food and sex craving and many more things.Can we have a little discussion on this to find out what is truth.I am not knowledgeable as you and my English isn’t perfect.So forgive me if I do some error in writing.And also help me to understand you if I fail.ok ?

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    1. I am sure you will get a good reply from Shanmugam. But I can’t resist saying a bit myself. Shanmugam has described his own development in a totally honest way (at least apparently). He has made it clear that he is not trying to become our guru! As you say (and Shanmugam also says, although I can’t give a precise reference) “enlightenment” is quite a confusing word; maybe we should stop bothering about it and just try to understand ourselves. In this, I find his writings helpful.

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      1. Dear shanmugam ji,
        To me enlightment is a mysterious conception which is enhighlighted by many gurus to make that more glorify so that all human would crave for that experience which has no concrete base.But if you go through chandogya upanishad,brihadarnyaka upanishad,brahmasutra,you would find that all the statements are confusing.Even rishis of one upanishad
        don’t agree with another upanishad’s statement on enlightment and disciplies of shankara don’t agree with some of shankara’s statements.
        And Buddhism totally represents different perspective for enlightment.And jainaism does the same with their approach.
        But everywhere we find a clear-cut path to walk up on for enlightment but who have become enlighted are still in chaos in their views .They differ their views from each other on what is enlightment.And people like Osho, Vivekananda have expressed all the statements by moulding them according to their point of view so that somehow they all could sync with each other.
        To me enlightment is an overglorified,overhighlighted, overemphasized abstract which has been propagated by many to influence people,which is called as #Dharma prachar,#Re-establishment of religion.. etc
        Thank you for reply ji,

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  30. “To put it metaphorically, the wave called Shanmugam has disappeared into the vast ocean of existence”. This statement or state of Sri. Shanmugam is the ultimate goal in Advaita philosophy. This is the ‘Jeevan Mukta’ state, whether we can call it self-realisation, self-actualisation, liberation or enlightenment. In my humble opinion, there is nothing beyond this to achieve. Of course, such a state being highly subjective, it is impossible to find out from one’s worldly transactions whether he or she is a jeevan mukta and you cannot question such souls moving about in the world as normal human beings, immensely enjoying a good meal or anything that nature offers. It is none of other’s business too. Questions are raised only if such men go about becoming (or calling themselves) ‘Gurus’ are masters. In the recent times we have seen cases of gurus who had mass following, falling steeply from their spiritual heights succumbing to carnal pleasures. This is a lurking danger faced by those in spiritual field from which we have guard ourselves.

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    1. Thats right… Not many people understand it, thats the problem. A huge number of people understand enlightenment as something that one achieves or becomes.. There is no question of another stage when the person himself has disappeared.

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      1. An experience is translated as an experience on basis of knowledge.
        you cant experirnce enlightened untill you already know about it.
        so whatever yu feel is a second hand enlightenment, and there is no first hand !

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  31. Dear Shanmugan, thank you for your last reply. It was very clear to me and I agree with all. I would like to ask you now particulary about your physical sensations. How do you feel your physical body after your awakening experience – has anything changed for you?

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    1. Yes.. I feel so much lighter than before.. Before this awakening, I used to feel like I was dragging my body and felt very heavy.. But now there is an enormous sense of freedom when it comes to body. I don’t feel like a person who is carrying a body anymore.. I am not sure if I am using the right words but when someone describes such an experience, I can recognize it very easily. There is also a tremendous amount of energy that I feel which was not there before. This feeling of boundlessness is certainly one gift which is totally worth all the pain I have gone through..

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  32. Dear Shanmugam, thank you for answering my questions so openly. They raise new questions for me, as of course, I am very curious what else might be of any significance for those who are on the path towards feeling this lightness, energy and also experiencing boundlessness- as you have described the sensations you have now in your own words.
    Have you also experienced any difference in the sensations of heat/cold or vibration (electricity) in the physical body – at a specific time or most of the time before, during or after your awakening point? In case you did, have they shifted in any way or increased or decreased? Did you practice any specific hatha yoga or pranayama or visualisations of subtle energies before? How do you feel in general about sleeping and also how is you awareness during dream time and during deep sleep? Do you still have “samsaric” dreams (this kind of “ordinary” dreams about daily topics, when we et sucked into the dream story without knowing that we are actually dreaming)? Thank you so much for sharing your broad personal experiences!

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    1. You are welcome.. No, I haven’ experienced or at least noticed any difference in the sensations of heat/cold or vibration (electricity) in the physical body.. I haven’t practiced Hatha yoga or other yogic techniques you mentioned either… When I am sleeping I am not conscious of the external world or sensations but I can witness mental sensations if there are any.. I have dreams but they are different from the kind of dreams I used to have before.. In dreams, I am totally in different places and sometimes with different people which are not present in real life. The dreams are very vivid and there is almost no difference between real life and dream.. Both in real life and dreams, there is no identification and I am not caught up in the story.. I am the same whether I am dreaming, sleeping or wide awake.. There is a continuous, unbroken stream of my existence throughout all these three states. In other words, I don’t feel like I am in a different state the minute I am awake from sleep. If I compare this with how it was before awakening, I used to sense myself having transitioned from one state to another state… The distinction was very clear before awakening but after awakening it is not like that.. But I don’t recognize a dream as a dream when I am sleeping..

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  33. Sorry, but Rajneesh was clearly a fake. He is known to have plagiarized lots of the content of his books from other books – word for word – because those same books were sold to him earlier by someone who read his books for review.

    That is why his views were all over the place when he had to speak spontaneously – as you have already noted. Here is another example, you say Rajneesh “said that dreams during sleep will completely disappear after enlightenment.” Well that is the opposite of what Ramana said:”Q: Does a jnani [enlightened being] have dreams?

    Ramana Maharshi: Yes, he does dream, but he knows it to be a dream, in the same way as he knows the waking state to be a dream. You may call them dream no.1 and dream no.2. The jnani being established in the fourth state – turiya, the supreme reality – he detachedly witnesses the three other states, waking, dreaming and dreamless sleep, as pictures superimposed on it.’ – from Guru Ramana, p. 100

    That’s just one example of many things Rajneesh simply made up on the spot.

    Many people have received some benefit from reading or hearing Rajneesh simply because he copies some good material. 🙂 It is easier to be seen to be “enlightened” if you copy things said by enlightened people.

    From your detective work on Sadhguru, it sounds like he is using the same technique – except that he is copying a fake.

    So forget about both of their definitions of “enlightened” and use what Ramana or Shankara have said. If you can read Ramana’s works in the original Tamil, then you have a big advantage, because you won’t have the translator’s viewpoint filtering everything.

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      1. I have actually read criticisms about him which sound worse than this. There is a guy called Christopher Cadler who has a long article critisizing him and two ex-disciples of Osho, Satya Bharti Franklin and Hugh Milne have written books completely bashing him.. But this particular article you gave me sound more like a defense of orthodox Christianity against Eastern traditions.

        Anyway, Osho is dead now. And I am not a fan of idealizing a human being or cult of personality. It is just that the way he explained certain things was very helpful for me in understanding many things…It is not an exaggeration to say that his talks changed my life.

        My point is, when we look at any human being and make an opinion about him based on his actions, we tend to categorize him either as evil or as Godly. I don’t do neither anymore.. When I see that my own sense of a separate self as illusion, I can’t see another person as a separate self either. I see the behaviours and statements of a particular human being independently, rather than attributing them to a personality.

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  34. Oh, I forgot one other issue (which probably is good to be in a separate post) – “Past Lives”.

    The whole point of Advaita Vedanta is – “Who Am I?” – which is why it was the title of Ramana’s original book (if you have not read it in original Tamil, you should do so, although even in English it is excellent).

    Some religions posit the idea of “eternal individual souls”, but this is from believing things without thinking about them. How could could a finite thing be eternal? And – as Buddhism and Advaita point out – how can a constantly shifting mixture of countless elements have a single fixed identity?

    So, as Ramana and others point out, what we call “I” is merely the one and only Absolute (Satchitananda), and our seeming individual person is based on the “I am the body” thought/feeling. So, there is only one “I” that looks at the world through 7 billion bodies. Therefore, if “you” were to entirely leave your body, and enter someone else’s body, it would be the exact same experience as that person has in their body-because all the difference are just due to the body-mind.

    Thus, if through some vision or siddhi, someone experiences some part of another person’s life of a previous era, that feels EXACTLY like them – because the “I” is the same. So, the mind says “MY past life”, even though only the formless Absolute “I” is in common.

    But, causality and karma do exist and have important roles in making our world “make sense” rather than being chaotic. So, the things done in a life have momentum and do affect future lives. But there is no individual identity that is common between the two lives, any more than is common among all 7 billion people.

    So, here is how you can think about past lives. Suppose you rent a “flat” or “apartment” and in the closet (wardrobe) you find the previous tenant has left a suit – that happens to fit you and you wear it. This suit is a continuation from the previous tenant, but there is not a real identity between him and you.

    Note that Ramana – and all his disciples – agree that an enlightened being is never reincarnated. This make complete sense because there is no longer a suit (vasanas) to be passed on.

    Here are some Ramana quotes confirming the above analysis:

    “Q: Is reincarnation true?
    Ramana: Reincarnation exists only so long as there is ignorance. There is really no reincarnation at all, either now or before. Nor will there be any hereafter. This is the truth.”

    “Q: How long does it take a man to be reborn after death? Is it immediately after death or some time after?
    Ramana: You do not know what you were before birth, yet you want to know what you will be after death. Do you know what you are now?
    Birth and rebirth pertain to the body. You are identifying the Self with the body. It is a wrong identification. You believe that the body has been born and will die, and confound the phenomena relating to the body with the Self.
    Know your real being and these questions will not arise.
    Birth and rebirth are mentioned only to make you investigate the question and find out that there are neither births nor rebirths. They relate to the body and not to the Self. Know the Self and don’t be perturbed by doubts.”

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    1. Hi.. thanks for commenting.. I saw your comments in the other post too.. I will shortly comment on the other post regarding the debate because I have to give some background to why I started the debate in the first place.. It may even need a separate blog post.

      Regarding Osho, there is no way for me to know if he is enlightened or not… But I don’t agree with many things he said. At the same time, It is an undeniable fact that I found his guidance extremely helpful. The best part about his talks was how he pointed out the unconscious tendencies and the game that our mind plays with us. He always talked about the books he read and one of his books was dedicated to the books he loved. There is no question of plagiarism here because he has probably quoted about thousand people or more in his talks. He mentioned who said it and gave commentaries on them too. I also know about the controversies about him including the bio-terror attack and others.

      The problem with many people is that, they always listen to one side of the story, cling to only one possibility and see a person as being either all good or all bad. For most of the people, a human being is either all good or all bad. But any human being cannot be really categorized in that way and no human being can be described with just a label.

      But you seem to so be so certain about him and I generally like to question anybody’s certainty about anything..

      Anyway, thank you for quoting the related talks of Ramana Maharshi in your comments. It adds something to the blog posts and will be certainly helpful for the readers. I will shortly comment more on certain things you said when I have time.

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      1. I used to think of Rajneesh as a total fake until I read your comments on him. He certainly had some deep insights. It appears that you only encountered the sensible parts of his teachings, and they helped you, since you started after he died and became Osho. As for the other part, I came across an article which I mentioned above (reply to “Hep Yo”).

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      2. It seems that Rajneesh has helped lots of people through his books and videos after he became Osho. The Christian account of events in his Pune ashram was worse than I thought; people were definitely harmed, for instance women who were raped. But maybe it is no longer relevant, because of the good that he did after he died. As you say, I should stop judging others and concentrate on myself.

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        1. When a whole organization is created around a person, it gives raise to an unavoidable problem. When there is an allegation against the organization, it gets difficult to find out if it was the mistake of the leader or the follower. Also, it becomes very difficult to separate facts from myths with just anecdotal evidence.

          The encounter groups that the article is talking about was actually quite popular at the time of Osho, even outside his organization. You can read about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-groups . Osho simply added the encounter group as a form of therapy. But we are not sure how therapists who actually led them conducted those therapies and whether they followed everything according to Osho’s instructions. But when there were such complaints about violence, Osho made changes and removed the violent aspects.

          Many such encounter therapies are now kind of out of date. It was only after 1970, many negative effects were discovered.

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    2. There may be a bit more to reincarnation than what you say. I read somewhere that Ramana said that child prodigies, for instance musicians, are continuing what they were doing in past lives. This suggests that some part of the individual mind survives the death of the body and attaches itself to a new body. I realise that this is not the same thing as the existence of an eternal individual soul.

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      1. RS – The child prodigies are entirely consistent with my closing remark on the subject, which I repeat here:

        ‘So, here is how you can think about past lives. Suppose you rent a “flat” or “apartment” and in the closet (wardrobe) you find the previous tenant has left a suit – that happens to fit you and you wear it. This suit is a continuation from the previous tenant, but there is not a real identity between him and you.’

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        1. If death is the end of our identity, then all spiritual efforts are unnecessary and pointless! There must be more to it.

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  35. A better analogy could be, as an actor you are given a role in a play and after curtain drops, a different role is given to you in a new play depending on the story line, but more importantly how effectively (or ineffectively) you played the role in the previous play.

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  36. You people are nuts. He had a realization. Atma gyan. He still not attained brahma gyan and beyond. The idiot has no hope when so stupidly trying to discuss enlightenment, enlightenment is beyond sound, it’s a transcendence, do you know what that means? You will know when you go beyond physical. Have you seen a person sitting in samadhi? He has attained. You have not! You want science to scan enlightened persons brains and give answers, that statement itself is enough to say you have not gone beyond 5th body, which is very obvious to the eyes of evolved people. You can go on your whole life trying to speak like Osho, hell, Osho was a 7th center person, so is Sadhguru, but you’re nowhere near their experience of being, you will look silly to an enlightened person’s eyes. I challenge you to visit realized beings and test. Try Nityananda for example, Nithyananda is a 7th center person, his disciples who are showcasing so called superpowers are at 6th center and you are at 5th, maybe take a visit to his Ashramm and have a talk with them, you will clearly see you’re not yet up there. I must also mention Eckhart Tolle is a 6th center person. You can’t level him with Sadhguru. See, Sadhguru has a problem of communicating and it was his conscious decision to not speak of this inner experiences. He will look silly when speaking compared to Osho, hell, anyone with average speech will look silly next to Osho. Enlightenment goes beyond sound, beyond physical, you will only find reasons to stay in your conditioning if you don’t undertsand a buddha’s silence, and that silence is available from everywhere. For your intelligence only when you evolve to higher you will understand what you have attained is a crystallization of the 5th body, not enlightenment. Your stupidity is a shame. I suggest you to first read Osho explanation of the 7 chakras, next experiment the techniques from Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, any one technique will do. every technique of those 112 will take you to the center. If you are a 6th center brahma gyani like you claim, you will have no problem doing all 112 methods, but if you are at the 5th center then you will clearly see to attain the beyond you will have to discard everything you are now and become one with that which-is. Are you man enough to take the test? You won’t be anymore when you come out of it. You will not in this life bring the names of Osho and Sadhguru for your silly conclusions again. This time are you going to read and delete my response again or you will let it pass for everyone to read?

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    1. you must be a joker.. I didn’t approve your previous comments because I know you will come back and will say the same thing again.. You sounded too defensive.. I was waiting for you to say a word and you just said it.. the word is ‘idiot’..

      I have a criteria to find out Sadhguru’s followers and admirers.. They will usually start the comment by saying “I am not a blind follower of sadhguru”.. Second, they tend to quickly and blindly use the word ‘idiot’ whenever anyone criticizes Sadhguru or even questions his claims.

      But the irony is, Sadhguru himself says that a skeptic is a true seeker: http://isha.sadhguru.org/blog/sadhguru/masters-words/skeptics-are-true-seekers/ .

      And yet, his followers tend to attack anyone who shows even a little bit of skepticism. They expect everyone to be blind yet they themselves would say “I am not being blind”.. You are not even aware of the tricks your own mind is playing against you and you are analyzing about what chakras I have reached..

      I have been very mild in this post and I haven’t even criticized Sadhguru. I just made an observation about him which is pretty clear and evident and I have just asked some questions. It is only after seeing the blind reactions of his followers, I started to actually criticize him. Seems like you haven’t seen the worst criticism about Sadhguru written by me. To start with, read this: https://www.quora.com/Is-Sadhguru-a-hoax-How-did-he-heal-his-asthma-and-ankle-fracture-in-an-hour-09-15/answer/Shanmugam-P-12

      That is Quora. You can comment there and even I myself won’t be able to delete your comments. So, go ahead. I am waiting to see the extent you will go and abuse me and personally attack me.

      Let me tell you something. I know Sadhguru is talking about ‘going beyond the physical’ when it comes to enlightenment. But enlightenment is not going beyond physical. Absolute reality is not something which is beyond physical; it is before physical. It is before everything, including the mind and the body.. It is the essence, the substratum.

      You are talking as if enlightenment is an achievement. It is the dissolution of the person who tries to achieve anything. It seems to be a journey but it is actually an inquiry to realize that there is no journey and there is no person to make a journey.

      Anyway, I know you are not going to find peace unless you continue to try to personally attack me or insult me. But that is not going to make any difference to me. But you are welcome to give it a try..

      If you are looking for more abusive words to label me with, use a dictionary or search online to find a list of abusive words.. Good luck!

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  37. Every damn thing about enlightenment have got decoded in India thousands and thousands of years ago. There’s not a single thing you can add to it if you knew the whole work done in history. Yoga is the living proof for you to experiment with it. But these silly people are blind. what they do is form a group of people on same level to discuss and make conclusions, in reality they don’t wanna know the truth themselves they only wanna hear stories from people who have known. Those who have known have clearly said there’s no way to talk about it. All the talkings are only the finger pointing at the moon, people these days look at the finger and begin to describe the beauty of the moon. This is a mental disease! Stop fooling around for fuck’s sake. Just do what I tell you. You might’ve have read many books in your life, from school books to random books til now, make the same effort to read one more book called Vigyan Bhairav Tantra. If you can complete just one technique from that book..you’re enlightened! like Buddha, like Jesus, like Osho! Only when you do the methods you will see how talking is useless for enlightenment. SO what’s your take? You want nirvana or you want stories? lol

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    1. Even though you are parroting, what you say about finger pointing to the moon is true.. Absolute reality can’t be talked about because it cannot be conceptualized in anyway. People give you pointing out instructions to point it out. But you need to understand that this only applies to absolute reality… Do you know what it is?

      Unfortunately, that is what Sadhguru doesn’t point out..He goes on talking about consecrated spaces, disembodied beings, water memory and all that but never touches the core.. He doesn’t even attempt to point it out. So you are simply repeating phrase ‘finger pointing to the moon’ that you read in some book, without understanding the significance of it…

      Since you mentioned Vigyan Bhairav Tantra (which I read about 10 years ago), let me quote a passage from Osho’s talks:

      ” My way of meditation is very simple. There are one hundred and twelve methods of meditation. Out of all of those I have chosen the most simple – the most easily done. I call it witnessing.

      The moment you witness something you become separate from it, you are the witness, the thing becomes an object – the witnessed.

      If you are walking on the road, and you are also witnessing that you are walking – not going along just like a robot, mechanical, everyday habit, the road is known, the legs know it, you can even walk with closed eyes. But walking with absolute alertness every step, every fall of a leaf, every ray of the sun, every bird flying in front of you, fully alert… slowly, slowly, you become aware that you are not the body that is walking, you are something inside which is witnessing.

      Once you have witnessed your body, you have got the knack of the method.

      Then you start witnessing your thoughts – sitting silently, just watching the rush of thoughts, not interfering, not saying, “This is good. This is bad.” Not justifying, not appreciating, no judgment… non-judgmental witnessing, just like the mirror. Anybody passes by, the mirror reflects it; that’s all, it makes no comment.

      Strangely enough, when you stop making comments on the thoughts, they begin to stop; your comments keep them alive. Once you are simply a mirrorlike witness, thoughts disappear, and you become aware of a deeper layer, of emotions, moods, which are very subtle. You are not even aware many times that you are sad. You are often not aware of what your emotional state is – it is very deep, there is a thick layer of thoughts. When thoughts have stopped, then you become aware of a very subtle breeze – and there is a great joy to see it pass. The method remains the same – you remain a witness without judgment.

