sannyasnews

This is a letter we received from Shantam at FB Group-Osho commune International. Sannyasnews does not necessarily agree or disagree with the letter but we certainly feel his view should be aired.

Beloved Friends,

In 2003 Osho´s brother Shailandra (oshodhara.com) with his wife, and a mentor, started a tradition of using the prefix “Osho” with their names. Not just that, they started some certified course of Enlightenment, and at the end of it you get an enlightenment certificate and a new name, for example, Osho ABC, or Osho XYZ.

Such is the hurry and such is the greed of this company to make an enlightened product they treat it as if it was and is a breast enhancement surgery. Maybe the guys in this particular spiritual business can feel a bit happier with their “wi wi” by becoming Osho. It is all a question of feeling good, feeling useful and, naturally, to enjoy admiration with humility.

But in these past five years, one guy has even gone further! He calls himself “Osho Rajneesh.” Is there a limit to human debauchery? Are the people who claimed to have found their original face, so dumb that they cannot get a suitable name for their firm?

“Osho or Buddha”, is not a question of copy right or trade mark, it is question of aesthetic sense, a basic question of ethics. People in the reality shows do not simply become Elton John or Madonna by singing their songs. By reading a remarkable novel, ShantaRam, is it appropriate that I Shantam Prem start selling myself as shantaRam.

At least Osho’s brother, with his 100% Osho dress and beard, and the same genetic face can claim to be playing Osho on the theatre of life. But With his attire, this new Mr. Rajneesh looks more like a carbon copy of the carbon copy of Acharya Rajneesh or Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.
Though personally, if I can suggest him a name, it would be “Hannah Montana Rajneesh.” This name really has much more global potential and fits very finely with his personality. Whatsoever his wish, I request him to show a bit of common sense and stop calling his made in China watch, The Rolex!
with love
Shantam
FB Group-Osho commune International

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The main founder of the Sannyasnews website, Swami Prem Paritosh (Chris Gray), usually known as Pari, and who for writing purposes used the pseudonym “Sam”, died in the London Hampstead Marie Curie Hospice (Eden Hall) on May 14th. He had put up a brave struggle with cancer for 12 months. He was 67..

Pari had been a leading English “Situationalist” in his early life, operating from and in a wild, sixties Notting Hill, of which he still spoke with affection. During that time he translated from the French a seminal work on that approach to life, called “Leaving the 20th Century”.(republished 1997). However at some point he found himself reading Ouspensky and it turned his life for ever. He found his way to Poona (now Pune) in the early days, after a long courtship of Buddhism and the vipassana technique. Osho invited him to lead (together with Pradeepa) the first (Sannyas) Vipassana groups in 1975, and there is an exchange between Pari and Osho recorded on page 375 to 377 of the darshan diary “Hammer on the Rock”, about the subject.

However after a short while he found the leadership role absurd, and left the mainstream ashram to live a street or so away, and, as he always seemed to do, in fastidiously clean and attractive apartments, even if sometimes they were squats! The typewriter was always at the ready, and books and paints to hand. When ‘Poona one’ ended in 1981, he felt at the time neo-sannyas had ended, and returned to London and withdrew into family life, holding that sannyas had been overtaken by dictatorship, and lost its way.

His reaction to the chaotic and charged end of Rajneeshpuram (the Oregon Ranch) in 1985 was almost the opposite of what many did, he felt that somehow Osho had reasserted himself, and a lot of hopeless sheep had rushed out of the fold, and he was going back in. For him optimism arose, and he began to move in sannyas circles once more, and returned to Poona and to Osho. He was in Poona when Osho died.

Much of the material that relates to Poona one and to Poona two is tellingly recorded with a fine sense of movement in his book “Life of Osho” (by Sam) published in 1997. Of course it is from the perspective of someone who projected that the whole sannyas movement reflected his own subgroup of interests, but of that particular sometimes manic, sometimes love crazy, and sometimes intellectually hip world, his writing is certainly the best.

Pari did many things with his life, he returned for example to leading Osho meditations in the nineties in Swiss Cottage, London, and also in some famous back garden meditation events in Eton Avenue, of which I myself still have fond memories. During the last six years of his life he explored in an intense way the role of hallucinogens in psychotherapy and mystical life (written up in his recently published book “The Acid”). He started in 1999, with Usha his then beloved, the first satsang circle in London (inspired by the London visit of Satyam Nadeen). And he was an excellent and studied carpenter and gardener.

It is difficult to say what any man’s life means. Pari lived his life passionately, took his own self examination to the limits, and loved and lived well. He could be difficult, and cussed. He could sometimes sweetly confess to loneliness. But somehow he “made” his life - sometimes against the odds - and it marked him out.
Parmartha

We add the links below to some of his articles on Sannyasnews.com that Prem Paritosh wrote from the earlier days of the site.

Koregaon Park – The Wilder Shores
Gokarn
Poona 2001
Ayahuasca Ceremony
Osho Bardo
Things Fall Apart, The Centre Cannot Hold…

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Freely downloadable Osho audio-video discourses at www.oshoworld.com are temporarily unavailable due to threats by OIF, Zurich

A letter from Oshoworld

Dear Friends,
The freely downloadable Osho audio-video discourses at www.oshoworld.com are temporarily unavailable since May 05, 2009 due to continuous threats by OIF, Zurich to our US server host .

Recently Trademarks applied for in 1991 by the Zurich entity, after Osho left His body in 1990, were cancelled in the United States. The proceedings of the case clearly showed that Osho had never ever wanted Trademarks or Copyrights and did not give out any such rights to any individual or organization, leave alone the Zurich entity.