      First body, second mind, third heart. And the fourth happens on its own.

      I call my way the fourth way because after the third you cannot do anything.

      Once your emotions and moods disappear, suddenly there is a quantum leap – the witness has nothing to witness anymore. It comes home. It witnesses itself. It becomes both the seer and the seen, the object and the subject, and for the first time you have unity. This experience of absolute organic unity of your consciousness has been called by different names – moksha, nirvana, liberation, enlightenment, illumination. Whatever word you choose makes no difference.

      But this is the ultimate peak, this is the ultimate goal of human life.

      So my method is very simple. You need not even sit to do it. You can do it anywhere – walking on the street, sitting in the bus, sitting in the plane, eating, even sleeping. When you are going to sleep you don’t fall asleep suddenly, it takes a few minutes; just watch how the sleep comes in. Slowly, slowly, you will see sleep coming in, and as your witnessing becomes deeper there comes a moment when you can see that the whole night you are asleep yet still alert.

      I have tried almost all one hundred and twelve methods. That list is exhaustive, there is no possibility of adding a single method more. You can make a method of combinations, but those one hundred and twelve are exhaustive.

      Out of them all I have chosen witnessing, because most of them are based on this in different ways. ”
      – The Last Testament Volume 4: Chapter 15

      What Osho called as witnessing is exactly what I practiced. Witnessing, self-inquiry, mindfulness and nididhyasana are all essentially the same, even though described differently and approached differently. It is the most direct approach and extremely powerful.

      That is exactly the reason why Ramana Maharshi advocated self-inquiry. It is a deep inquiry of every thought, experience, emotion and sensation that arise moment to moment and recognizing that none of these objects of consciousness is ‘me’ or ‘mine’.

      It is negating everything that arises in your consciousness as ‘not me’, ‘not me’ by simple recognition; not by thinking or analyzing or verbalizing it but just noticing for what it is. It is also called as ‘neti-neti’ method, which literally means ‘not this, not this’…

      If a person understands this, he really doesn’t have to bother about those 112 dharana techniques. I know the reason why you even talk about these 112 techniques. It is the influence of Adiyogi statue. Everything you say here comes from the influence of Sadhguru. You can go on parroting the phrases which have profound wisdom the same way Sadhguru parrots Osho, But if you don’t understand the real meaning of it, you just have another dogma, another philosophy and at the end, another religion.

      You suggested me a book that I have read multiple times. Let me suggest you something. Read the talks of Ramana Maharshi, he is very direct and doesn’t talk any mumbo jumbo.

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      1. Enlightenment or liberation are surely not just a matter of following the right meditation technique. Not everyone can succeed with this approach.

        The mind has to be purified first, for which purpose I believe Shankara suggested devotion to a personal God. Buddha also talked about this.

        Without fulfilling this prerequisite, one can become something like the inmates of the Pune ashram! Or the Jaggi bhakts who are filling up these columns.

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        1. Yes.. Osho has also talked about it.. There are lot of ways to go about the purification process. I have explained it in my book in detail.

          There is a book ‘Path of meditation’ by Osho in which he talked about it in detail. I read this book many years before and it was very helpful. The book is actually available for free here: http://www.baytallaah.com/bookspdf/171.pdf

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  38. Like Shanmugam, I was carried away after reading Mystic’s musings in the year 2003 and strongly believed Sadhguru is the sole redeemer of humanity! There was a time I was ready to take the plunge but luckily changed my mind. If I remember right, he has mentioned in the book that he would live only for 4 years (or so); perhaps he was talking about his subtle body! Anyway, as Shanmugam rightly put it, unless the seeker or the doubter dies i.e. “wave realizes that it is ocean itself and not separate from it”. To understand this, it is easier to follow a Guru of Upanishadic tradition, rather than the upstarts. I don’t mean to say other philosophers and thinkers have no role to play in the spiritual path. Maybe they offer the initial inspiration, but it is for the individual to pursue with the self-inquiry. We should remember the upanishadic statement that the spiritual path is like walking on the double-edged sword. There are temptations and pitfalls all the way and people tend to fall a prey to the ‘siddhis’ they gain before they achieve the ultimate goal.

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  39. That’s not a story book damn it lol don’t read it many times, just complete one technique, when you do, that’ll be the end of your obsession with sadhguru and osho

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  40. The purification process you’re talking about happens at 5th body, then there’s 6th and 7th! To know the 6th is a different dimension which you cannot put it in words you will need to experience otherwise you won’t shut up. That’s why I bring into topic the practical methods of those 112. It takes you to that state in an instant. You can stop at the verge before slipping into samadhi if you like but for fucks sake experience it! then bullshit all you want!

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    1. Dear joker, Do you really know or understand anything about what you are talking about? The purification that I am talking about is the first step, something that I was working on in the year 2002..

      Are you reading my replies to your comments at all? And did you even read this full post? Because I know that it is a typical behavior of Sadhguru followers to comment on something without fully reading or understanding it.

      You are just feeling hurt after reading things I have written about Sadhguru. In order to defend him, you are talking whatever mumbo jumbo that comes to your mind.

      Just relax and don’t let my blog to disturb your peace..

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      1. You’re saying the same dumb shit you read from Osho. What is there to read? Nobody here is ready to practically see for themselves. That is sad. and I’m not sadhguru’s follower. Don’t put your cover on me. You’re his follower, you were living in misery and went out looking for gurus, you chose sadhguru and sit in his presence. the clarity you’r now carrying is attained in his presence, you calling me Sadhguru fan? man you’re a dumbass!. I have never met sadhguru and I haven’t been to Adiyogi statue. In fact I like Osho more than you do. I have read him too but all that don’t compare to one’s own experience. then what’s there to read? I can only say experience it and everything about your perception changes overnight. This is to everyone reading. Pick a method you like from Vigyan Bharav Tantra and use it, but I warn you, it will work if you use it!

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  41. I don’t follow anyone. In fact I’m better than Osho and Sadhguru in many ways. I can beat Osho in a running race and beat Sadhguru in a swimming race lol

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  42. I live a few hours away from coimbatore. I have been wanting to visit isha for sometime and also climb velliangiri hills. I plan to visit soon. Where you from?

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    1. The post that you are commenting on now says everything, including where I was born, the places I have lived etc.. That is why I said you didn’t read the post fully.. You must have skimmed through it.

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  43. I did read your full post when I first saw it on quora, that was months ago, now I forgot, I posted to you recently because I wanted you know this is not all. Many a times I opened my eyes before slipping into samadhi because I knew if I don’t comeback from there I won’t get up again. even if I did comeback to the body I was sure my work will only be around this. Have you crossed to that side? I think no so I only urge you to go further

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    1. There is a point in seeking where seeking completely ends and the sense of a separate self completely dissolves.. After that there is no more personal journey.. Changes may still happen, the experience of reality may continue to deepen for lifetime, but it is no longer a journey of a person… Because there is no more urge to reach anything or to attain anything. After that, whatever actions that the person does is in complete synchronization with the existence itself. There is no sense of a doership at all.. The speech and action then become the expression of the existence itself. This is my reality now.

      What you are talking about is nirvikalpa samadhi. Not everyone goes through nirvikalpa samadhi (the samadhi with the loss of body consciousness)..

      The word nirvikalpa means ‘without any distinctions’. It just means the complete absence of duality. If it happens along with the loss of body consciousness, people usually call it ‘nirvikalpa samadhi’… But if a person experiences reality as nirvikalpa without losing body consciousness, it is called as sahaja samadhi. Many people reach sahaja samadhi without going through nirvikalpa samadhi. In sahaja samadhi, the person simple engages in day to day activities just like anybody else. But the big difference is that the person doesn’t sense a separate self or a sense of individuality anymore.. There is a sense of boundlessness and complete fulfilment.. nothing is lacking anymore and there is nothing to seek further… There is nothing to lose and nothing to gain at the absolute level.

      Imagine you have just had a full delicious meal at lunch and your stomach is full. Someone is telling you that free unlimited meals with your favorite dishes are being served for lunch in the restaurant across the street. Will you be tempted to go and eat there? There is a chance to go and eat in the buffet even if you feel a little bit hungry but you feel completely full.

      When you tell me that I need to reach another level, this is how it sounds.

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    1. He is talking about the very basics of mindfulness, something that is really basic and preliminary that helps a person to get a glimpse… He is just describing a practice and how to do it.. And this is exactly what I recommend to people as well; not just watching the breath alone but everything, including thoughts, emotions and sensations while being fully present and available to them and while being completely detached and non-judgemental… It is the same practice that I did for years. I integrated it into my daily life instead of doing such practices by sitting eyes closed. In other words, I was practicing mindfulness all the time no matter what I was doing, instead of doing it just 20 minutes a day. It became a 24/7 thing sometime during April or May 2014 and it helped me to get completely established as a witness.

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  45. So you live in witness state and the whole time I was mentioning a state where losing the witness happens? So I was right when I said you have not known the whole, and there’s no hurry to go all the way because I tell you to, I only felt you have not known what Osho or Sadhguru did and I was right, isn’t it lol

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    1. I am talking about something that happened in 2014. I can’t call it as a witness state or any state now…. I have to mention the word ‘witness’ to distinguish it from the the state that most of the people live in. But as far as I am concerned, there is no need for any description.

      This is the problem with words. Language is dualistic. I never have any urge to describe me to myself or even think about me, as a personal self. The word ‘I’ is only used for communication. I never mentally say ‘i’.. I am not sure if you understand.

      Let me state a metaphor. A ball of sugar jumps inside a pot of water and it takes on a journey to absorb as much water as it can. It becomes smaller and smaller as time goes by until it is fully dissolved one day… Once the ball has completely disappeared, is there anymore journey for that ball? The sugar molecules which were in the ball are still there in the water, they may still undergo changes. But do those changes belong to the original sugar ball? The sugar ball is the person you think you are and the water is the existence… In a way, the sugar ball has now become water. But to be more precise and exact, the sugar ball is not there anymore. There are no clear boundaries between the sugar ball and the water. Another way of saying this would be that sugar ball and the water is one and the same now.

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  46. lol you’re right about that, and I still say to you there is one more, you will know when you get there, that day will come

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    1. I am not interested in Jaggi’s jargon. And, clearly, he has not made you a happy or peaceful person. When I look at the posts here, I can almost hear you shouting and screaming!

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  47. Re: RSC’s comments on purification of mind – Adi Shankara’s Vivekachudamani says it all! Sadhana Chatusthaya Sampatti or the four prequalification is essential to even inter into the spiritual field. Of these four, ‘mumukshutva’ is highlighted as the most essential qualification, even if the other 3 are not in full measure. It may be noted that this is not prescribed by Adi Shankara on his own – he never fails to acknowledge that all his teachings are based on the ‘handbook’ of the humanity, the Vedas and Upanishads and that he never takes credit for any particular theory as propounded by himself, unlike Osho, Sadhguru, etc.

    The analogies of ‘waves and ocean’, ‘salt doll and ocean’ etc. are nothing new. Everything is contained in the Upanishads. It is strange that people who call themselves ‘enlightened’ or ‘awakened’ are still skeptical that Vedas are eternal and they are revelations. Even if we think that they are the collection of thought-patterns of great Rishis, why don’t we accept them as timeless. The awakening should lead us to the truth not only that there is no doer or individual, but this ever-changing phenomenal creation is illusory and cyclical. The technique prescribed in Osho’s book ‘The Path of Meditation’ is not new; it can be found in the Vedas. People call it new technique or inner engineering but there is nothing that our scriptures has not covered. It is agreed however that these days people have no time to study them. Therefore, if someone says he doesn’t believe in Sashtras or scriptures, we could only conclude it as a political statement.

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  49. Hi Shanmugam. I could also relate to a lot of the experiences you have shared and really appreciate how you tried to summarize the changes within you with such honesty. I often think I should pen down my experiences but every single time it feels like I’m climbing a mountain that gets taller with each step I take.
    Perhaps I’m the very step and I’m the very mountain.

    Goodluck.

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      1. Humans like Animals,Birds and Plants Get Born and Die.In Between They Ensure Their “Survival” and “Reproduce ” Nature. In the Infinite Universe, There Seems, No More to “Humans Story” than this. So What are All These Talks of Self Awareness etc. Aren’t They Mere “Human Constructs”. If One Pacifies His/Her “Reactive” Thoughts and Emotions, You May Put Him/Her in the Category of “Enlightened People”. Or, Is there any Other Bench Mark For That? As it is, With 5 Perceptory Senses , How Can Humans Ever Know, Realise or Understand Infinite Universe. This Gap Between 5 Senses and Infinte Universe Around Us,Creates All Such Phenomenon,Including “Awareness”. Your View Please on This ??

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  50. Bro, if you haven’t experienced anything paranormal, not even stuff like auras then it means you should meditate more. I’m observing something: you somehow tend to think that you already went through some great transformation, you even talk about enlightenment… You give the impression that you think you are close to enlightenment(if not already enlightened). You have even started writing books!
    Please continue your seeking… don’t fall into the mind’s trap.
    It’s okay to criticize Sadhguru and Osho and anyone else, it’s good to point out their mistakes or bad parts and ask for correction and at the same time show their good parts so that the presentation is balanced. Any seeker should select what’s useful and helpful to him, and doubt and seek until truth is known by experience.

    I also find some of the Sadhguru’s claims stupid, and the fact that he parrots Osho is noticeable to anyone who is familiar with Osho’s work. Indeed it’s a strong indicator of something being wrong.

    About Osho though, although I know that you wanted to criticize him just to keep a balance so that people don’t think you biased towards him…

    You wanted to criticise (and that’s fine!) so anything would do. Cool. But I want to criticize this particular criticism, because it’s obviously not right:
    “But just read what he said about the same man later, when it seemed like Nostrademus predictions about a great future teacher fit with Osho:”
    I can see that although you’ve read a lot of Osho, you’ve got this wrong. :)) haha, how could you not see that it’s a play? What you’re saying is essentially the same as saying “He wanted Rolls Royces because he was a megalomaniac.” This interpretation is superficial. And it’s fine, because Osho wanted superficial people to hate him or ignore him. (I’m not saying you are superficial, I’m saying most people who come up with such criticisms are superficial – it’s a general statement about people who just heard a little about Osho, I’m not including you in this category.)
    Just look at the play 🙂 :
    2sept 1975:
    “Yoga – The Alpha and the Omega vol6 , Question 8
    PADMASAMBHAVA SAYS, “WHEN THE IRON BIRD FLIES, THE DHARMA WILL COME TO THE LAND OF THE RED MAN.” IS IT PART OF YOUR WORK TO FULFILL THE PROPHECY?

    I am not here to fulfill anybody’s prophecy. And why should I? It may be Padmasambhava’s trip, but why should he force his trip on me? I am here to be myself. I am not a prophet, and I am not here to deliver somebody from their sins. I am not here to bring an age of religion. All these things are mediocre and stupid.
    I enjoy myself. If you want to enjoy yourself you can share my delight, that’s all. To me, life is not a very serious affair. Prophets take life very seriously. Saints are innocent! Prophets? — always dangerous. Buddha is not a prophet; in fact India has not produced prophets. Prophets are a particular phenomenon of Judaism. Saints we have produced — millions -but they are innocent people. Like flowers you delight in — not of much use. Prophets are in fact politicians in religion. They are to change the whole world; they have a mission to fulfill and do this and that.
    I have no mission; I am not a missionary. I would like a world without missionaries and without prophets, so that people can be left to live their own lives. Prophets never allow. They are always after you — with judgement. They are always after you — with ideas to be followed, comparison. They are always there to throw you in hell or award you by heaven.
    I have nothing — no hell to throw you in and no heaven to give you — just a delight of being. And that is possible, simply possible. If you allow it to happen it is possible.
    To me, life is not a serious affair. In fact life is nothing but a gossip in the eternity of existence, a gossip. I am gossiping here; you are listening, that’s all. If you enjoy you are here. If I enjoy I am here. If it becomes difficult to enjoy each other, we separate — no other bondage.
    And I don’t allow anybody — he may even be a Padmasambhava — to lay his trap on me.”

    20 May 1987:
    “I can see as clearly as Nostradamus:

    I predict that Gorbachev is going to succeed in bringing the second and greater revolution to Russia, and his revolution in the Soviet Union is going to affect everything in the whole world.”

    And the prophecy failed!
    Also the other prophecies he made also failed. He was making fun, that’s all. And his contradictions are a masterpiece, a work of art in itself – you can’t make anything out of them , but if you can feel this play then it’s such a song…
    Dimensions Beyond the Known Chapter 6 is an interesting read (it’s related to this discussion).

    In my opinion the current day psychology and neuroscience are not even worth to be called children’s toys… https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4938249/ “Failure to Replicate: Sound the Alarm”
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1182327/ “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False”
    one can google and read more about “neuroscience replication crysis” , “psychology replication crysis” , “Most scientists ‘can’t replicate studies by their peers'” …
    https://qz.com/603356/why-scientific-studies-cant-be-reproduced/ “When it came to light that the biotechnology firm Amgen tried to reproduce 53 ‘landmark’ cancer studies and managed to confirm only six, scientists were ‘shocked.'”
    http://wmbriggs.com/post/16092/ “Lancet Editor: Half Of Science Is Wrong. An Underestimate?”

    Yeah, it’s cool that they’re discovering the brain’s plasticity and other very interesting phenomena linked to Awareness Practice(Meditation), but the whole ground on which we are doing science today is a bit shaky… the foundation is not very stable – not because of science itself but because of people. Most scientists are prejudiced, as they are people and people are limited by their own psychology and by their own conditionings…
    I mean, look at the monumental work that is being done by Dean Radin and how he is being pushed around. Look at what happened to Rupert Sheldrake when he was censored at TED… scientists are UNENLIGHTENED human beings. Unless that changes, I don’t expect them to discover much in the area of meditation.

    “When we do an experiment like that, we get a very strong result. Keep in mind that a 5 sigma was able to give CERN the Nobel Prize for finding the Higgs particle which turned out not to be Higgs after all. We’ve got a 5 sigma result too but I haven’t heard from the Nobel Prize commitee yet.” (Dean Radin)

    Perhaps the most interesting finding was that certain individuals proved to be significantly more successful at influencing the photons’ behaviour. The unique factor in these individuals was that almost all of them were highly experienced in either meditation or some kind of attentional training. Since Radin presented these findings at the Science of Consciousness conference they have since gained quite a bit of attention. They seem to suggest that mind is continuous with the world in a way that poses a serious challenge to the assumption that mind/consciousness is insignificant to the structure of reality. The only problem was that the effect had not yet been replicated by independent scientists. That was, until now. In recently published experiments, conducted by the physicist Gabriel Guerrer Ph.D. at the University of São Paulo, the apparent mind over matter effect has been observed once again, and with similarly high statistical significance.
    Just as observed previously by Radin and his colleagues, Guerrer found that participants are able reduce the wave distribution of photons in a double-slit system, simply by directing their attention towards it.
    According to Guerrer this effect points to “a not yet mapped form of interaction between a conscious agent and a physical system”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyC8csY5oxM DEAN RADIN – TABOO WOO WOO SCIENCE
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKHUaNAxsTg Rupert Sheldrake – The Science Delusion BANNED TED TALK

    So I think an individual like you is very important – we need persons who are interested in Science AND Meditation. Please send me an email, I’ll also send you an emai at borris83[at]gmail.com

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    1. Dear friend,

      The first question anyone should ask when he/she is seeking enlightenment is, ‘Why am I seeking enlightenment?’… Because, the answer for your comment lies in that question. People seek enlightenment or anything for that matter because by default their thought processes are inclined towards seeking something. The mind is nothing but a movement from present to future in the dimension of psychological time. When you are out of psychological time, it is impossible to seek anything that is in the future. You are asking me to seek. But why should I seek? This may be easily interpreted as arrogance but it is not. I am simply telling you the truth. My seeking has ended. I can’t think of future anymore as I used to and I can’t even sense psychological time. I simply live my life in the Now and enjoy its beauty. Again, let me repeat. It is not that I don’t want to seek…It is simply impossible. And seeing an aura and not seeing an aura absolutely makes no difference to me at all!

      The problem with enlightenment is that it is stereotyped too much. People have ideas about enlightenment simply by observing a few people that they are convinced as enlightened. If the only bird you know is a crow, then you may not accept a dove as a bird when you see it the first time, because it is white. This is how we create concepts in our mind starting from our childhood. I have a one-year-old son and I show him various birds every day on the balcony. But most probably he understands everything as ‘crow’ because that is the only word he is familiar with. So right now, the concept of a crow that he may have in his mind is ‘anything that flies!’… Another example is a little tiger; a little tiger’s concept of a food is ‘anything that moves’.. Only as it grows up, it is able to discriminate between an animal that can be eaten and anything that moves.

      This also applies your opinion about scientists and enlightened people. You are stereotyping scientists based on a few scientists that you have observed but you don’t even know them personally. For many people, the word ‘scientist’ probably conjures up an image of an arrogant guy who lacks emotions and feelings and who thinks that he knows everything. That is not true at all. A scientist is simply a human being like you and me who uses the scientific method for his research, that’s it! There are scientists who are atheists, theists, poets, lovers, meditators, assholes and more.. You can be a scientist and a poet at the same time!

      Let me suggest you to go through the following links:
      https://nellaishanmugam.wordpress.com/osho-on-mystical-experiences-visions-and-miracles/
      http://qr.ae/TUT7CF
      http://qr.ae/TUT7CP

      Reading those links may give you some idea and also address a few things that you have said in your comment. Don’t worry about my ‘criticism’ on Osho. Osho will be perfectly ok with what I said. 🙂

      “Most scientists are prejudiced, as they are people and people are limited by their own psychology and by their own conditioning…”

      Let us divide that into two parts: “Most scientists are prejudiced” – are you really sure? 🙂 If you say, most human beings are prejudiced, that is different. The point I am making here is that scientists are human beings. A spiritual seeker who is meditating for the past 5 years also has his own prejudice, and it usually includes prejudice about scientists.

      “People are limited by their own psychology and by their own conditioning” – This applies to everyone who is not yet out of psychological time and the sense of a separate self. Nothing can be done about it! One of the things that this blog is attempting to do is to strengthen the bridge between science and spirituality. I have seen scientists who are interested in this and it will gradually happen over the coming decades.

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      1. Thank you for the reply 🙂
        Your reply is complementary to my comment, we’re not in any disagreement.
        By the way, when I said “don’t stop seeking” , it is simply because I have observed in my experience that there is some visual phenomena linked to the awareness practice – and I’m not even close to getting enlightened. Of course, it might be some kind of problem with my eyes : exactly when I meditate more deeply the vision afterwards becomes more clear. It might not be an aura at all, cuz I see it on ordinary objects too – but this visual phenomena is certainly linked to meditation, I’ve tested this numerous times. (I honestly think that what I’m seeing is a kind of energy but not very subtle.)
        This phenomena is an indication to me that the hypothesis of “paranormal” visions being possible after becoming an experienced meditator is plausible. So as far as I’m concerned it’s worth investigating further.

        The thing is, if you’re not seeking any more, then how can you do science? Science is a seeking, isn’t it ? (“isn’t it” :))) )

        I’ll check out the links :)I think you’ll like this one: http://sci-hub.tw/10.1089/acm.2013.0182

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        1. I won’t be surprised at all if someone says that they see visuals or hear sounds in meditation. It happens.. But it doesn’t happen to everyone.. It simply depends on your nature and nurture.

          When I say my seeking has ended, I am talking about a personal seeking. You can reread my comment and understand what I said about psychological time. Seeking is a very generic term. It is very important to understand what a word means by applying it to the context. I think this post will give you a clear idea: https://nellaishanmugam.wordpress.com/2017/12/05/what-is-spiritual-enlightenment/

          For me, whatever actions I do just seems to be flowing without any resistance, similar to skiing from the top of the mountain. And whatever I do, I simply enjoy doing them.

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        3. Yeah… saying “I am seeking” is wrong, and saying “I am not seeking” is also wrong, there’s no way to describe something with accuracy (especially when the discussion is about subjective experiences) and a word can have many interpretations and nuances… About the same thing we can make two contradictory assertions and both of them might be half correct, from different angles – what matters is that we try to listen to what the speaker/writer is trying to convey, and leave prejudices aside.

          Right now I’m reading through this https://www.quora.com/Is-Sadhguru-a-hoax-How-did-he-heal-his-asthma-and-ankle-fracture-in-an-hour-09-15/answer/Shanmugam-P-12?share=01716a3b&srid=hJCJi and indeed, I observed myself that Sadhguru is beating around the bush, he can’t offer the Essence of Enlightenment, he can parrot things and intelligently talk about certain subjects – I also appreciated many of the things he said and did. But then he also talks very stupidly about scientific discoveries he doesn’t understand, he uses wrong terminology and confuses things up – that only shows cunningness and ignorance because it’s obvious he doesn’t know what he’s talking about(but he thinks he does). He doesn’t practice what he preaches “What I know I know, what I don’t know I don’t know.”. I love him as a human being, I appreciate his beauty and intelligence, but why the hell is he not honest, why is he cunning ? That, I can’t appreciate. Why the fuck does he keep talking about paranormal shit without giving proofs, and at the same time ignoring the essence of spirituality ? (this leads people astray)
          Btw, it’s time that chemists go and see how real that solidified mercury is, and make a report on it. Any idea whether such a report has been done or not?
          His criticism of Zen is just stupid, that “it doesn’t work for all people”, and that “cutting the finger as in that zen story, will only make people crippled and nothing more” – but where the fuck does Zen say that people have to cut their fingers? It only happened once, it was a spontaneous happening and someone got enlightened through it!

          Now something personal: I personally don’t like the look of those Shiva statues built by him/his people. I don’t find them a good piece of art, objective art, they look a bit cartoonish . I might be wrong, I’m not a master, I’m just expressing my subjective feeling about these statues.

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          1. Yes.. As you see, the essence of enlightenment is completely missing in his talks.. Even though he says the right thing once in a while (with lack of depth, of course), the overall impression that a person gets after listening to him for years would be totally contradictory to what enlightenment really is…

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      2. Hello Sir,

        I have started meditation 1 month ago(After watching Sandeep Maheshwari video), by putting earplugs and have concentration on sound of silence..After few days, I have started feeling good..then I came to know about Kundalini,I saw lot many video regarding it. one day during meditation, I have started concentrating on Breath, then on body parts like hand/Fingers , then I focused on the lower part of my spine..I have started feeling sensation, Suddenly I felt that I have no hands etc and pumping rate of heart increased..I immediately plugged out earplugs and stopped meditation..Since then I have created fear regarding doing dhyan etc.My questions are –

        1.Was there something fundamentally wrong with my technique?
        2.Is it necessary to do meditation under guidance of a proper guru?
        3.What should I do next ?

        Thanks !

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  51. When you will experience enlightment, you will know. For me it was similar to what Osho explained, I was all alone in my home, just finished reading a book about the end of the world (all the people died in it at the end) and feeling abandoned, completely and utterly alone. Then, as a furniture caught the corner of my eye, I realized that the furniture was part of me, was me; in shock, I went upstairs and gazed at a tree in my yard and the tree was also me; then, everything I could think of – but it is a mis-characterisation, as there was no thought, was me – I was everything and nothing at the same time, everything was and wasn’t at the same time – for instance, truth, everything was and was not true at the same time. At this point, I got really scared and started crying, and then I exploded, in milions and bilions of particles, one of which, luckily, was the separated me I still identify with. I once read that when you find God, God slips through your hands like grains of sand – and that’s because this entity that “I” was existed and not existed at the same time. This was quite some time ago, in 2011. The experience was triggered by me missing my loved one, and I had no previous experience with meditation before, and didn’t meditate afterwards either.

    I am also an avid reader of Osho – did you see the Netflix documentary of his american period? It is called “Wild Wild Country”.

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  53. This blog is great!
    My line of thought would be like this
    I respect Sadhguru and know that he is enlightened,
    With this, I would try to find what can be the reason for sadhguru not making a single statement about Osho. There must be some strong reason that I can’t see due to limited instruments. Sadhguru’s goal is to take the world on wellness-happy path and not give credit to Osho. And I am sure even Osho may not be bothered either.
    We very easily start making judgments, but I believe we should atleast spare such beings.

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  54. After reading your article again, I think that Rajneesh only read a lot and his talks and writings were based on his understanding of what he had read (which was probably quite good). And it seems to me there was no ethical component in his teachings; consequently, his followers felt free to do all sorts of things, both in Pune and in Oregon. I’m sure he didn’t care.

    But if he (through his books) induced a transformation in you, that should certainly be appreciated.

    About Jaggi, I can’t comment because I have only seen a little of him on TV, which was quite impressive, and have read your experiences and assessment. But if he asks people to call him Sadhguru, I’m sure he isn’t one.

    If we compare these two with Ramakrishna or Ramana we see a world of difference.

    About the possibility of scientific study of enlightenment: there are things which can’t be verified. For instance, you say the future doesn’t bother you. There is no way to prove or disprove that!

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    1. Osho explained that ethics imposed from outside doesn’t work… the person can only pretend, but he will not be moral. At any time the repressed negativity and violence can burst out and that proves that the morality was only a facade.
      Osho aimed for real morality, he said that morality is real when it blossoms from your heart. Morality cannot be triggered by threat or by nor by promising pleasures in heaven. Therefore he tried to make people moral by sharing his heart and understanding and thus making people meditative.
      Please in the future before commenting about Osho/Rajneesh, first study him and try to grasp his vision. He is really good at explaining, he was perhaps the most patient man on the earth. He loved humanity so much that he chose to sacrifice even his health in order to convey his message. One who really wants to understand, should have no difficulties: Osho has done the difficult part already… one just has to be a little open, a little unprejudiced.
      One who is meditative is sensible, is loving, he is naturally moral. He does not need rules to obey any more, his heart is his moral guide.

      “If we compare these two with Ramakrishna or Ramana we see a world of difference.”
      Ramana and Ramakrishna were also worlds apart 🙂 They were very different individuals. But Ramakrishna and Ramana didn’t steal or imitate others, like Sadhguru is doing for his own egoistic interests.

      “But if he asks people to call him Sadhguru, I’m sure he isn’t one.” that’s not enough information to decide whether he’s trying to help people or not. It becomes obvious that he is not trying to help anybody when you listen how he lies to his own people and how he pretends to be something that he is not.

      “For instance, you say the future doesn’t bother you. There is no way to prove or disprove that!” There are ways… one can stay with Shanmugam and observe him whether he is peaceful or not. If he is not peaceful, if he’s tense and he feels miserable, this is an indication that he is being bothered by the future. It’s difficult to pretend 24/24, if one is only acting he will be caught (like Sadhguru was).

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      1. I agree with a lot of your reply. Especially the last paragraph; I’m surprised that it didn’t occur to me. But I’m not sure the super-scientific types would accept it. They could always find some objection.

        Ethics imposed from outside doesn’t work, but every society needs a police force. The activities of the Rajneesh sannyasis were, to put it mildly, strange. I don’t see how he could have been unaware of these things.

        I don’t dispute that he was patient and good at explaining. Some, like Shanmugam, benefited from his teachings and reached the goal or got close to it. But even Shanmugam has pointed out some things (in his essay above) which suggest that Rajneesh had a need to feel superior.

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        1. “I don’t see how he could have been unaware of these things.”
          If you research more about Osho you’ll see that he did his best to explain that he is not a father figure, he is not saviour, he can share his experience but one has to walk on the path on his own. Also, people (including sannyasins) were doing many idiotic things over the years… you can just read or listen to the videos to see how Osho responded in all these situations.

          ” Just a few days ago Doctor Shyam Singha came from London. He was once my disciple, but because he was doing things which are absolutely against humanity, sincerity, truth – he was exploiting people in my name – I had to expel him from the sannyas movement. He was moving around the world, telling sannyasins that he can do this, he can do that and all that he can do is to manage to take as much money from people as possiand then what will happen ? They wble. He was exploiting on every excuse in the name of healing, in the name of opening your chakras, in the name of raising your kundalini, in the name of cleansing your past life and its evil effects…!

          When so many people reported that he was exploiting simple people I had to debar him and announce in the papers that he does not belong to the sannyas movement.” http://oshosearch.net/Convert/Articles_Osho/Om_Shantih_Shantih_Shantih/Osho-Om-Shantih-Shantih-Shantih-00000006.html

          If some idiots get near Buddha or Krishna , they will still be idiots! The presence of the master can be helpful only to those who are really thirsty and who are doing efforts on their own… and where to find such thirsty people? They are not so many. And on the other side are those politically minded who will find ways to exploit: even in the name of Osho. Even in the name of Christ, even in the name of the Divine, they will exploit people. And it’s easier to exploit in the name of an authentic master, because people will think you are in the service of good. “Sheela is Osho’s secretary, she must be doing something great. She is a goddess!!” And although Osho had been talking for over 30 years continously against organized religions, many sannyasins fell into Sheela’s trap when she tried to create an organized religion in Osho’s name. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/de/6b/9f/de6b9fb50168a157d63eae597c92fc6d.jpg
          “All ideologies are prisons. I teach you to beware of them – my ideology included.”

          Sheela got rid of the mature minority and exploited the majority of sannyasins which were not so mature… That’s how she succeeded: she used all the political devices possible, she acted in the dirtiest ways possible.

          We are bound to fall into the traps of such politicians because we are not yet mature. Seeing the situation…. If you were Osho, what would you do? Would you start transforming sannyasins into sheep and become their shepherd who protects them? Would that bring maturity into humans? Would that be of any help ?!?!?!?!?!

          That’s what people want… they want someone to protect them, to do everything for them, you just have to believe in him.. But this is what Osho has criticized his whole life, his approach is completely the opposite!

          He meditated and shared his vision and his friends who loved him (the sannyasins) worked to implement the vision. They built Rajneeshpuram, after that they invited him to the newly built city. Osho was never the manager of the city. Yes, he could have managed everything, but what would be the use??! Soon he will die, what will happen then? If he was the manager who protected his innocent sheep from all “evil” people then they won’t grow at all, they won’t be sannyasins, they will never be swamis, they will just be stupid sheep who listen to “the great leader”. And after his death there will be a great religion with a great leading pope at the head of it….. and crowds of followers and believers… it would have been a calamity.

          With immature people no matter what you do, they will screw it up. What Osho did was to help us realize how we screw it up. And that is very useful and valuable because just listening to someone talking about “meditation” and about how religions exploit us and about how unconscious we are… is not enough. We will think we’re smart and awake because we acknowledge the wise man’s words. In our dreaming state we’ll think we’re awake. And that’s exactly what happened at Rajneeshpuram. They started dreaming and they fucked it up. This experience is very valuable.
          In a way it’s good that it happened during Osho’s life . Just think about it. He destroyed the religion of Rajneeshism, he burnt all the books of “rajneeshism”.
          Sheela just did what others would have done anyway, and she did it in the craziest way possible. Are we able to learn something from this experience or not? Do we still dream that father Osho should have protected us ?!? And then??!! After his death any Sheela can come and create a religion in Osho’s name, and because we respect “father Osho” we’ll easily fall into these crazy people’s traps!

          Sheela managed to do cursades during Osho’s life. Can you imagine what cursades these people would do if the religion appeared after Osho’s death?

          All this evil stuff, is IN THE NAME OF OSHO, but it has nothing to do with Osho. It’s a consequence of our stupidity, nothing else. But how can we get rid of our stupidy if we can’t see that it represents the cause to all evil? We blame the cause to something else, we blame it to “Osho who didn’t save us”… “Osho who let the bad things happen….” <- if he didn't let them happen you wouldn't even be aware that these things happen! And they would certainly happen after his death!

          The dimensions Osho has managed to reveal and to teach us are so wide…

          "BELOVED OSHO, THE FRUIT FALLS ON THE GROUND WHEN IT IS RIPE. ONE DAY, YOU WILL LEAVE US, AND IT WILL BE IMPOSSIBLE TO HAVE ANOTHER MASTER IN YOUR PLACE. HOW CAN ANYBODY ELSE BE THE SUBSTITUTE FOR THE MASTER OF MASTERS? OSHO, WHEN YOU LEAVE THE PHYSICAL BODY, WILL YOUR MEDITATION TECHNIQUES HELP OUR INNER GROWTH AS THEY DO NOW?

          My approach to your growth is basically to make you independent of me.

          Any kind of dependence is a slavery, and the spiritual dependence is the worst slavery of all.

          I have been making every effort to make you aware of your individuality, your freedom, your absolute capacity to grow without any help from anybody. Your growth is something intrinsic to your being. It does not come from outside; it is not an imposition, it is an unfolding.

          All the meditation techniques that I have given to you are not dependent on me — my presence or absence will not make any difference — they are dependent on you. It is not my presence, but your presence that is needed for them to work.

          It is not my being here but your being here, your being in the present, your being alert and aware that is going to help.

          I can understand your question and its relevance. It is not irrelevant.

          The whole past of man is, in different ways, a history of exploitation. And even the so- called spiritual people could not resist the temptation to exploit. Out of a hundred masters, ninety-nine percent were trying to impose the idea that, "Without me you cannot grow, no progress is possible. Give me your whole responsibility."

          But the moment you give your whole responsibility to somebody, unknowingly you are also giving your whole freedom.

          And naturally, all those masters had to die one day, but they have left long lines of slaves:

          Christians, Jews, Hindus, Mohammedans. What are these people? Why should somebody be a Christian? If you can be someone, be a Christ, never be a Christian. Are you absolutely blind to the humiliation when you call yourself a Christian, a follower of someone who died two thousand years ago?

          The whole of humanity is following the dead. Is it not weird that the living should follow the dead, that the living should be dominated by the dead, that the living should depend on the dead and their promises that `We will be coming to save you.'?

          None of them has come to save you. In fact, nobody can save anybody else; it goes against the foundational truth of freedom and individuality.

          As far as I am concerned, I am simply making every effort to make you free from everybody — including me — and to just be alone on the path of searching.

          This existence respects a person who dares to be alone in the seeking of truth. Slaves are not respected by existence at all. They do not deserve any respect; they don't respect themselves, how can they expect existence to be respectful towards them?

          So remember, when I am gone, you are not going to lose anything. Perhaps you may gain something of which you are absolutely unaware.

          Right now I am available to you only embodied, imprisoned in a certain shape and form.

          When I am gone, where can I go? I will be here in the winds, in the ocean; and if you have loved me, if you have trusted me, you will feel me in a thousand and one ways. In your silent moments you will suddenly feel my presence.

          Once I am unembodied, my consciousness is universal. Right now you have to come to me.

          Then, you will not need to seek and search for me. Wherever you are… your thirst, your love… and you will find me in your very heart, in your very heartbeat. "
          http://oshosearch.net/Convert/Articles_Osho/Beyond_Enlightenment/Osho-Beyond-Enlightenment-00000011.html

          Being near Buddha won't make you a Buddha… being near Einstein will not make you Einstein, but will almost certainly make you feel egoistic and proud "Look how great I am ! Einstein knows everything. Einstein has super powers.".. . … .

          "The activities of the Rajneesh sannyasis were, to put it mildly, strange. " The activities of some of them, were strange! Because they were people born in this mad society… they had complexes and ambitions and all kinds of problems. Do you think that just by wearing red and going to an ashram you will be changed? You can change yourself, but you need courage. If you don't have that daring… then you'll start imagining things and you'll start dreaming and you'll exploit yourself and other people.
          Another thing is, Osho has been doing his work in the open, he gave everyone a chance, he trusted the universe and the human intelligence, and as far as I can see this way he has reached to more people than anybody else. He has helped more people than anybody else… ; now naturally, when you do such activities in the open , not in secrecy, all kinds of idiots will appear and will distort and will do all kinds of mischief.
          But note that if you don't pay attention to these few idiots… you will see that many of the sannyasins were beautiful people who did wonderful things and who transformed their lives.
          I mean, just look at the balance: do these few stupid people like Sheela and their stupid acts weight more than the love of the real sannyasins and the light and the meditation Osho has spread in the world? 🙂 These stupid people would have acted the same, regardless of Osho. Sheela was raped in her youth… so in a way she is also a victim of this society. It's the vicious sickness that has perpetuated itself. Now, it's absolutely absurd to blame the bad acts (which are consequences of this ill society) on the man who tried his best to bring healing to this society! He has not only taught meditation, he has also worked hard to uncondition people and to bring a new vision that can heal the world.