The Osho International Foundation (OIF), Zurich, started to register the trademarks of Osho and His meditations soon after Osho left His body in 1990. With the support of these Trademark registrations, the Zurich entity threatened Osho centres and got Osho websites pulled down from the internet and Osho activities were restrained, monopolized and controlled.

OIF started to send legal threats to Osho centres and sannyasins engaged in the work of Osho.

On January 13, 2009, the Trials and Appeals Board of the United States Patent and Trademark Office in its decision strongly said that Osho cannot be trademarked. This decision was the culmination of a legal battle started nearly 10 years ago by Osho Friends International (OFI), an association of Osho meditation centres and disciples from all over the world.

Osho International Foundation (OIF), Zurich, filed a Notice of Appeal on March 12, 2009 with respect to the January 13, 2009 decision by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board. OIF filed their appeal in the Court of Appeals of the Federal Circuit in Washington DC. The appeal is about the correctness of the decision rendered by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board on January 13.

Osho World is taking suitable steps for making the free downloads possible again. Many friends have written supporting and asking for reupload of the discourses.

We thank all friends for their love and support.

Your support is highly valuable and appreciated.

from www.oshoworld.com

“Things can be copyrighted, thoughts cannot be copyrighted, and certainly meditations cannot be copyrighted. They are not things of the marketplace. Nobody can monopolize anything. But perhaps the West cannot understand the difference between an objective commodity and an inner experience. For ten thousand years the East has been meditating and nobody has put trademarks upon meditations.”
OSHO
Om Shanti Shanti Shanti

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From Rishikesh to Chitrakoot Via Dubai
By Swami Chaitanya Keerti

It is quite hot in Delhi these days, and it may get hotter. But whether it is hot or cold, it does not stop Osho lovers to travel anywhere, because it is not that four letter word “work” or “duty’. It is really another four letter word–”play”.

Whenever it becomes unbearable in Delhi, I find myself packing for Dharmshala, some times to conduct a meditation camp at Osho Nisarga, and other times to just be there–to feel the cool breeze and view the beauty of snow-clad Himalayan peaks of Dhauladhar. Dharmshala is also famous for Buddhist people- the Dalai Lama and other Buddha-lovers are living there. In fact, they have created a very spiritual atmosphere in Dharmshala.

I do not stay there too long, and often the very next week I find myself returning to Delhi for editing Osho World magazine or facilitating another meditation camp at Oshodham.

When travelling I notice a current aspect of human greed. The travel to Dharamshala by air has become as expensive as flying to Dubai because there’s only one airline flying to Dharmshala. Exploitation by monopoly.

Comparing the airfare, I got an idea: Why not fly to Dubai and have a meditation camp there for some Osho lovers in the Middle East. It is really mysterious that you wish, and then things start moving in that direction. After having a camp on the banks of the Ganges in Rishikesh, I started planning my trip to Dubai. And in the last week of March I found myself in Dubai conducting a meditation camp. This was the first camp there and organised without any publicity. And it is true maybe that one cannot publicise openly there, though I am sure there are thousands of people reading Osho books and listening to Osho discourses in Dubai, and waiting for the taste of meditation. It became quite clear when I was there that more and more people will join in meditation workshops in the future. It was a good start.

After a gap of two days, and after Dubai, where Arabic and Islamic culture has been flourishing, I travelled to Chitrakoot. And as a matter of fact, it is easier to travel to Dubai than to Chitrakoot, though not that expensive. This real tiny town is in the heart of Hindu religion and culture. Dubai and Chitrakoot are such a big contrast! And into such opposite extremes, Osho is entering in a mysterious way. As Dubai does not have a large number of Osho lovers, so is the case with Chitrakoot, though the people there are knowledgeable about meditation and Samadhi. While in Dubai, I noitced even the people from India living in Dubai have only gone there to make money. But who knows, those who are intelligent and sensitive, their prosperity may create boredom, and they may be able to look for something more meaningful beyond it. They may turn to meditation.

This way the Zorba - the outworldly rich person - may get attracted to Buddha, the spiritual richness. And at this point people may turn to an holistic vision, which Osho offers to the whole humanity.

Osho says In Messiah, Vol. 2: I have been proclaiming the New Man as Zorba the Buddha — which is a meeting of East and West, which is a meeting of science and religion, which is a meeting of logic and love, which is a meeting of the outer and the inner. Only in these meetings will you find peace; otherwise, you will remain a battlefield. If you are miserable, remember that the misery is arising out of an inner battle that goes on day in, day out. There have been great Zorbas in the world. “Eat, drink and be merry” is their simple philosophy. “There is no life beyond death. God is nothing but an invention of cunning priests. Don’t waste your time on unnecessary things; life is short.” In India we have a whole philosophy, the system of the Charvakas. Perhaps a charvaka is the most articulate Zorba, and if you try to understand him he is very convincing: “There is no evidence, no eye-witness of any God or of any life after death. There is no evidence or proof that you have an immortal soul. Don’t get caught in these words, which have been created just to create a conflict in you so you can become Christians, Hindus, Jainas, Buddhists, Mohammedans.” India has also known great Buddhas. They say the world is illusory; all that is true is inner, and all that is untrue is outside. So don’t waste your time in desires, in ambitions; they are nothing but the same stuff as dreams are made of. Use the small time that you have in your hands to go as deep inside as possible so that you can find the temple of God — your godliness. If you listen to the Buddhas, they seem to be convincing. If you listen to the Zorbas, they seem to be convincing - and then you are in trouble, because you have both within you.

Swami Chaitanya Keerti

Tags: Discussion, Meditation/Spiritual, The World by sannyasnews
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