          " While I was in silence, Sheela has compiled a book, THE BOOK OF RAJNEESHISM, which I am going to tell them to make a good bonfire. Then they burn it, they will invite you all, because with that book we are burning the whole idea of "ism". I don't want my people to be like any other ideology — communism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism. That was my whole standpoint from the very beginning. I want them to be on their own, individuals — free. no holy scripture for them, no system of beliefs for them, no god for them to pray, no messiah or savior for them to surrender to — because all these things have destroyed humanity in the past.

          Q: BUT WHAT ABOUT ALL THE REST OF YOUR BOOKS? YOU'VE GOT LOTS OF THEM.

          A: Those books are simply books, not holy books.

          Q: HOW ARE THEY DIFFERENT?

          A: They are different. Holy books pretend some speciality; they are from God.

          Holy books are lies. They are just books as we are, just human beings. I am not a savior or a prophet or a messenger of God or the only begotten son of God; I am as human as you are. My books are simply books as other books; no speciality is claimed for them. But Sheela had created a book which is just her own creation.

          While I was in isolation she compiled it from here and there from my books; added something of her own, deleted something. And she was trying to create a religion — and this is not a religion in that sense. It is simply a way of life. A kind of religiousness is there, but only as a quality. you cannot label it, you cannot name it.

          So I am going to destroy every possibility that can again in my absence bring the same type of fascism into my peoples' minds. "
          http://oshosearch.net/Convert/Articles_Osho/The_Last_Testament_Volume_3/Osho-The-Last-Testament-Volume-3-00000005.html

          "But even Shanmugam has pointed out some things (in his essay above) which suggest that Rajneesh had a need to feel superior."
          That's Shanmugam's projection (I think he just wanted to joke and to make people less fanatical about Osho) … I already told him that it's unleathy to spread such false ideas about Osho. I hope now he will see how his projection has created this idea in you about Osho. Actually you might have carried this idea beforehand and now you're taking what Shanmugam said as a confirmation…

          Osho has nothing to do with "I am superior" or "I am inferior" kind of things 🙂 His whole life and standpoint and Being is totally unrelated to such things. Of course, you can project on him anything, but it has nothing to do with him….

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          1. In Oregon, Rajneesh’s followers plotted to poison a town’s water supply. I think this was unethical and Rajneesh had some responsibility.

            Projection? Shanmugam reported what he read in Rajneesh’s books and heard in his recorded talks.

            Rajneesh wrote well. After his death, people who never met him consider him an enlightened being.

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            1. “That′s why I have said that I am responsible for whatever happened – because you are fast asleep. You are not alert, aware; you live like a somnambulist, walking in your sleep. How can you say that you are responsible for it all? Neither can I say Sheela and her group are responsible. They belong to the same category as you. They just had power and in their sleep they did whatever sleep allows you to do. You had no power, you followed them, because what can a sleeper do? So the whole responsibility is basically mine. I should not have gone into silence and isolation.
              But it has been a great experiment, and a great experience that a man like me should not leave you alone in the hands of people who are just like you.
              The law, perhaps, may not allow it, but this is my deepest longing: that Sheela and her group should be forgiven, and if any punishment is needed they should give it to me. Only I am responsible, because I went into silence. I had never thought that silence can lead to such calamity.”
              (Osho – From Bondage to Freedom #6)

              https://www.satrakshita.com/osho_on_the_rajneeshpuram_falldown.htm

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            2. ” This nightmare happened only because I was silent for three and a half years. When I said this to a journalist, he immediately responded, “That means you are responsible for it.”

              I said, “Certainly. I am responsible for Adolf Hitler, because why was I not born in Germany at that time? I am responsible for every criminal in the world because why was I not there to prevent him?

              I was not silent to give an opportunity to Sheela to create a fascist regime. My reason to be silent was my own. But certainly it gave her an opportunity, and she forgot completely that she was only there to represent me.”

              She must have been thinking that I am going to be silent forever. The moment I started feeling that something was going wrong, I came back. ” http://oshosearch.net/Convert/Articles_Osho/From_Bondage_to_Freedom/Osho-From-Bondage-to-Freedom-00000008.html

              ” QUESTION:* TODAY YOU BLAMED SANNYASINS FOR HAVING CREATED
              A SHEELA AND HER GANG. ISN’T THAT TOO EASY? WHY DON’T YOU
              BLAME YOURSELF AS WELL? AFTER ALL, SHEELA WAS ONE OF YOUR
              CLOSEST SANNYASINS FOR MANY YEARS.

              ANSWER:* I blame myself not only for Sheela but for Adolf Hitler too, for Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Nadir Shah, Napoleon Bonaparte, Alexander the Great, Ivan the Terrible. I blame for all myself, because I am part of this existence.

              Anything that happens here, in some way or other I am connected with it.

              And you are wrong that I have not blamed myself.

              Q:* HOW DID YOU BLAME YOURSELF? COULD YOU EXPLAIN IT?

              A:* No, because just I was silent. Not to be in it is not enough to be innocent. I was not in it, but it would not have happened if I was not silent.

              I was silent for my own reason. I was not silent for Sheela and her gang. I was silent for my own reasons. I always wanted to remain silent for a long period. I was not even yet willingly ready to speak again. It was just seeing the situation, I have to come out of silence.

              So certainly I blame myself, but not only for Sheela. If my being silent I am responsible for Sheela, then not being born in Germany while Hitler was there, I am responsible. The same logic.

              Q:* YOU MEAN THAT SERIOUSLY?

              A:* Seriously? Why I was not born in Germany while Hitler was there? Then I am the criminal for the whole criminal history of humanity.

              You are making me a god, and I am a simple human being.

              Q:* I WOULDN’T AGREE WITH THAT, BECAUSE THERE’S A LOT OF CULT SURROUNDING YOU AND CULT BASICALLY LEADS ALWAYS TO A CERTAIN KIND OF BLINDNESS.

              A:* There is no cult surrounding me. Your eyes must be blind.

              Q:* BUT AT LEAST YOUR DISCIPLES….

              A:* There are no disciples here. They are my friends. And I am nobody’s leader.

              So make yourself clear about it.

              Q:* IS THE DREAM TO LIVE NOW AND TODAY WITHOUT THINKING OF THE FUTURE GONE? IF YOU WOULD HAVE BEEN THINKING ON THE FUTURE, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN REVEALED WHAT SHEELA DID.

              A:* No. Future is not determined as almost all the religions have been preaching and conditioning people’s mind. Future is determined, then it can be known. If it is not determined, it cannot be known — not even the second moment, that what is going to happen.

              And I say that future is not determined. There is no God to determine it. And it is good that it is not determined, because that is our basis for freedom. Certainly freedom brings its own responsibilities. You can misuse it. Do you want people to be just robots who will never commit anything wrong?

              Just because few people commit wrong, just because few people turn to be Nazi, do you want everybody should be turned into a machine?”

              “When I had chosen Sheela as my secretary she was a simple woman, in every way a beautiful person. but everybody’s unconscious — and below the unconscious is the collective unconscious — is full of animality, because it comes from animal heritage. Nothing can be said about it, at what point, in what opportunity it will start asserting. ”

              ” Q:* WHAT IS ACTUALLY YOUR FEELING NOW TOWARDS SHEELA AND WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF SHE WOULD COME BACK?

              A:* I will take her back. We have a university here, and we have all kinds of therapies here. She needs some psychotherapy, a long treatment.

              I have all compassion for her, and the same love and the same trust, because my love is unconditional. What she has done makes no difference to it. In fact, I am worried about her because she must be unnecessarily suffering. There was no need to go anywhere. She could have simply come to me and told to me that these are the things that she has done.

              And we would have entered her into the therapies and all her colleagues into the therapies and treated them.

              This is my attitude about all criminals, not only her. I am against punishment because punishment has not transformed anybody in the whole history. Still we go on doing the same thing all over the world. We are barbarious.

              A man kills somebody and you kill the man, give him a death sentence or a lifelong imprisonment, which is even worse. His act was crime and your act is justice. Both the acts are same. Just he is a poor single individual and you have power of the society, of the state, of the military, of the government.

              But you are doing the same thing. It is revenge, it is not justice.

              And if the man committed suicide or murder, he has still a future. His murder was in the past, and murderers have been known to become saints. Now, to kill that man is to deprive him from a future. He may have turned into a saint. And what right you have got? All that you can do is that… that man has something wrong with his psychology, that her hormones are not harmonious. Something chemically wrong.

              And that’s what has happened with Sheela. She was raped when she was only sixteen, and raped by a man who was her father’s friend, old. And she had always respected the man as her uncle. He used to stay in their house. The father and the mother had gone out and only the uncle was in the house, and he raped her. She became pregnant. In those days in India abortion was not legal, so she had to go through that indignity of an illegal abortion.

              I think that scar is deep in her being. She hates Indians, one thing. And something in her wants to take revenge with the whole society.

              She is not conscious of all that, but it is there.

              So I will not do anything else than be more loving to her than I have ever been to her, because these are the moments when a person needs more love, more respect, more acceptance. And I will give her to the university to treat her, to bring all her unconscious out. It is just a question of vomiting the unconscious out. And once you are clean such a thing cannot happen again.

              And this is my general attitude about the whole idea of jurisprudence, criminology. Strange it is: a person tries to commit suicide and fails, and then the court gives him death sentence because he was trying to commit suicide and failed. Now they help him to succeed. Great minds are creating our laws and our courts. ”

              http://oshosearch.net/Convert/Articles_Osho/The_Last_Testament_Volume_2/Osho-The-Last-Testament-Volume-2-00000029.html

              ” Q:* WHAT ABOUT THE ACCUSATIONS OF THE HOBO WHO HAD BEEN KILLED, AND I UNDERSTAND NOW THAT THERE WAS A LABORATORY FOUND WHERE THERE WERE BOMBS BEING MADE….

              A:* So everything we are delivering to the police. Any criminal should be punished, should be brought to the court. We are helping. The police is here, FBI is here, state police is here. Our police is working, and we are discovering everything that she did.

              And this could happen because of my silence. This is the other side.

              But one has to remember that you cannot make me responsible for Adolf Hitler, because why I was not born in Germany at that time? Otherwise I should have fought against him. You cannot make me responsible for Josef Stalin. Why I was not born in Russia at that time?

              You cannot blame me for my silence. It is my birthright to speak or not to speak.

              And I had come to America in silence. I did not begin it here. I began it in India. I had no idea of coming to America when I began silence. I came into silence.

              But both the things happen, the good things happened, the bad things happened.

              And both will have their effects.

              Whoever is responsible for bad things will be sooner or later caught, and whoever is responsible for all the good things will be rewarded. Existence is very fair.

              As far as my silence is concerned, it is absolutely out of both. Neither it has done good nor it has done bad. I was simply silent and absent and in isolation.

              And I have the right.

              When I am asleep, if something happens you cannot make me responsible for it, that, “If You had not been asleep then this murder would not have happened.”

              My silence has done good for me. My health was bad. Thirty year continuously in India traveling from one place to another place, talking to millions of people, fighting against every dogma and every stupidity. And India is so full of it that no other country can be compared with it. Naturally I lost my health.

              I was never sick. I was so healthy that people used to say that my body seems to be made of marble. And then slowly slowly these thirty years of continuous traveling and continuous fighting destroyed it.

              I needed a rest, and those three years have immensely helped me. Now whatsoever crimes she has done, she will be punished for them.”

              ” Q:* BHAGWAN, WHAT I’VE HEARD YOU SAY IS THAT YOU’RE NOT A PROPHET. IS THAT ACCURATE?

              A:* I am not a prophet.

              Q:* ARE YOU A HOLY MAN?

              A:* No. I am simply a human being. Holy man is simply holy shit. Okay? ”

              http://oshosearch.net/Convert/Articles_Osho/The_Last_Testament_Volume_3/Osho-The-Last-Testament-Volume-3-00000008.html

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            3. “Projection? Shanmugam reported what he read in Rajneesh’s books and heard in his recorded talks.”
              He took quotes out of context then he threw his interpretation: “Osho wants to prove he is superior”.
              and he insinuated that Osho was giving credit to anyone who would praise him or do good prophecies about him, and that is not true.

              ” PADMASAMBHAVA SAYS, “WHEN THE IRON BIRD FLIES, THE DHARMA
              WILL COME TO THE LAND OF THE RED MAN.” IS IT PART OF YOUR
              WORK TO FULFILL THE PROPHECY?

              I am not here to fulfill anybody’s prophecy. And why should I? It may be Padmasambhava’s trip, but why should he force his trip on me? I am here to be myself. I am not a prophet, and I am not here to deliver somebody from their sins. I am not here to bring an age of religion. All these things are mediocre and stupid.

              I enjoy myself. If you want to enjoy yourself you can share my delight, that’s all.

              To me, life is not a very serious affair. Prophets take life very seriously. Saints are innocent! Prophets? — always dangerous. Buddha is not a prophet; in fact India has not produced prophets. Prophets are a particular phenomenon of Judaism.

              Saints we have produced — millions -but they are innocent people. Like flowers you delight in — not of much use. Prophets are in fact politicians in religion. They are to change the whole world; they have a mission to fulfill and do this and that.

              I have no mission; I am not a missionary. I would like a world without missionaries and without prophets, so that people can be left to live their own lives. Prophets never allow. They are always after you — with judgement. They are always after you — with ideas to be followed, comparison. They are always there to throw you in hell or award you by heaven.

              I have nothing — no hell to throw you in and no heaven to give you — just a delight of being. And that is possible, simply possible. If you allow it to happen it is possible.

              To me, life is not a serious affair. In fact life is nothing but a gossip in the eternity of existence, a gossip. I am gossiping here; you are listening, that’s all. If you enjoy you are here. If I enjoy I am here. If it becomes difficult to enjoy each other, we separate — no other bondage.

              And I don’t allow anybody — he may even be a Padmasambhava — to lay his trap on me. ”
              http://oshosearch.net/Convert/Articles_Osho/Yoga_The_Alpha_and_the_Omega_Volume_6/Osho-Yoga-The-Alpha-and-the-Omega-Volume-6-00000002.html

              Shanmugam seems to have missed the basic thing, that is: what Osho says is a response to the moment, and it depends on the persons to whom he is speaking, it’s a spontaneous response to the situation. It’s not something prepared beforehand, and it’s not according to any dogmatic system. Osho is rather against all dogmatisms.

              Shanmugam tried to project a kind of dogma upon Osho, something like: “He is an arrogant man. Osho’s theory is that he is superior”.
              Wow, great…
              And also bullshit like : “Osho had an ego whom he was trying to protect.”
              wonderful… Osho is talking to protect his beloved ego…

              “The truly religious man is difficult to understand because he will not fall into any category of yours. Your categories are opposites: arrogant-humble. Now where can you put a religious man? Arrogant? – he is not arrogant. Humble? – he is not humble. He is simply himself.
              A religious man cannot be categorized. All your categories fall short. He is beyond all your categories, hence he is bound to be misunderstood.”
              http://www.osho.com/iosho/library/read-book/online-library-search-buddha-two-b64a839b-61b?p=dbffea831cfd7e959d966dc126dabd6c

              “WHY DO YOUR STATEMENTS SEEM TO ME TO BE ARROGANT?

              IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN SO. It will always be so. When Jesus said, “I and my father are one,” do you think people thought he was a very humble man? When Jesus said, “I am the truth, the way, the door,” do you think the rabbis came rushing and fell at his feet and said, “Such a humble man! Never seen before.” They said, “This man is arrogant. This man is egoistic.”

              And logically, they look right – this looks like arrogance! When Krishna said to Arjuna, “SARVA DHARMA PARITYAJYA MAMEKAM SHARANAM VRAJA – leave all the religions aside and come and fall unto my feet,” do you think people thought this a humble statement? “Leave all religions aside and fall unto my feet!” This is pure arrogance.

              And you will be surprised. It is said that the first words of Gautam the Buddha were… the legend has it that when Buddha was born he exclaimed, “Above the heavens and below the heavens, I alone am the honoured one – I alone am the honoured one.” When he was born, just a child, the first assertion – not that he became Buddha, then he declared this. The legend is beautiful! The first-day child, the first moment’s assertion, expression, he declared to the world, “Above the heavens and below the heavens, I alone am the honoured one.”

              What do you think about it? That it is sheer arrogance?

              Truth is truth. It is neither arrogant nor humble. It has to be declared as it is. It can appear humble to you if you understand; it will appear arrogant to you if you don’t understand. And if you don’t understand, then there is no need to go to such statements which apparently look arrogant. People who don’t understand or don’t want to understand can find arrogance anywhere.

              Once it happened, I read these words of Lao Tzu to a professor: “When the superior man hears of the Tao, he practises it; when the ordinary man hears of the Tao, he ignores it; when the inferior man hears of the Tao, he laughs at it. If it were not laughed at it would not be the true Tao.”

              And do you know what the professor said? He said, “How arrogant of Lao TZU – who does he think he is to know? He thinks himself the superior man? the sage? that he knows? How arrogant of him to claim that he knows Tao! So Lao Tzu thinks,” he said, “he is one of the superior who really understands the Tao, while lesser people ignore or laugh at it? How arrogant!”

              Now it is not very apparent. You could not have thought this way, but it can be interpreted this way.

              Just to see the resistance of the professor, I quoted Jesus to him.Jesus said: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

              And what did he say? He said, “These words are also arrogant. Who does this guy, Jesus, think he is, taking such a superior, condescending, arrogant, forgiving attitude?”

              Now, it is not apparent, but it can be found. If you search, you can say this man is arrogant – who does he think he IS? “Father, forgive them….” Who are you to forgive?

              That’s exactly what Friedrich Nietzsche used to say against Jesus, “He was the most arrogant man.

              He is saying to God: Forgive these foolish people because they know not what they do – they are all foolish, forgive them! He is insulting them. He does not even allow them the dignity of knowing what they are doing; he does not think them human beings. He is treating them as if they are worms – forgive them – this holier-than-thou attitude.”

              Friedrich Nietzsche used to say that Jesus has said that when somebody hits one of your cheeks, give him the other. And Nietzsche said this is very very inhuman, because that makes you look very superior. Looked at from Nietzsche’s viewpoint, when somebody hits your face and you give him the other check, this is inhuman. The human way is: Hit him back! At least give him that much respect that “You are also a human being, as much as I am; we are equals.” Giving him the other check means you have reduced the man to a worm. This is really insulting. This way it can be interpreted.

              My statements are neither arrogant nor humble, because they can’t be arrogant and they can’t be humble. Ordinarily you think humbleness is opposite to arrogance. It is not. Humbleness and arrogance are both the same. They are like hot and cold – degrees of the same energy.

              The humble person has as much ego as the arrogant person. The arrogant person claims the ego, the humble person denies the ego – but the ego is there. The arrogant person says, “I am special,”

              and the humble person says, “I am nobody, sir – just the dust underneath your feet.” One is claiming, the other IS ALSO claiming in a different way.

              When you really see your nature, ego disappears, and with ego disappear arrogance and humbleness – BOTH disappear. Jesus is neither humble nor arrogant. Buddha is neither humble nor arrogant. They simply state the fact. Now, it depends on you how you interpret it.

              You say:

              WHY DO YOUR STATEMENTS SEEM TO ME TO BE ARROGANT?

              There must be something in you that is creating the trouble, something in you that is resisting, fighting. Look deep inside yourself. And once you have seen what is creating this idea in you, you will be free of it. Then things will be very simple” http://oshosearch.net/Convert/Articles_Osho/Take_it_Easy_Volume_1/Osho-Take-it-Easy-Volume-1-00000008.html

              “It is not that intelligent journalists from all over the world have not come here. But when – also from
              Germany – another experienced journalist came here, he got corrupted. He was too intelligent, he
              could see the point. He became a sannyasin. He is here somewhere… and when he went back, his
              magazine simply refused – that’s why I had warned them yesterday – because he wrote a beautiful
              article saying that ”Something new is happening. People of all religions and races are meeting in
              one place, working out how to be silent, making every effort to reach to their own innermost being.
              There is no fight, no crime. The whole commune can absolutely be called a love commune.”
              He wrote a beautiful article, and the magazine told him, ”You have been hypnotized.” He said, ”I
              am your most experienced journalist, and you think I can be hypnotized? Then I am ready –
              you can come with me and I will show you.” But nobody was ready to come because then he
              will be hypnotized too! They refused to publish his article. They said, ”Unless you make a few
              amendments… and the amendments will be suggested by us.” The name of the sannyasin is
              Satyananda.
              He said, ”You have not even been there, and you will suggest to me? You will make suggestions to
              be included in the article? I have been there, and you will tell me a few things should be removed…
              Then it is better that you write the article, because you are not hypnotized; naturally your article will
              be right.”

              They fired him, and they wrote something fictitious on their own. When Satyananda came back, I
              told him, ”It was bound to happen. You should have inserted something negative against me; nothing
              hurts me. You should have told some fictitious stories, allegations, because I don’t care about what
              other people think. And they would have published your article, they would have praised it and they
              would have thought that you were really great that you came out of that commune without being
              hypnotized. But you did not listen to me.”
              He said, ”I am absolutely happy that I have not listened to you. I wrote exactly what is happening,
              and I don’t care that they have fired me. It is for my good. I am absolutely happy to be here.” And he
              has been here with me, he has been in America in the commune, and when I came back here, he
              came here again. And he is utterly happy.
              The problem of prestige, respectability, prevents people from entering the door of the commune.
              It was a strange experience to me in America. The very first day as I reached New Jersey, the
              governor of California, Jerry Brown, sent a special message that he wanted to meet me because
              he is immensely interested in Zen. But he cannot come to see me in New Jersey; it is a question
              of his prestige, his post, his power. He was ready to send a jet airplane which would take me to
              California… and he wanted to meet me in such a way that nobody would know; particularly the news
              media should not know.
              I said, ”A man who is interested in Zen – if he has not even the courage to meet me, unafraid that
              the whole world will know, then I refuse to come. If you want to meet me, you will have to come, and
              the news media will be informed.” He never came, he never answered.
              And when I was in America, people from India… you will be surprised: even people from Poona and
              Bombay, Delhi and Calcutta, great industrialists, politicians, started phoning me in America to say,
              ”We want to come to see you. I am coming from Poona.”
              I said, ”I am amazed! I have been in Poona for seven years.”
              They said, ”In Poona, to meet you was dangerous. People would have known.”
              I said, ”I will meet you in Poona, nowhere else. If life brings me back to Poona, you can meet me.”
              Life has brought me back to Poona, and that fellow has not come. I have informed him many times.
              He has told my people, ”I know – you need not come again and again, because the neighbors start
              suspecting… why do sannyasins come here?”
              People who are from Bombay cannot come, a fifteen-minute flight. But they were ready to come
              from New York to Portland to meet me. I refused. I did not allow any Indian who wanted to meet me
              there and has not met me here. Those who have come here, were welcomed there; there was no
              question. They were courageous people.
              And what the world calls corruption is really just making you aware of things which are ugly, but
              your tradition, your country, your race, have conditioned your mind for them. For example, the Dutch
              parliament has made a law that I cannot enter Holland. The reason is that I have spoken against
              homosexuality, and ”we don’t want to disturb the homosexual people of Holland.” I became aware for
              the first time that homosexuality is the religion of Holland! This is corruption; I would have corrupted
              people because certainly I would have spoken against homosexuality.

              Twenty-one governments all around the world have given reasons, so absurd that one cannot believe
              that we are living on a sane planet. Perhaps this planet is a place where, from all other planets, when
              somebody goes insane he is sent here. There is no other explanation.”

              Click to access YAA-HOO!_The_Mystic_Rose.pdf

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              1. Jimmy… You seem to have observed Osho very well more than I did. When I wrote this answer many months before, I wanted to write everything that I observed as it is and also make sure that the message in this blog appeals to all kinds of people. Because, various people have interacted with me so far, including people who are traditional, who are for or against Osho, for or against Sadhguru. people who want to know about spiritual stuff just out of curiosity with no real longing for meditation, people who want to support my views only because those views are contradictory to people they hate etc. So, I want to make it balanced in such a way that at least 5-10% of the people are open to this.

                I appreciate many things you have shared here and also appreciate the discussion you have been having. Make sure that you don’t take it too seriously though. Also remember my discussion that we had in the forum, people do have a slight amount of unconsciousness just to be able to function in this world. This is true and this has been said by many people before. But this doesn’t cause bondage because there is really no personal self invested in it. I might have picked up the wrong examples and I might not have articulated certain things well enough in this post, but after over a year of writing this article, now I am able to articulate things better.

                So let me tell you the point I was trying to make so that you don’t miss it. I started this blog to bridge science and spirituality. So, my way of handling this was just like how a scientist would handle this. And I used these examples to show that a realized person’s thinking can be still biased and there will be still a need to be defensive. This is true… But this is only needed for interacting with the society. In other words, it is a mask. The real essence behind the mask is not even affected a bit. You can look up a recent discussion that I had with a reader called ‘SK’. He also shared a few examples about other people like Lahiri Mahasaya etc which I could resonate with.

                Here is a reply that I have to ‘SK’ because he was not happy about my criticism on Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev. You may find this helpful:

                You may find this comment interesting and useful… Just today I uploaded a video to Youtube in which I recite the second chapter of Bhagavad Gita and it is a wonderful coincidence that I am able to use it for my response to two people including you. 🙂 . Here is the video: https://youtu.be/9DdscqOX2HY

                Regarding Mahabharata, some people see it as an allegory and some people see it as history… Whether it is history or not doesn’t matter. But it is certainly an useful allegory in this situation… I will explain.

                When you are talking about Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, you are actually talking about an image that you have in your mind. I, Shanmugam, as a person is also an image created in your mind. All the unconscious behaviours also exist in the mind. When I use the word ‘mind’, I am talking about what we call as ‘manas’ in Sanskrit, which is not a direct translation of mind. Because manas only refers to a bundle of concepts, images and the attachments and aversions you have towards them. The goal of spiritual path is to kill this mind, which is usually known as manonasha. The field of your body and mind through which you experience the world is Kurukshetra where this war takes place. Krishna, the absolute inside you is actually driving the chariot which is your body.

                In Mahabharata, Bhishma and Drona both are seen as enlightened people. They were also the Gurus of Arjuna. But they are in the side of Kauravas (the troop of manas). Arjuna is completely hurt when he realizes that he may also end up killing Drona and Bhishma. (You also have to overcome the attachment you have with your guru at some point, which is allegorically expressed as killing your Guru).

                Arjuna says in the second chapter:

                कथं भीष्ममहं सङ्ख्ये द्रोणं च मधुसूदन ।
                इषुभिः प्रतियोत्स्यामि पूजार्हावरिसूदन ॥ २-४॥

                “Madhusudana, How can I fight against Drona and Bhishma, the people who deserved to be worshipped, in the war with my arrows?”

                गुरूनहत्वा हि महानुभावान् श्रेयो भोक्तुं भैक्ष्यमपीह लोके ।
                हत्वार्थकामांस्तु गुरूनिहैव भुञ्जीय भोगान् रुधिरप्रदिग्धान् ॥ २-५॥

                Here he says that he thinks it is better to beg and eat rather than killing his Gurus. He conveys that he doesn’t want to enjoy any kind of pleasure by killing his own gurus.

                Arjuna’s lamentation and refusal to wage war is described in five slokas. Arjuna seems to be uttering wise words here. You can say that he even sounds enlightened. The very first thing that Krishna says is the following:

                अशोच्यानन्वशोचस्त्वं प्रज्ञावादांश्च भाषसे ।
                गतासूनगतासूंश्च नानुशोचन्ति पण्डिताः ॥ २-११॥

                “You are talking like an enlightened man. But at the same time you are also worrying about people who do not need to be mourned. (Because Bhishma and Drona are enlightened. You are only killing an appearance. You cannot kill what really IS.) Enlightened people do not worry about things which arise and pass away. (The word used here is ‘asu’ which means life. But it is meant here to point out the things which comes and goes, the things which are impermanent or maya).

                A criticism on a realized person seems to be killing his image. But in reality, it is not going to affect him even a bit. Because, he is not that image.

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                1. Right…
                  I’m not taking it seriously… it’s just natural for me to respond because I’ve read this stuff by Osho before so if I feel that “this image of Osho is being interpreted in a way that has more to do with the person who is making the remarks than with Osho’s image itself” I’ll just reply and say what I feel is right. If I said or did something wrong, I’m ready to listen and to correct myself.
                  So yeah I’ll just go meditate more instead of talking too much on forums or blogs. I’ve already argued with enough people.. only rarely I enter into such discussions. I think it’s because I like your blog and I appreciate your work, that’s why I gave so many replies here.

                  “He is a watcher on the hills, and everything else is deep in the valley.

                  Nothing touches him.

                  So sometimes you can interpret him as arrogant, sometimes you can interpret him as humble, but those are your interpretations. As far as his own experiences are concerned…. And I can say it with my authority, I do not need any scriptures to support me. I am not arrogant, I have never been arrogant; I have never been humble either. I have been just myself So whatever the situation demanded, I acted, responded, neither with humbleness nor with arrogance, but just whatsoever the moment needed – with awareness.

                  Hence my teaching is in a way very simple if you can see the point.

                  If you miss the point it is very difficult.” http://oshosearch.net/Convert/Articles_Osho/From_Ignorance_to_Innocence/Osho-From-Ignorance-to-Innocence-00000030.html

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                  1. Jimmy… If I want to make someone to be open to whatever I want to say, I will interpret Osho whichever way I want… But feel free to defend him if you want to.. 🙂 …

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                  2. Osho spoke a lot of nonsense… He kept calling many people as ‘idiots’ and ‘stupids’… Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev who ripped of his content also adopts the same habit of using the word ‘stupid’ and ‘idiot’ a lot… Result? Sadhguru’s millions of followers also adopt the same way. They go around and call everyone ‘morons’, ‘stupid’ and ‘idiots’ if they disagree with Sadhguru.

                    Anyway,

                    “When I am gone I hope there may be still courageous people in the world to criticize me, so that I don’t become a hindrance on anybody’s path. And those who will criticize me will not be my enemies; neither am I the enemy of those whom I have criticized.”

                    – Osho, ‘Satyam Shivam Sundaram’

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                    1. “Osho spoke a lot of nonsense… He kept calling many people as ‘idiots’ and ‘stupids’… ”
                      True. Half true, actually 🙂
                      As I told you, my feeling is that Osho has a deep sense of respect and love for all humans and all beings… I observed that he was never the first one to attack. It’s only AFTER someone attacked Osho in some ugly way that Osho would use such words for that person.
                      I also observed how Sadhguru in his attempts to imitate is also using such words. My feeling is that Osho has said and done things that can’t easily be imitated, because for him these things were spontaneous. Anyone who attempts to imitate, will be eventually caught..
                      By the way Sadhguru is not the only one who is doing that, I’ve seen a few others who are also imitating Osho’s bad words and daringness . And when you look at them everything looks so phony.. They’re also talking against intellectuality, they’re trying to somehow sound like Osho. 🙂 They forgot that unlike Osho, they haven’t read many books, so they don’t really understand much about the intellect or about intellectuality.

                      The result will be that these imitators will engage in gross name-callings and they and their followers will look very foolish.

                      “The fifth question:

                      BELOVED OSHO,

                      Question 5

                      WHY DO YOU CALL PEOPLE CABBAGES AND ASSHOLES? IT SEEMS SO DISRESPECTFUL.

                      Anand Swaghat, cabbages are also people, and very innocent people. What do you mean, “It seems so disrespectful?” Disrespectful to whom? To cabbages? In fact it is more disrespectful to cabbages to compare them with men. What have they done?

                      Just look at man’s history, and the history of cabbages. You will not find more innocent people than cabbages, they are all buddhas — so silent, so happy, so meditative. And you are saying, “It seems so disrespectful.” To man?

                      And what can I do if somebody is an asshole? I am not condemning him, I am simply stating a fact. Do you want me to lie? An asshole is an asshole, plain and simple. And remember, it is perfectly okay to be an asshole.

                      But why, Swaghat, are you worried? Are you a cabbage or…?

                      The last question: … … …”
                      http://www.baytallaah.com/osholibrary/reader.php?endpos=352035&page=161&book=The%20Book%20of%20Wisdom

                      Anyway, I wanted to ask you something else.. Do you have experience with the nose-gazing Trataka technique from the Bhagavad Gita?

                      Like

                    4. Okay,
                      I asked because recently I was surprised to learn that the technique was known taught by Krishna. It was a friend of mine who told me that “This technique is actually written in the Bhagavad Gita as well.” I had previously thought that the technique is Chinese, but now it seems more likely that the Taoists learned it from the Indians.

                      http://thesecretofthegoldenflower.com/ A scripture/treatise about this technique

                      https://www.oshorajneesh.com/download/osho-books/Tao/The_Secret_of_Secrets_Volume_1.pdf Osho’s commentary on the scripture

                      Click to access The_Secret_of_Secrets_Volume_2.pdf

                      During my school days I’ve tried this technique but I got it wrong. I was somehow forcibly over-crossing my eyes. I didn’t know that one has to gaze only gently at the tip of the nose. After doing it for 20-30 minutes, I got off my chair and then I saw that my vision got a little blurry so I got scared, I thought my eyes’ vision would get affected (in a negative way). Also, a friend of mine who was studying medicine, when he heard about this technique he told me : “This sounds like something bad for the eyes. I don’t advise you to do it.”. So I stopped doing it. I thought that perhaps this technique doesn’t suit my body.
                      I still felt attraction for this technique though, so after years I decided to try it again and to read about it more carefully. After I realized what my mistake had been, I kept on practicing it almost every day. One might feel a bit strange only in the first few days, but afterwards the power of the technique becomes apparent. It’s so soothing and energizing and good for my eyes and for my body-energy.

                      I haven’t gotten enlightened through this technique(yet), I’m just a beginner. I haven’t gotten into deep states yet, because my awareness is very shallow.

                      Bro, you say that you are enlightened.. Is it easy for you to enter into a deep thoughtless state?

                      Have you ever experienced anything related to the third eye? One can feel almost-physical (or are they actually physical??) sensations in the third eye even without being a very advanced meditator. One can even feel it as if became a magnet that can attract everything like a black hole.
                      I expect that an enlightened one must have experienced things that are milionfold deep. Anything that you want to share , regarding this?

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                    5. As I have already explained in this post, I haven’t gone through anything that a person will consider as magical: the third eye stuff, telepathy, telekinesis, remembering past lives, seeing auras etc…

                      But what I have found is a million times more precious than all these.. Try to recollect the earliest memory of your childhood. Go as early as you can to those faint memories of when you saw the world the first time.. Do you remember the purity, innocence, and wonder? My experience of reality every moment is exactly like that. What happened to me was like a rebirth. I became a clean slate and then learnt many things all over again, including the basic manners… My memory was intact but I lost the ability to see other people the way I did. Time completely stopped… I have to remind myself to look at the watch and there are instances where I have completely forgotten to do that. I lost the inclination to define myself as ‘this’ or ‘that’… I live as if I don’t exist, with absolutely not even a single iota of a feeling that ‘I am the doer’.. And I can tell you one thing for sure… glimpses of non-duality, temporary spiritual experiences etc tell a person nothing about how living it every moment feels like. It is like a permanent vacation in which every day and every moment uncovers themselves as wonder… I usually don’t think about tomorrow unless the situation brings me a plan of doing something the next day.. But I am totally handicapped when it comes to thinking about even next month…

                      It took more than 2 years to learn to live in the society to make sure that the way I live my life doesn’t affect people who depend on me..

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                    6. ” I haven’t gone through anything that a person will consider as magical”
                      How is it possible?
                      That’s what I don’t understand, and makes me tend to think that you are imagining you’re awakened, you’re not really awakened.
                      I don’t mean that magical experiences are signs of awakening (they are just natural phenomena, even ignorant people can experience them), but how is it possible to be awakened and not know your inner minds? (unconscious, deep unconscious, past memories, etc) and also how is it possible to be awakened and be unable to easily go deep into these layers of the mind?
                      Can you go into samadhi? That would also be magical, so of course you can’t… can you feel the prana in you? Can you direct it, can you observe the body from inside? Of course not, because that would be magical… then that is a hint to me that you haven’t gone deep into yourself, you’ve just had some experiences of well being and you are imagining that this is the “great awakening”, “I am egoless”.

                      People can have magical experiences even with just very little meditation, without being awakened. How can someone claim to be awakened and still say “I have no idea whether these experiences are real. They haven’t come to me.” The only logical possibility seems to be that the person is only imagining that he/she has become awakened.

                      What obstructs you into doing a deep trataka or deep meditation on the third eye and experience it? Only the unconsciousness and the inability to do so… otherwise you could have tried it easily – ordinary unawakened people can do it and in a few days/weeks and they can feel the third eye. So how come an awakened one like you can’t do it? And you yourself said you’re interested in science and spirituality and truth. So why don’t you do it? Why don’t you explore these dimensions of our bodies, minds and spirits, and instead read stuff written by psychologists who have never meditated? (I don’t mean that you should not read psychology or western science. You should, but at the same time you should directly experience these things. Why rely on what others THINK when you can go into it EXISTENTIALLY ? Why rely on others’ opinions? )

                      So I’ll say it again: to me it seems that you are only imagining.

                      What you’re saying is in contradiction with my (shallow, but nonetheless real) experience, and also with my friends’ experience and also with what Osho and Buddha said. (Please don’t misunderstand and start quoting enlightened people who are saying that magical powers are not enlightenment. I am not saying that either. I’m just saying they are natural phenomena that manifest spontaniously even with very little meditation. And when these enlightened people say that the powers are not enlightenment, they are saying “Yes, the powers are real, but they don’t make you awakened so they don’t matter that much. They can be great hindrances.” They are not denying their existance and they are not saying “I have no idea whether such things exists” … like you are saying)

                      “I have tried all one hundred and twelve methods. Hence I can say I am both the poorest man on the earth, with not a single cent, and the richest man who has ever existed – because I have seen myself from every possible path. And each path had its own richness, its own music, its own poetry, its own colors.

                      I would like you to try as many methods as possible. But whenever you do a method, go to the very end. Don’t start changing from one method to another unless you have reached to the very end.

                      And it is something to be remembered, that if you can manage to reach your inner self through one method, the other one hundred and eleven methods will become very easy to you, because now you know exactly where you are going. And now you can go with a deep trust – which was missing in the first method. Now you can avoid all the mistakes that you made in the first method. You can avoid all the pitfalls which prevented you, delayed you in reaching your own self.

                      Once you have done at least three methods, then you can move easily in all the remaining methods. You will be surprised – no mistake, no pitfall, no disturbance, just… (HE SNAPS HIS FINGERS) like a click! Any method you start and you are at the end. You have passed through the whole scene with jet-speed.

                      Yes, science has to be religious.” (Osho – From Death to Deathlessness)

                      There is another kind of synthesis – Ramakrishna did it. He practiced all religions, almost all that were available to him. For six months he became a Mohammedan. Just see the difference. What did Gandhi do? – he just looked into the Koran, looked into the Gita, tried to find some intellectual synthesis, and created a kind of synthetic philosophy. But it is not existential, it is in-tellectual. And the motivation is political.

                      What did Ramakrishna do? He achieved the ultimate samadhi through Hinduism. No man before him has ever done such a thing. And then he said, “Now I would like to follow the path of Islam.”

                      His disciples were bewildered. They said, “For what? You have attained!”

                      He said, “Now I want to see whether I can attain from that path too or not. I have come to the peak of the mountain by one path. I will go down into the valley again, and I will start trekking on another path. I would like to see whether I can reach to the same peak.”

                      It was one of the greatest endeavors in human history. Ramakrishna stands very alone in his effort, solitary. He became a Mohammedan. And when he became a Mohammedan, he stopped going

                      into Hindu temples – he was no more a Hindu! He started wearing Mohammedan clothes, started eating Mohammedan food. He had a Mohammedan cook to make food for him. Practiced Sufism for six months. Then the mosque was his place.

                      After six months he reached the peak. He declared to his disciples, “This path, too, leads to the same place. Now I will follow other paths…. ”

                      He became a Buddhist , he became a Christian… and the strangest thing that he did, the most strange of all these paths was this. In Bengal there is a sect, Krishnaites, who believe in Krishna.

                      And one of their fundamental beliefs is that Krishna is the only male in existence, and everybody else is just a girlfriend to Krishna – all ARE GOPIS. All! Even men. There is only one man, the center, and all are the girlfriends dancing around him. So the follower of that path has to believe that he is a woman. He may be a man or a woman – that doesn’t matter. This is one of the funda-mentals.

                      Ramakrishna followed that path for one year… he lived like a woman, in women’s dotes. And the miracle was this, that within a few weeks he started walking like a woman – which is very difficult. It is really difficult, because it needs a totally different anatomy. It is not a question of just belief. The woman walks in a certain way because of the womb. The man cannot walk that way. Because of the womb inside the woman her physiology moves in a different way. But he started walking like a woman. People were puzzled.

                      Not only that: his voice changed – he started talking like a woman. Not only that: his breasts started growing. His disciples were very much worried. And not only that: the most miraculous thing that happened was that after six months he started menstruating. Regular period! It was unbelievable.

                      Doctors came and could not believe it was happening – regularly, every month.

                      He became a woman! And he attained through that path too.

                      This is existential synthesis. This is REAL synthesis. The Gandhian synthesis is hocus-pocus.

                      Utterly meaningless. This is real synthesis.

                      Assagioli has done something which is just intellectual.

                      What WE are doing here is real synthesis. And not only of all religions, but of all psychologies, all yogas, too. We are trying to move existentially into all the possibilities that any human being has ever moved. We can create here the greatest synthesis that has ever been created anywhere else.

                      But this synthesis is not intellectual: it is existential. We are living it. When I talk about Sufis, I am a Sufi. And when you listen to me about Sufis, those who really listen to me become Sufis. Then all else disappears. When we move in the world of Zen, we are PART of it! We are not alien and outsiders. When I am speaking on Zen Masters, I am not speaking from the outside. I am not a scholar, and you are not here like students. These are not discourses, these are communions.

                      When I talk about Zen Masters, I am one! And those who love me, and those who are intimate with me, those who are sannyasins, they become one with that approach. And in that oneness, understanding arises.

                      And we are moving through ALL kinds of climates, all kinds of paths. Slowly slowly, we will have on the earth not one Ramakrishna but thousands… (Osho the Perfect Master vol 2)

                      Have you experienced being conscious while the physical body is sleeping? During the night when your physical body sleeps, are you still conscious ?

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                    7. Dear Jimmy, you can believe whatever you want… That is your belief about what you think as ‘me’…if you think it has not happened to me, that is totally fine…If I am imagining something. that is my problem.. thank you for your concern though.

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                    8. It’s not that “I believe something”… I asked you some things… maybe you can clarify where the fallacy is in what I said. I want to understand how is it possible to be awakened and be unable to experience the third eye or deep states in which you can explore your own mind (+the subconscious, etc)

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                    9. The path to enlightenment is like a two fold path… This two fold path is described in Vedanta, in Buddhism and it was also mentioned by Osho (he called it samadhi and prajna)… It is also mentioned in Gita too (3:3).. The first part of it involves in preparing the ground.. There are various ways to go about it…All these ways involve in doing something. In many of the traditional practices which involve in preparing the ground, people’s testimonies reveal that they got access to these magical things that you are talking about.

                      But the first part of the two fold path, (no matter what a person does for the preparation) does not take one to liberation. No action can take a person to liberation, they can only prepare the ground. It is the second part of it, that involves ‘non-doing’ takes one to liberation. Practices like self-inquiry, mindfulness, niddhidhyasana are essentially the same even though they are described differently. And this is what the second part of it is all about. I have written about it here too: https://nellaishanmugam.wordpress.com/2018/03/01/spiritual-enlightenment-the-groundwork-needed-for-seekers/.

                      I did not go through the traditional path; which means that I did not go through hours and hours of sitting meditation. (I have done them but only to the extent of developing the necessary one-pointedness that I need for the second part). My spiritual sadhana was my life itself.

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                    11. Okay brother, thank you.
                      I will read more and I will meditate more. I can’t really know until I become enlightened myself to see how all this stuff works… What I said is just in case you’re not enlightened and just imagining.

                      I’d like to share a book here for anyone who is interested in science, psychology and certain dimensions of our minds: https://files.fm/u/sq55mn2v the book is called Dean Radin – Real Magic . It’s written in a way that will shock most scientists, I really really enjoyed it! It’s so funny and cool.
                      Alternative link (the above one with the book in the pdf format will expire soon, this one should be active for longer. One can use an online converter to convert .epub to pdf ): http://download1.libgen.io/ads.php?md5=5EB9DC2F1BCC397DB12FF4437416E1E0 or https://libgen.pw/item/adv/5ad594b53a0446746ceb8568

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                    13. I will put things in a different way, I think that will help you to understand..

                      One way of defining enlightenment is ‘end of seeking’.. People are always seeking something. Because, there is a sense of incompleteness in everybody. As long as a person experiences himself separate from the rest of the existence, his seeking will never end. Essentially, there is no difference between seeking enlightenment and seeking worldly things like money, fame etc. Because in both these cases, the person still feels that there is something that he can do to reach somewhere which will give him whatever he wants. This is what creates ‘future’.

                      Let us say both of us are hungry. We go to a restaurant. You eat a small plate of vegetarian food and your hunger is satisfied. But I eat not only more than you, but also try different varieties of food which is available there… We pay the bill and both of us come out. Then I tell you that I still feel a little hungry but you feel that your stomach is completely full and you are ready to take a nap. Here, if someone argues with you that you have not eaten as much as I have eaten, you cannot deny it. But if someone tells you that just because you have eaten only a little, your hunger is not satisfied, that will be completely wrong. You know how you feel like and you cannot eat anymore even if you try.

                      The same applies for spiritual enlightenment. People are conditioned from birth to think life as a journey in time. But the truth is, life is not a journey in time at all. It is only a creation of mind. That is why the experience of reality feels like eternity and timeless after realization.

                      If you go to Ramana Maharshi and ask if it is possible for a person to be self-realized without having to going through all of this, he would say ‘yes’ and the reason he used to give is ‘that is all according to a prarabdha karma’….

                      But what you said about ‘imagining’ is certainly possible for a human being. I know that I am not imagining because it is in my bones without any doubt. One of the Osho’s instructions actually helped me in this regard. He used to say, ‘never come to any conclusion that you have reached it. You may encounter a lot of wonderful experiences. but don’t make anything your home. keep going’.. This is not verbatim but the essence of what he was saying.

                      I went through a lot of suffering. So for me, self-realization was an emergency. 🙂 .. I would include a link to some quotes from Ashtavakra Gita that I can resonate with very well… (go through Ashtavakra Gita. He talks about it directly and plainly. It is one of the best scriptures and I have no doubt that whoever wrote it was fully realized).:

                      https://nellaishanmugam.wordpress.com/2017/07/26/gems-of-wisdom-from-ashtavakra-gita/

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  55. Credits hmm.. It is possible that Osho ways were largely criticized at the time, only after his death many embraced his teachings and such (well that is true for many enlightened beings particularly the ones that shook the basic structure of the people and establishments) and even got kicked out off countries. So to reestablish it is probably best not to mention Osho but tweak and bring the change that osho and other similar enlightened beings envisioned for all living beings.

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    1. Hello sir .. what’s your view on ISKON. One of my friends is so deeply associated with this. I am agnostic but she does chanting of Krishna.

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      1. I don’t know what they are like now, but in the 1970s ISKCON people used to say that Advaita Vedanta is poison, Shiva is a devil, etc.. Personally, I don’t find such ideas attractive.

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  56. happen to read the above link… he is a half backed cookie… thats a natural process on this path.. but he is on the rush for the fruit .. rushing on the result shall destroy the roots… which usually ends up in worst consequences.. he shall end up neither a dough nor a cookie .. neither burnt nor raw… this videos and blogs not at all necessary for the journey he is onto .. the urge to share is what he feels right now is utter bull after few years .. the seekers and enlightened never come to public… only few enlightened and willing to do some impact shall come to public.. the shanmugam is neither enlightened .. forget about enlightened .. i can very clearly say he isnt even spiritual , spiritual means whose present experience of life is beyond the body and mind, he is always in touch with that dimension which is not physical and psychological… spiritual is one who had experienced after death.. and always in touch with that dimension and experience life and death as one.. it seems like he had some spiritual experience here and there for moments … definately moments of spiritual experiences can transform .. who are in touch with the non physical dimensions and can give you experiences … i knew 30-40 people in my locality who experienced the moments of oneness in the BhavaSpandana program offered by isha… there lives transformed… they can very easily experience their life how it was before and after bhavaspandana… he is in lot of assumptions and he thinks little changes in life is everything .. he became little aware of himself and carrying a lot of information, what he gave input in the process…. if he says he identification is not there anymore .. tell him to do this one thing tell him to delete all the videos and never make any videos and delete all his blogs and never write any blogs further.. never try to identify himself as spiritual and never seek attention.. i am only suggesting because i was in his shoes.. i wrote amny blogs and 50-60 poems and a lot.. it seems that i am identified a lot with thesee things .. and i realised i was very hard to drop these … i took few weeks.. i droped into fire… i even write a lot of poems now and then .. write on the pieces of papers when i feels like and next day morning the papers end up into the dustbin by my maid.. these videos and these blogs are walls he is building .

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  57. hi Shanmugam
    I have one query:
    is all this spiritual journey and enlightenment for peace and ending suffering?
    is meaning of coming out of cycle of life and death means not fearing death or does that mean that we will not be reborn if we got enlightened?

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  58. Hello, thank you very much for sharing your experience.
    I have a question. Did your enlightment experience contribute in anyway to your ‘purpose’,here in life? Or did you experience there is no purpose and life just has to be lived.
    I ask this because we have certain qualities or gifts as a human but sometimes it is hard to find them. Especially when you see how the world is run and corrupted and you dont want to be a slave to that system.
    Does this dualistic view dissapear completely and you can work as a plummer to earn money and be fullfilled or a manager or is the urge I feel to become an artist getting more real. What I am trying to ask, are these all mind things? Osho once said that most people on earth are not doing what they supposed to be doing. A doctor who should be a musician for Instance.
    I was almost a professional soccer player but due to injuries I didnt make it. After that I have done many things but every time I got burned out and my body is not functioning correctly anymore. I have been a seeker like you, I am overall a cheerfull person but only my fatherhood gives me real joy. Can you say something about this? Thank you!
    Danny ( The Netherlands)

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    1. Interesting article. I especially liked the narration of your enlightenment. But, why do not you talk about the cases of pedophilia, poisoning and illegal arms trafficking carried out by Osho?

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  59. Hello, I respect your writings & videos, as they give me much wisdom and food for thought on the path to awakening. However, I do not respect the teachings of Osho. I’ve come across his books, and I can tell the writings have much wisdom. After seeing his teachings, I realized that his image was familiar, that I had seen him before. His previous name was Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. He was infamous as a cult leader in Oregon, US. He had sexual relations with female students, amassed enormous amounts of money and material goods including 93 Rolls Royce cars. Students were brainwashed by him and also prohibited from leaving his ashram. I, personally, met a woman who was under such duress because her two children went to his ashram in Oregon, and they were prohibited from communicating with her, and they were discouraged from leaving the group by being brainwashed. Does this sound like the actions of an enlightened being? Do these sound like compassionate and unselfish acts? I think not. Many documentary films have been made about Rajneesh so that people might know the truth and, hopefully, newer generations will not become prey to the charms of these “awake” beings. The most recent fil was released in 2018: Wild Wild Country, a Netflix documentary series on Rajneesh, focusing on Rajneeshpuram and the controversies surrounding it. It is hard to hear truths about those we look up to. Please keep an open mind and do your own research. Here is only one place to start, as there are many others: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajneesh Best Wishes, Tina

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  60. Great blog and good discussion.
    I am glad to see many people with similar thoughts and seeking path to enlightenment.
    I find this video which gives a clear understanding and unbiased view of samadhi very helpful or helped t give me more clarity than following a guru or a leader. Hope this helps

    Part 1

    Part 2

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  61. Very interesting.. I have been an Isha medidator for the past 8 years but still see sense in what you are seeing.. I think you are right in stating that Sadhguru heavily borrows from Osho when it comes to spritual ideas..
    But is the same true when it comes to methods used ?? I know BSP was in some sense similar to dynamic meditation.. But the other techniques ??
    Also for you also when Isha meditation has worked.. (in your own words you had your experience after attending Satsang on a guru Poornima day) why dwelve in to other superficial aspects ??
    Is it ok to accept that Sadhguru has inconsistencies and still persist with him ??
    I know that we have to take things he says with a pinch of salt.. But that is still ok if I am progressing isn’t it ??

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  62. Mr.shanmugam I pity for your confused state of mind. Anyone who does not understand what GOD really is shall be perplexed inspite of his best academic educations.

    You said that identifying the true nature is GOD. If you say that if one identifies himself with the true nature then what is hisnext business? Assuming that if everyone is GOD then why we are suffering? Does GOD Suffer?
    Osho says trying to be humble results in humble ego. that means this rascal is telling that don’t try to be humble if you find it difficult to follow.
    Being truthful is very difficult, being compassionate towards everybody is very fdifficul if this osho is telling that if it is difficult for you don’t be truthful and compassionate simply this is rascaldom.
    just because you cannot enjoy your life as per your desires that does not mean GOD is responsible for your suffering as you assume. A criminal should be punished by the court eventhough he confesses his wrong. We all are criminals punished by the agents of GOD as per our actions in our previous lifes.

    You told about the word “nature” unless one understand the supreme science of Bagavadgita whatever one speaks is all nonsense. You said that you cannot able to understand bagavadgita then how can you comment upon the spiritual subject matter in your blogs. Simply for your popularity you had opened this blog and presenting the theology as per your imagination.

    Another mistake is that you cannot connect gross science with spiritual science. Gross matter is dead and it has no power to function or move, therefore you are ttotally ignorant about the difference between matter and spirit.

    Mr.Shanmugam do you really want to know about the cause of your suffering? Its very simple anyone who wants to become GOD will suffer badly irrespective of his social, economical, educational background.

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    1. I am not sure what is bothering you but you keep obsessively commenting on my blog without trying to understand what I have written. I have only said that God is not a person. God is beyond time and space and I have realized that in my experience.. I have never said anywhere in my blog that I am an athiest and I never said I don’t understand Bhagavad Gita.. I also didn’t say I am suffering now and I am living a very peaceful and blissfull life with the grace of all pervading almighty.. Even in Gita it says that real nature of God is avyakta, which is directly opposite to the word vyakti, which means a person.

      My attempt is in bridging science and spirituality. So, I chose to use scientific terminology in this post. I will totally use a different set of terminology when I talk to a religious person.

      You have almost started spamming my blog but made no attempt to understand what is written here. I didn’t have time to respond to your chain of obsessive comments since you are simple saying things based on your own imagination.

      Don’t get stuck up in words and stop fooling yourself.. Here is my short commentary on Bhoothanatha Geetha, which can help you to understand the essence of all the scriptures: https://nellaishanmugam.wordpress.com/2018/11/06/bhoothanatha-geetha-the-song-of-ayyappa/

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  63. Mr shanmugam,

    What is your problem, I am simply telling that your perception of understanding spiritual subject matter is not authorized as you try to justify your thoughts and speculations on the basis of two bogus people osho and jaggi vasudev. Do you think spiritual subject matter is for gossip and fun? i am presenting my arguments on the basis of sastras and bagavadgita but yu are presenting your ideology and arguments on the basis of your interpretation and speculation. i had already asked yu a question that with our defective senses how you can understand inconceivable GOD. Bagavadgita is the standard spiritual book for the entire humanity. This osho and jaggi vasudev says there is no need to follow these scriptures and these rascals are encouraging the people to lead a animalistic life. If the whole society becomes animalistic society then what will be the future of this world?. You are simply attracted to their flowery words of their false philosophy. If your are not suffering then why you had opened this blog and telling about your past life this means that you are suffering not only you but every living entity in this world is suffering. Any honest person shall admit that he is suffering.

    If you claim that you know bagavadgita then kindly tell me in which chapter of bagavadgita Krishna explains about the nature of this material world?. I am ready to debate with you on bagavadgita. Kindly tell me the 5 kinds of subject matter of bagavadgita. If you think that osho and this jaggi is authority for you then what is the authority of Lord Krishna in bagavadgita?

    I am obligated to fight with persons who presents false philosophy. Do you think spiritual realization is so cheap for you.you say that I am giving my imaginative version if you think like that then you could have very well questioned me on that point earlier itself but instead of questioning me philosophically you are angry with me. my dear shanmugam I am ready to debate with you on the spiritual subject matter in this blog kindly tell me when you are ready.

    .

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    1. First, you need to be clear on what you are debating about. It is not clear so far.

      It is not just Osho and Sadhguru who are the only two people who helped me. I got help from all the prominent sages who walked on the earth including Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Ashtavakra, Ramana Maharshi, Buddha, Manikanta, Adhi Shankara and many more… So, you are commenting as if I am only writing about Sadhguru and Osho. If you do not accept Osho and Sadhguru as authentic, that is fine.. I don’t care.. So be it..

      There are 7 billion people in the world. I am not sure why you continuously pity me.. 🙂 May be you should go and pity people who are dying everyday because of hunger.

      Your long series of comments imply as if I am doing something so criminal in running in my blog and sharing something that I experienced after all the suffering I went through.

      Please read my posts properly before commenting. If you think about starting a debate, you need to be first logical and clear. I cannot respond to your imaginations. Also, I do not have time either.

      But if you want to debate, then you have to first list things which you disagree with me. But from the beginning, you have been commenting only based on wrong assumptions.

      I never said spirituality is something so casual. You have absolutely no idea about the suffering I went through. And whatever I have written in this blog is based on my own experience. So no amount of argument can convince me that I am suffering because I am not. 🙂 How can you even argue with an experience? But if you want to continue to waste your time on my blog, please go ahead. I don’t mind.. It is your time, you are wasting it…

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  64. Mr.shanmugam,

    It is not that everybody should appreciate your line of thought.What is the need of sharing your experiences? If you are really enlightened as you believe there is no need for you for creating this blog. Simply your business will be fixed on one subject matter. That is speaking about the glories of GOD and our relationship with him and act in eternal relation with GOD. if your focus of subject matter is eternity then there is no need to bring variety of subject matters in your blogs. i already addressed in your opening blog that any spiritual subject matter has to be received from bonafied sampradayas like sri, brahma madva goudia, kumara and rudra sampradaya. If your informations is not connected to these sampradays then such informations is just a junk or not authorized.

    Coming to the authorities there are undisputed spiritual authorities like sri ramanujacharya, lord vedav vyas, madva acharya, madvendra puri, sri chaitainya mahaprabhu who are coming from disciplic succession and are authorized goswamies or one who knows about the absolute truth as person. Your title of this link is journey of the seeker this means still you do not know what is the absolute truth or goal of human form of life. How can you with your incomplete knowledge suggest something to others to follow or indicate a particular philosophy or ideology or practice that is not coming from bonafied disciplic succession.

    Lord Krishna in bagavadgita bg 8.15 says that this world is place of miseries “dukalayam”.
    mām upetya punar janma
    duḥkhālayam aśāśvatam
    nāpnuvanti mahātmānaḥ
    saṁsiddhiṁ paramāṁ gatāḥ

    Translation:
    After attaining Me, the great souls, who are yogīs in devotion, never return to this temporary world, which is full of miseries, because they have attained
    the highest perfection. So if Lord Krishna the supreme personality of GOD certifies this world as miserable world then how others who claim themselves as GOD or Representative of GOD say that we can enjoy in this material world by some artificial methods of practises?.

    Similarly Lord Jeasus Christ in the old testament also speaks the same thing by indirectly indicating that “if you are with poor I will not be with you”. He also says “our father who are in heaven hallowed be thy name”. similarly prophet Mohamed also gives his instructions to those people to follow hosteir life. All these great personalities had transmitted the spiritual knowledge according to time, place, circumstance and according to the understanding capacity of people. If you suggest the name of osho, jaggivasudev do you think that these people are more than these great personalities.

    Coming to Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, ramana maharishi exept Lord Buddha they are not coming from bonafied sampradayas. You may ask how? Ramakrishna pramahamsa is a mayavadhi. He said to Vivekananda when he was in his dead bed that he is bagavan or GOD. Any one who claims themselves as GOD must be indicated in the Vedas, puranas, upanashids about their place of birth, parents, colour, height, roll, function and purpose of his avadhar. As per Vedas or sastras meat eating is prohibited and Vivekananda told if you can do good to others there is no harm in eating meat. he also told service to man is service to GOD. Can you kindly give me reference in which chapter of Bagavadgita it is told like that. Lord Buddha is a special avadhar Buddha is incarnation of Vishnu who specifically came to stop the animal killing in the name of sacrifice done by so called brahmanas who misused the Vedas for their selfish purpose. Ramanamaharishi his knowledge is also not complete self realization “I am not this body” is only partial realisation.
    Kindly refer to Bg. 12.1-12.2.

    evaṁ satata-yuktā ye
    bhaktās tvāṁ paryupāsate
    ye cāpy akṣaram avyaktaṁ
    teṣāṁ ke yoga-vittamāḥ

    Arjuna inquired: Which are considered to be more perfect, those who are always properly engaged in Your devotional service or those who worship the impersonal
    Brahman, the unmanifested?

    śrī-bhagavān uvāca
    mayy āveśya mano ye māṁ
    nitya-yuktā upāsate
    śraddhayā parayopetās
    te me yukta-tamā matā

    The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: Those who fix their minds on My personal form and are always engaged in worshiping Me with great and transcendental
    faith are considered by Me to be most perfect.

    Therefore please don’t suggest anything to others which you are not sure. The topic of GOD is not a easy subject matter to speculate or find by our tiny intelligence. bhagavad gita is the only recommended spiritual book in this kali yuga to understand about the GOD and about science of GOD which is told by Lord Krishna himself.

    Bg 9.32
    māṁ hi pārtha vyapāśritya
    ye ’pi syuḥ pāpa-yonayaḥ
    striyo vaiśyās tathā śūdrās
    te ’pi yānti parāṁ gatim

    O son of Pṛthā, those who take shelter in Me, though they be of lower birth – women, vaiśyas [merchants] and śūdras [workers] – can attain the supreme
    destination.

    If this is the verdict of GOD then how peoples claiming to be self realized suggest something which is contradictory to the words of GOD in bagavadgita. Realization is not that GOD is there and let me do my business. Real realization is what GOD wants from me and what I should do for him for his satisfaction.

    Yours spiritual well wisher
    A.Arun

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    1. Your whole concern is about scriptural authority and that is where the problem lies.. There are thousands of holy books which claim that they are the authority and there are probably thousands and thousands of commentaries for Gita itself. So, depending on a book as a sole authority for one’s spiritual life is actually a big joke in today’s world. There have been thousands of people who claimed themselves to be gurus but ended up being frauds. So, on whose authority one will decide that a particular scripture is an authority in the first place? Even if you accept a scriptural authority based on a human authority, on whose authority will you decide an authoritative interpretation of a particular scripture? So in the end, it all depends on a human guru that you directly interact with. Because he is the one who tells you which scripture is the authority and how one should interpret it.

      My insistence has always been this: If you are truly seeking liberation, then your inner light will guide you. This is not just my experience but has been the experience of many people too. My insistence has always been saying that Satguru is inside you.

      So I neither point to someone and say that ‘He is the authority’ nor claim myself to be an authority. I am simply being an instrument of the divine and that is actually the truth of everyone. Even though I have been writing many things in this blog, there hasn’t been the slightest feeling in the last four years that I am the one who is doing it. For me, He is the only doer and He resides within you as antaryami. And it is this antaryami that I consider as satguru. It is that I claim to be the authority.

      For some reason, many people are so unhappy about the fact that this blog exists. But for me, what happened in my life is a miracle. When I type these letters, it is He who is speaking through me and no one else.. And He is within you too! I don’t make any other claim except the fact that my tears have been wiped off and I have been saved from bondage.

      When I was 17 years old, I composed a poem on Lord Shiva and another one addressed to Sarasvathi. If you can understand Tamil, you can read them here:

      https://nellaishanmugam.wordpress.com/2016/12/02/%e0%ae%9a%e0%ae%bf%e0%ae%b5%e0%ae%9a%e0%ae%95%e0%af%8d%e0%ae%a4%e0%ae%bf-%e0%ae%85%e0%ae%95%e0%ae%b5%e0%ae%b2%e0%af%8d/

      https://nellaishanmugam.wordpress.com/2016/12/01/%E0%AE%A8%E0%AE%BE%E0%AE%AE%E0%AE%95%E0%AE%B3%E0%AF%8D-%E0%AE%85%E0%AE%A8%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%A4%E0%AE%BE%E0%AE%A4%E0%AE%BF/

      The poem about Shiva ends by saying ‘Either make me understand the essence of Vedas and make your devotee or kill me with your trishul!’.. I have asked liberation and wisdom in my poems to Saraswathi too. I am saying that my prayer has been answered. Why is that so unbelievable if you really believe in God?

      You are literally asking me to stop writing on this blog; that is the implication. Sorry, I can’t do that.

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  65. Dear shanmugam,

    I am not saying that you should not write in your blogs yu can very well write but you cannot say that since there are bogus spiritual gurus we should not approach any spiritual master. I say only one thing to you brother, Lord Krishna says in Bg. 4.2

    Bg 4.2
    evaṁ paramparā-prāptam
    imaṁ rājarṣayo viduḥ
    sa kāleneha mahatā
    yogo naṣṭaḥ paran-tapa

    This supreme science was thus received through the chain of disciplic succession, and the saintly kings understood it in that way. But in course of time
    the succession was broken, and therefore the science as it is appears to be lost.

    So there is process of receiving transcendental knowledge from parampara the process is perfect. just like inorder to become a doctor we have to take our education in bonafied medical colledge and comply the instructions of proffessors. You said about antar yami I am happy that you said that I am instrument of the supreme. The same antar yami or paramathma is instructing us in bagavadgita the supreme science about the eternal soul and its constitution and its relationship with GOD or Krishna. I am only saying that Krishna is accepted has supreme authority historically speaking 5000 years old then there is no need to follow other authorities as you believe. You don’t know what paramathma within us does.

    In bg 5. Lord Krishna says

    Bg 5.14
    na kartṛtvaṁ na karmāṇi
    lokasya sṛjati prabhuḥ
    na karma-phala-saṁyogaṁ
    svabhāvas tu pravartate

    The embodied spirit, master of the city of his body, does not create activities, nor does he induce people to act, nor does he create the fruits of action.
    All this is enacted by the modes of material nature.

    Bg 5.15
    nādatte kasyacit pāpaṁ
    na caiva sukṛtaṁ vibhuḥ
    ajñānenāvṛtaṁ jñānaṁ
    tena muhyanti jantavaḥ

    Nor does the Supreme Lord assume anyone’s sinful or pious activities. Embodied beings, however, are bewildered because of the ignorance which covers their
    real knowledge.

    In 13 chapter of bagavadgita Lord Krishna describes about his paramathma feature in all living entities.

    Bg 13.23
    upadraṣṭānumantā ca
    bhartā bhoktā maheśvaraḥ
    paramātmeti cāpy ukto
    dehe ’smin puruṣaḥ para

    Yet in this body there is another, a transcendental enjoyer, who is the Lord, the supreme proprietor, who exists as the overseer and permitter, and who
    is known as the Supersoul.

    In the above statements of the Lord says that he is residing in the heart of every living entities and he is sanctioning our desires according to ones karma. That does not mean whatever we do is sanctioned by GOD. GOD or Krishna is instructing us in the form of bagavadgita what is right and wrong. We have Materialistic desires like” to become great” is our material disease. Lord Krishna instructs in bagavadgita that he is the supreme controller and enjoyer. My humble request to you brother kindly stick on to bagavadgita only that is more than sufficient. If we keep on dumping new informations we will be confused and will miss our real aim of human life.

    I also request to kindly go through chapter 6 of bagavadgita about the dyana yoga. Arjuna in bg 6.33 says

    Bg 6.33
    arjuna uvāca
    yo ’yaṁ yogas tvayā proktaḥ
    sāmyena madhusūdana
    etasyāhaṁ na paśyāmi
    cañcalatvāt sthitiṁ sthirām

    Translation:
    Arjuna said: O Madhusūdana, the system of yoga which You have summarized appears impractical and unendurable to me, for the mind is restless and unsteady.

    So if arjuna best of the yogis having best circumstances to practice meditation in dvapar yuga who can even control the movement of air by his expert archery techniques is confessing that oh Krishna the system of meditation which you have described is impossible for me to practise then what we speak of people of this kali yuga who cannot even control their tongue and belly.

    My dear brother you are intelligent therefore I am speaking to you with affection please don’t mistake me. truth has to be told strongly without compromising. I request you to kindly go through Bagavadgita As It Is by AC Bakthi Vedanta swamy Srila Prabhupada

    Yours spiritual well wisher.

    ḥ

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  66. I appreciate an rspect your spiritual journey. in this way a common peope like us go ahead in their spiritual journey.

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  67. Hi Shanmugam,
    Sorry to add to the confusion.
    Same here, i am a seeker, at the same time, i too have opinions on Osho, Sadhguru, Jesus, Ramana Maharishi, Nerur Brahmendra Saraswati, Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Atheism, Prophet Mohammed etc.
    I AGREE with you on lot of things and some i do not agree.
    So, hereby sharing certain things i found about Sadhguru.
    Sadhguru 1st Birth – Bilva Sadhguru
    https://www.instagram.com/bestashok/p/Btu6M6hHQ_u/?utm_source=ig_share_sheet&igshid=zmhbi5uvxcrb
    Sadhguru 2d Birth – Sivayogi
    https://www.instagram.com/bestashok/p/Btu-yG1HhFT/?utm_source=ig_share_sheet&igshid=hif4kf4841wy
    Sadhguru 3rd Birth – Sadhguru SriBrahma
    Sadhguru 4thBirth – so who is Sadhguru?
    https://www.instagram.com/bestashok/p/BtvDIowHVel/?utm_source=ig_share_sheet&igshid=1cwpdmd08t9dh
    I know about alleged Sadhguru wife death, his sour relationship with daughter, his wealth accumulation, his osha influence, his shallow spirituality, his alleged proximity with Bharti, his speedy funeral of his wife and police complaint by his own father in law, his father hates him, elephant land grab, forest land grab, Political connections, luxurious lifestyle, mind washing innocents etc.
    Infact, read this and SURELY YOU WILL HAVE NO DOUBTS SADHGURU IS FAKE.
    https://www.slideshare.net/mobile/Zaysen2011/sadhguru-jaggi-vasudev-his-enlightenment-and-isha-cult-empire-as-it-is
    So yes if i want to prove Sadhguru is wrong yes i too can stand my ground. Not only Sadhguru i can prove Jesus is fake, Vivekanada etc. as fake.
    But the point is am saying i got what i wanted. Its like say the devil is evil. But what i learnt from devil is he is more INTENSE, IMPULSIVE, IMPATIENT and CROOKED to get things done. I got what i wanted but its okay even if its the devil but i learnt to be more INTENSE in my life Now. Be Crooked when i have to and be IMPULSIVE & jump into action and always not think too much at times.
    So i got what i wanted from Sadhguru, yes i still have many, many doubts on Sadhguru’s GENUINITY, as a fact i speak more ill about Sadhguru and his fallacies. Infact i got MORE on spirituality from you than anyone else. It was your critique analysis on Sadhguru, Osho etc others that i went as deep as i could search on Spirituality for many months. (4 years)
    Its like you got what you wanted, now you don’t need yourself as well. You are not in any outside quest anymore.
    Its like is there any rule you have to be only SEEKER to be in Samadhi, Spiritual, enlightened or need a guru…NO..
    Infact many people just get talented in music, arts, speak foreign languages after they met with an accident.
    So for me a person sitting in bathroom, walking on road or eating, watching tv can also become spiritual without his own willing, acceptance, effort or knowledge.
    Anyone can become spiritual, enlightened anyhow. Some are conscious they are enlightened, seekers, spiritual, some are NOT.
    Basically a fraud baba can make you enlightened, theoritically it can happen right. I can close my eyes and drive, right….offcourse dangers are also equally high.
    So if you say you don’t know whether you are enlightened for ME you are ENLIGHTENED. A tree doesn’t know its a tree but gives O2, same way for me i got spiritual through you (i know this sounds stupid) but its coz of You.
    Yes you say you are not enlightened which again i completely agree with you.
    But if you ask me, yes you are enlightened, i can say yes. But in your experience you say don’t know or NO or different.
    As for Sadhguru, i can’t comment coz i never been to Isha, i just attended one inner engineering program, see his videos, search on net, that’s it.
    But i got what i wanted from Sadhguru but i REPEAT i got MORE from you than any available “spiritual cosmos” in this universe.
    Thank you.
    As for Osha, Sadhguru, All the “Spiritually Matter” that has been said, written, EXPERIENCED it doesnt matter whether its right, who is right. I got what i wanted, but unfortunately person- You, who gave it to me will say NO, have gone crazy or mindwashed.
    POINT is its a personal experience. No two people can have same spiritual quotient.
    Infact you can deny that you don’t have or adhere to any “existing definition of spirituality” in this cosmos. But for me, you make 100% spirituality sense with few disagreement i have with you.
    Thank you once again.

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    1. Hi Bro,
      Sadhguru 3rd birth – Sadhguru SriBrahma.
      Missed this link.
      https://www.instagram.com/bestashok/p/BtvARoUH4Lo/?utm_source=ig_share_sheet&igshid=z0c9cf12usc2
      Just coz u share critical views on Sadhguru i dont think you hate him, coz its your experience and you have proper reasons.
      Same here, just coz i share favourable views on Jaggi, i want to clear i am not a follower of Isha cult or Sadhguru till date.
      I repeat i got MORE from you than any spiritual source in the universe.
      Thanks.

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  68. Hi Bro,

    Sorry if some things are repeated. It is just to help first time readers who SEE this Comment. (If they miss the 1st two comments)

    Sadhguru Sribrahma Trailer – this movie not being done by Isha or Sadhguru. No connection. But if you goto the village you will know Sadhguru Sribrahma & Jaggi are one and same.

    So one can say he is lying about his rebirth but truth is goto village, you will know.

    Sadhguru 4thBirth – so who is Sadhguru? (Repeated in earlier comment)

    View this post on Instagram

    Who is the Real #Sadhguru? There are people who say that Sadhguru Shri Brahma was the real Sadhguru. Sadhguru: Those people have come with me for the second or third lifetime. For them that is how they knew him. Now when they see that he smiles, talks, and jokes, they think, “This is not him.”. That Sadhguru was so intense, fiery, and uncompromising. He would not even call anyone by name; he just said, “Hey!” These people like the rough and tumble so much that they think he is too soft and too public today. The public never dared to sit with Sadhguru Shri Brahma. That one [Sadhguru Shri Brahma] was fantastic, but it failed in its mission. This one may not be so fantastic, but it has made it work. It is a conscious compromise. Now, we are not trying to chase people away; we are inviting people, doing PR, going around the world talking to people who are lost in their own nonsense. When people who have been with me before see this, they cannot believe Sadhguru is being put through this, because that Sadhguru would have just looked and burnt people, had they behaved like that. This one [Sadhguru today] is not like that. This one is willing to crawl if need be – as long as it works. He took this form in this lifetime because he thought that this is going to work, and it did. By option, he works in both realms – sometimes, he becomes like this; sometimes, he becomes like that. That was a beautiful one; this is a smart one. Only when he was meditating, tears flowed from his eyes. Whether his mother, father, friend, or disciples died, no one ever saw him shed a single tear for anyone. Even when his own mission died, they only saw him more and more furious; never a drop of tear. Now I can shed tears with eyes open or eyes closed. I can hug you, If someone dies, if a tree is cut, I can shed tears. Or I can sit without a tear in my eyes. If you keep looking here and there, if you go “Guru shopping,” you will not get anywhere. They know its same but feel their Sadhguru is the best Sadhguru. Need not appreciate me he way I am today. It is good for they hold onto that because that will be growth; that will be their wellbeing. #God #Spirituality #Heaven #Hell #Devil

    A post shared by Ashok (@bestashok) on

    I know about he is second husband to his wife Viji, alleged Sadhguru wife death, his sour relationship with daughter, his wealth accumulation, his osho influence, his shallow spirituality knowledge in many aspects, his alleged proximity with Bharti, his speedy funeral of his wife and police complaint by his own father in law, his father hates him, elephant land grab, forest land grab, Political connections, luxurious lifestyle, mind washing innocents, SSY Yoga connection, Rishi Prabhakar, his old gurus etc.

    Infact, read this and SURELY YOU WILL HAVE NO DOUBTS SADHGURU IS FAKE.

    https://www.slideshare.net/mobile/Zaysen2011/sadhguru-jaggi-vasudev-his-enlightenment-and-isha-cult-empire-as-it-is

    So yes if i want to prove Sadhguru is wrong yes i too can stand my ground. Not only Sadhguru i can prove Jesus is fake, Vivekanada etc. as fake.

    But the point is am saying i got what i wanted. Its like say the devil is evil. But what i learnt from devil is he is more INTENSE, IMPULSIVE, IMPATIENT and CROOKED to get things done. I got what i wanted but its okay even if its the devil but i learnt to be more INTENSE in my life Now. Be Crooked when i have to and be IMPULSIVE & jump into action and always not think too much at times. Instead of GOD vs DEVIL, i like to say i took God’s love quality and Devil’s WIN AT ALL COSTS quality. I damn care if God wins or Devil is Sin.

    So i got what i wanted from Sadhguru, yes i still have many, many doubts on Sadhguru’s GENUINITY, as a fact i speak more ill about Sadhguru and his fallacies. Infact i got MORE on spirituality from you than anyone else. It was your critique analysis on Sadhguru, etc others that i went as deep as i could search on Spirituality for many months.

    Its like you got what you wanted, now you don’t need yourself as well. You are not in any outside quest anymore.

    Its like is there any rule you have to be only SEEKER to be in Samadhi, Spiritual, enlightened or need a guru…NO..

    Infact many people just get talented in music, arts, speak foreign languages after they met with an accident.

    So for me a person sitting in bathroom, walking on road or eating, watching tv can also become spiritual without his own willing, acceptance, effort or knowledge.

    Anyone can become spiritual, enlightened anyhow. Some are conscious they are enlightened, seekers, spiritual, some are NOT.

    Basically a fraud baba can make you enlightened, theoretically it can happen right. I can close my eyes and drive, right….offcourse dangers are also equally high. So even if Sadhguru is fraud he could make you spiritual. If he is NOT please move on but DO NOT STOP, till you go beyond the 5 senses.

    But if you ask me, yes you are enlightened, i can say yes. But in your experience you say don’t know or NO or different.

    As for Sadhguru, i can’t comment coz i never been to Isha, i just attended one inner engineering program, see his videos, search on net, that’s it.

    POINT is its a personal experience. No two people can have same spiritual quotient. Even if Dronacharya taught me Archery i will not KNOW archery the same way he taught me. There will be changes.

    Infact, Dronacharya technically dint teach Ekalvya Archery at all. But there is no denying Drona is Ekalvaya’s Guru. But Drona doesn’t acknowledge this whole heartedly, he doesnt want to be his guru. So it doesn’t matter if Sadhguru doesnt acknowledge his gurus. If a guru doesnt acknowledge that he taught him, a student can too hide his guru. I know its wrong. But i can understand why Sadhguru did what he did & i know why Guru Drona asked for Ekalavya’s thumb.

    So if Sadhguru doesn’t acknowledge Rishi Prabhakar, SSY his past master’s, its okay..i can understand why. Sachin is Kambli’s best buddy but there is a reason he didn’t revive his career, and help him All out and maintains distance with Kambli.

    Infact Sadhguru Sri Brahma, his 3rd birth, there are people who are alive (Nilgiris Village) and they say Sadhguru Jaggi is fake and Sribrahma was genuine.

    As for Mahasamadhi being fake here’s proof. Even if Sadhguru cant die of Mahasamadhi or killed his wife for Arti, i surely know these people died willingly, just sat and left body at will.

    http://bestashok.com/spirituality/atleast-die-as-yogi-and-not-as-rogi/

    Forget humans, yogis, SNAKES know when to Die at will.

    View this post on Instagram

    Have seen a dying snake? Where do snakes die? In fact, IF YOU ARE AWARE You will know when you are going to die. We breath in prana with the air. And breath out just empty air. When death comes then the process is reversed. We breath in empty air and breath out prana of the body. When all prana is gone we die. Point is everything, including the entire creation is BEYOND THE 5 SENSES. Its not about Death. #Allah, #Bible, #Christianity, #Hinduism, #Jesus, #Christ, #Mysticism, #Quran, #Religion, #RightToPray, #Rituals, #Secularism, #Superstition, #Atoms, #God, #Heaven, #hell, #Idolworship, #Liberation, #Life, #Moksha, #Temple #Universe, #Pagan #Sadhguru #Death #Spirit #Soul #mortality #spirituality

    A post shared by Ashok (@bestashok) on

    As for Dhynalinga, forget Isha, any temple, idol consecrated as per certain Temple ARCHITECTURE, (eg: Agama Shastra, there are many ways to build temple) has powers.

    You just need receptivity to feel it.
    I am an young guy, married, goto work, party, fight, argue, watch movies, eat out but i have been also able feel, physically feel the reverberations when i goto temples. Not all temples, never been to Dhyanalinga till date. But i feel it in Tirupati, Ujjain Mahakal, Abhaya Hasta Venkateswara temple, in fact i feel the same vibrations in also few small temples near my home. These temples not even one thing is done as per rituals but i can clearly feel the vibrations.

    As a proof if i am hallucinating, i asked my wife after few years. She too confirms she can but thought it would be foolish to discuss.

    She too works in a IT firm and is like any modern women and very clear and pragmatic about current affairs in the world and reality.

    Few of my neighbhours, an old lady who is uneducated and never married, my neighbour aunty and uncle, and a man of 40 years and his father too acknowledge what i say, when i discussed it with them.
    They too can feel energies present in a temple. Infact temple i speak is in a slum area, next to a storm water drainage, highly populated by Christians.

    No special seeking or sadhana done by us. The neighbors i speak of are just any normal city people. These people have no exposure or comfort or use net, access to information like me. They are just like ordinary people working in govt, doing own business living lives.

    Spirituality exists, it can be felt but we need to be receptive. For me this receptivity happened accidentally. I was just a usual happy go normal guy.

    So may be dhyanalinga could be fake but deities, lingas, idols, temples or certain PLACES have POWERS. I was never a seeker consciously, but today i can sense it, every time i am in presence of certain energy bodies, my spine shakes, body vibrates, the ecstasy is out of world. It sounds as if i am on drugs or mindwashed. But no, you are on other side of bridge, i am on this side of bridge.

    Isha has acknowledged about Auroville building the Dhyanalinga.

    Proof from Isha website.

    Click to access ArchitectureforDivinity-1-May-2015.pdf

    See consultants at end of pdf file. Yes, you can say the proof is being not publicized in a big way and you can prove its intentional by Isha.

    But here Proof from Auroville site. If Isha wanted to hide it, they could have taken care of this part as well.

    http://www.earth-auroville.com/dhyanalinga_dome_en.php

    My only wish, now that you have come so far in spiritual journey, be it Sadhguru or anyone else or just with yourself, go BEYOND the 5 senses. There is SOMETHING that EXISTS & its ETERNAL TRUTH.

    Rest is all just a child’s play, a small speck in the cosmos, be it you, your family, your own ABSOLUTE TRUTH about SPIRITUALITY.

    My only wish you reach that ULTIMATE in SPIRITUALITY.

    As for Land Grab, Elephant Corridor, i am sure you can find truth in 10 minutes if you Google.

    Anyway here goes what i want to say –
    Good now @SadhguruJV giving OPEN INVITE. JOURNALIST, IAS, IPS, CBI, CID, KAS; even YOU, ANYONE in WORLD visit ISHA ANYTIME, ANYDAY. If ONE ACCUSATION proven illegal @Sadhgurujv will leave country https://t.co/p2lx8i284E

    Dont tell from 1992 nobody could PROVE HIM GUILTY for one scam.
    Today Rahul, Sonia are on Bail in a scam.

    Always see both sides. DIG DEEP, find the TRUTH. Then decide. See clip if Land is illegally acquired by @SadhguruJV https://t.co/4TVb5CLFtA i SAY Don’t trust video also. BEST see Google Earth, See yourself & decide. SET oldest, time, date, year available to till date, see TRUTH.

    Any Land docs can be created foolproof for any Land in India by Anyone. Don’t trust CAG report or @ishafoundation documents. Just see satellite video. See #GoogleEarth/any Satellite online. NO ONE can’t change Satellite image, will SHOW what was before Isha Ashram came up there. I am sure bribing Bing, Google, other online satellite maps & changing satellite images is possible easily or even with difficulty? Its impossible.

    I repeat, My only wish, now that you have come so far in spiritual journey, be it with Sadhguru or anyone else or just with yourself, go BEYOND the 5 senses. There is SOMETHING that EXISTS & its ETERNAL TRUTH.

    Still not convinced, find if Rebirth exists. Just Google it. You will neither be able to prove it fully fake or fully true.

    Anyway, see this about rebirth.

    View this post on Instagram

    What Happens When You Die Unenlightened? How to avoid Rebirth? (YOU MUST KNOW THIS ) What karma needs to be worked out in astral world for jeevan muktha? It is better to focus on life rather than after life. Take care of the means, the end will take care of itself. If a boiled paddy-grain is sown, it doesn’t sprout. Just so, if a man is boiled by the fire of Knowledge, he cannot take part any more in the play of creation; he cannot lead a worldly life, for he has no attachment to ‘woman and gold’. What will you gain by sowing boiled paddy?” #God #Bible #REINCARNATION #reborn #sadhguru #spirituality #Salvation #Satan #spiritualawakening #lucifer #Quran #Allah #shiva #Jesus #Christ #jesuschrist #Muslim #Islam #atheist #Armageddon #Bible #gospel #hinduism #hindu #reserruction #religion #reborn #enlightenment #kalki #devil #Lucifer #Demon #heaven

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    Thank you once again.

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  69. Dear brothers, spirituality or GOD is beyond our mental and intellectual barrier therefore one cannot come to a right conclusion about the spiritual path simply by his dint of speculative power. One cannot become expert in medicine by becoming a book worm. One should hear the subject from right source from a right person who is practicing medicine. Similarly one cannot understand spiritual subject matter or GOD by his limited intelligence or from a professional thinker. Spirituality is eternal and is beyond our jurisdiction of logic and material experience. So we should not confuse material experience with spiritual enlightment. A spiritually enlightened person does not identify himself with his material body for eg: I am an hindu, Christian, muslim, man, woman, white, black, Indian, American, Russian, African. He does not make any discrimination between animal, plants and a man. That is panditha samadarsina [one who has equal vision] The humble sages, by virtue of true knowledge, see with equal vision a learned and gentle brāhmaṇa, a cow, an elephant, a dog and a dog-eater [outcaste) [BG.5.18].. Because he considers every living entity as part and parcel of GOD and is equal and compassionate to everybody. This is spiritual enlightened person. Such a person is not interested in finding faults in others nor he works for his selfish interest. He is a lover of GOD so naturally he loves the spirit soul in everyone without any discrimination, this is the perfection of human form of life.

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  70. Dear brothers, what this jaggi vasudev and osho is doing in the name of yoga? What all these meditation techniques for? This jaggi vasudev does not speak anything about the spirit soul and about the eternal GOD. Yoga means to link with the supreme GOD such one of the linking process is through meditation. In meditation there are two things one is the meditator an the object of meditation. If the object of meditation is unknown or vague then how you brothers can fix your mind on the object.

    In the first step, if you want to link with the supreme then you should practice to give up your material desires and attachments
    Bg 6.2
    yaṁ sannyāsam iti prāhur
    yogaṁ taṁ viddhi pāṇḍava
    na hy asannyasta-saṅkalpo
    yogī bhavati kaścana

    What is called renunciation you should know to be the same as yoga, or linking oneself with the Supreme, O son of Pāṇḍu, for one can never become a yogī
    unless he renounces the desire for sense gratification.

    That is the first step in hata yoga. If you are not prepared to give up your materialistic desires and attachments to your body, home, family and country. Then such kind of meditation is simply a body and mind relaxation techniques. Such kind of artificial techniques may give you some peacefulness and happiness for some time but such kind of happiness is temporary and is not spiritual.

    Before practicing meditation one should have knowledge of SELF. One should question himself who I am, am I body or something apart from body?. Unless one is theoritically convinced of his real position he is not a eligible candidate to practice hatta yoga. Chapter 6 of bagavadgita explains about the prerequisites of meditation, how to practice, how to meditate and whom to meditate. In Bg 6.11-12 Lord Krishna says śucau deśe pratiṣṭhāpya
    sthiram āsanam ātmanaḥ one should go to a secluded place to a forest and practice meditation which is free from all the disturbances of home, society. the purpose of real meditation is detachment from material world and getting attached to GOD. So how one can practice meditation in his home which is full of luxury with air condition attached to home wife, childrens and make spiritual progress?.

    This jaggi or osho says there is no GOD or no need for GOD simply one has to concentrate your mind on some concocted material things and meditate this is absolutely nonsense. This shows that they don’t know anything about GOD and about the science of God. Unless one who knows about the object of meditation then there are simply concentrating on some perishable things which results in perishable happiness or experiences.

    An eternal subject cannot be manufactured by mortal human being one should receive such spiritual knowledge from disciplic succession or parampara from eternal GOD itself. Mr.shanmugam may ask how to identify a bonafied guru? The answer is very simple one who manufactures a new kind of religion and speaks something nonsense about the GOD from his imagination is bogus and one who just repeats the words of GOD as it is without addition or subtraction is bonafied. There are three things Guru, Sadhu and sastras so these three things should go hand in hand. A Guru should not speak anything outside the sastras he should act according to it in other words he must live a sastric life following the rules and regulations of scriptures and a guru always associates only with sadhus.

    Some of the indications of bonafied guru are:

    1. He is well versed in the conclusions of all scriptures and gives definite answers to the questions asked by people. He will not confuse people by his juggulary of words and tells there is no need to follow scriptures or lead a whim cycle life.
    2. He knows who supreme GOD is and shall not say that everything is one or all gods are one or I am god or you are god or nothingness is GOD he always consider himself as servant of GOD and he teaches people by his example how to be a servant of GOD. .
    3. He does not show any word juggullary or show any magic or shows mystic powers like siddhas do. For eg: taking linga from mouth or gold or walking inside or on the fire, placing his hand in a burning oil for cooking any food stuffs, walking on the water etc.
    4. He is self controlled and always peaceful and engages people in serving GOD and shall not engage them in mundane social welfaire activities.
    5. He always speaks about the glories of GOD and his activities and is not interested in discussing material activities like politics, diplomacy, material advancement in other words he is not interested in temporary nature of this world.
    6. He is not interested to make disciples and is equal towards everybody in giving spiritual knowledge. He will not say service to mankind is service to GOD.
    7. He is equally disposed to rich or por, black or white and gives them spiritual instructions from Vedas or scriptures for their spiritual advancement of life. He does not give his own ideas or opinion as solution for their material problems.
    8. He lives a vedic life and follow the rules and regulations of scriptures with stead fast determination. He also teaches others to follow the regulations of scriptures for controlling the senses including the mind.
    9. He speaks about the science of spirit soul and transmigration of spirit soul from one body to another.
    10. He shows compassion to those who are poor in spiritual knowledge and tries to preach them about the science of spirit soul and his relation with GOD.
    11. Any guru who gives instructions to the people which saves them from the cycle of birth and death is bonafied.

    So these are some of the attributes or qualities of a bonafied guru so one who does not possess such attributes and pose himself as sat guru is a cheator. So dear brothers if you like to be cheated then options are wide open for you to select such guru of your choice but if you wan real Gold then verify the above characterestics, apply your intelligence and seek such guru for your real spiritual advancement and permanent solution for all the miserable conditions of your life.

    Yours spiritual well wisher

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  72. Hello sir. Thank you very much. You have demystified Sadhguru and Spirituality for me. I will still continue to practise Shambhavi and plan to go to BSP though but I was unconsciously becoming a blind follower of Sadhguru. You have given me immense clarity

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  75. Hai shanmugam, you said that there are thousands of scriptures and thousands of gurus. So how to know which is genuine?. Its simple, anything which is manufactured by mortal humanbeing in a new name which is not connected to four sampradayas Sri, Brahma madva gaudia, rudra and kumara sampradaya is bogus. Because
    1. these four sampradayas is not manufactured by any mortal humanbeing of this erthly planet who’s senses are defective
    2. these sampradayas existed before the creation of sun, moon and the planetry systems
    3. Sri sampradaya is coming from Goddess Lakshmi and Brahma madva from Lord Brahma the first living entity (secondary creator of our universe), rudra sampradaya from Lord Siva and kumara sampradaya from sons of Brahma who are the elder brothers of Lord Siva. Goddess lakshmi is actually our eternal mother of all living entities and she is the eternal consort of Lord Vishnu or Krishna (supreme personality of Godhead), Brahma , kumara and rudra are chief Demi gods or devathas. Since they are the incharge of managing varius universal affairs they are superior in spiritual knowledge and power than us. They are situated in the mode of goodness and they are not contaminated by material modes of passion and ignorance like ordinary human beings like us. Therefore in order to understand real subject matter one should accept the spiritual subject matter from the aforesaid authorities only.
    Any spiritual process which is not connected to the above sampradayas are bogus and results in accumulation of sin and suffering either in this life or in our next life.

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  76. In this world any knowledge has to be received by these two ways only. Even Isha people tells Sathfguru told like this and this is the path that we have to follow as shown by him. The test is how many people in this world accept the path shown by him?.

    The above sampradayas were being accepted from time immemorial by the people in general as bonafide and there is no contradictions between sampradayas in its philosophy and spiritual subject matter. The authorities of the sampradayas did not manufacture any new process or methods of spiritual practices and they attained perfection of self realization by sacrificing material enjoyments of the body, following strict celibacy throughout their life. they are not subject to any criticisms by the people for time immemorial and still these sampradayas are in practice except Rudra and kumara.

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    1. No, it is not a numbers game. If it’s just a matter of numbers, there are more Christians who reject all this. Same for Muslims.

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  77. Further, these four sampradayas are connected to Vedas and Vedas are axiomatic truth and is eternal in nature. the foremost authorities of sampradayas are Sri Ramanujacharya, Sri Madvacharya, Vishnu swamy and Nimbarga. Who are real exponents of Vedas. So, anybody who defies these principle authorities and manufactures his own meaning of religion are bogus and is not authorized.

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    1. You missed Sri Shankara. You have only given the ISKCON point of view. You ignore the fact that Madhva contradicts Ramanuja. Your lectures are pointless.

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  78. That is not your actual reply. The idea is you should be authority of yourself. Therefore you are simply interested in finding faults in bonafide religions. Moreover, I pity for the ignorance of R S Chakravarti as he is not aware of the fact that Adi Shankara belongs to Rudra sampradaya. he was a monist who under orders of Lorrd Vishnu propagated impersonalism to drive out Buddhist philosophy out of india. Sri madva did not contridicts Ramanuja as both agree on the same truth that Jiva athma and paramathma are not on the same level.

    Shanmugam I also pity for your defective understanding of Vedanta sutra. Whenever you speak about tatva you should refer to Srimad Bagavadgita because Bagavadgita is the absolute authority as it is spoken by Lord Sri Krishna the Supreme personality of Godhead himself.

    Bg 2.12
    na tv evāhaṁ jātu nāsaṁ
    na tvaṁ neme janādhipāḥ
    na caiva na bhaviṣyāmaḥ
    sarve vayam ataḥ param

    Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings; nor in the future shall any of us cease to be.
    From this statements it is clear that duality between Jiva athma and Param athma always exist even in future even after the death of this body and the identity of the soul is not lost after liberation also.

    Bg 15.7
    mamaivāṁśo jīva-loke
    jīva-bhūtaḥ sanātanaḥ
    manaḥ-ṣaṣṭhānīndriyāṇi
    prakṛti-sthāni karṣati

    The living entities in this conditioned world are My eternal fragmental parts. Due to conditioned life, they are struggling very hard with the six senses,
    which include the mind.

    From this statement of supreme Brahman it is clear we are just eternal fragment parts of God and are very tiny (Anu). It is the fact that we are struggling for existence to attain any kind of success in our life whether spiritual or material. So, If we claim that we are GOD then why we should suffer badly in our life? will God suffer?

    Bg 15.16

    dvāv imau puruṣau loke
    kṣaraś cākṣara eva ca
    kṣaraḥ sarvāṇi bhūtāni
    kūṭa-stho ’kṣara ucyate

    There are two classes of beings, the fallible and the infallible. In the material world every living entity is fallible, and in the spiritual world every
    living entity is called infallible.

    Bg 15.17
    uttamaḥ puruṣas tv anyaḥ
    paramātmety udāhṛtaḥ
    yo loka-trayam āviśya
    bibharty avyaya īśvaraḥ

    Besides these two, there is the greatest living personality, the Supreme Soul, the imperishable Lord Himself, who has entered the three worlds and is maintaining
    them.

    Here the words anya should be noted anya means “another personality” and HE he is maintaining the entire universe. Certainly jiva athma who is very small like an atom has no power to maintain this entire universe, what he speak of maintaining his family he is truggling like an ass. so the notion that jiva athma when liberated becomes GOD is absurd.

    Shanmugam who are you to point out contradictions in Vedas what is your qualification. The first qualification is one should come out from his comfort zone and practice sense control under the guidance of spiritual master who speaks from the Bagavadgita and vedic scriptures. You offend GOD, and bonafied spiritual masters and how do you expect to understand about the spiritual subject matter. Simply you can become an expert fault finder only.

    How do you think that whatever you say is correct sometimes our experiences can also become wrong eventhough it appears factual. It is like. A camel runs after a pond in a dessert but when he approaches near, it is sand not water. This is what you call it as mirage. Therefore one cannot trust our senses which is defective. I already asked you this question but you ignored this important point.

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  79. sorry this is the stand of Lord Krishna the supreme personality of Godhead (supreme Brahman) in Bagavadgita. if you say like that, then what’s wrong in repeating the words of Supreme brahman?.

    If you people want to say something other than what GOD says then you are in illusion. The illusion is you want to become greater authority than GOD that is gross ignorance. The fact is human beings are subject to 4 kinds of defects.

    1. He has a tendency to commit mistakes
    2. His senses are defective or can work within particular limits only
    3. He is in illusion
    4. He has a cheating propensity

    These defects are not found in GOD because he has unlimited powers and knowledge. That is why we call GOD has omniscient and omnipotent. If you cannot able to appreciate all these things then it is your ignorance.

    ISKCON is not an new institution manufactured by conditioned soul. The real knowledge is coming directly From Lord Krishna, Brahma and through disciplic successions from time immemorial.

    I am asking to shanmugam and to you are you greater than Sri Ramanujaacharya? Do you know better than these powerful acharyas who are pure devotees of Supreme GOD? if the answer is affirmative then you should declare in this blog explicitly that

    “I am the most perfect and knowledgeable person in this whole world and I know everything about everything to an unlimited degree”.

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  80. To R S Chakravarti. Sorry sir, again my condolences for your ignorance. Jeasus Christ and Prophet Mohamed came approximately 3000 years after the battle of Kurushetra. Therefore Christianity and muslims are contemporary religions. the essence of these religions are not contrary to the principles of vedas. Just like they have ten commandments.

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  81. Sadhguru did not admit that he had read Osho’s book. Perhaps it was because many people had prejudices about Osho. People tended to have a lot of prejudices about people, but people were open heart to words. So Sadhguru rarely mentions Osho.

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  83. I like your approach of using both skepticism and open-mindedness – essential tools for actual knowing. I can totally relate to them. I also would like to thank you for proving the borrowings from Osho by Sadguru with concrete evidence. Yes, we can convince ourselves not to believe in them, but we need to be aware that it could be our defense mechanism making us believe in our established comfort zones and play safe that even goes to the extent of negating any logic – even when it is proved beyond doubt. We need to set boundaries and that’s precisely what you have done. I would like to get in touch with you. Would you kindly email me?

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