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From Somesh Somesh Dear sannyasnews,
Replies to Things Fall apart..."
Dear sannyasnews,
I agree with much of your views and comments. My personal idea is that there is a serious lack of leadership in the Sannyasin Community. There are a lack of people willing to stand up and have the courage to face being a leader and taking a stand. In fact each individual could stand up and be a leader in there own way. Sannyas needs to find a new identity, grow and be reborn in the new age.
from Zareen
Glad to hear that the old sannyas movement is finally biting the dust. Not too soon, I say, and good riddance. The only shame is that the sannyasins involved let it die a long, slow, death instead of rising up against the stupidity and greed of those in power.
The good news is that Osho has once again proven to be right in his teachings. Only a new man can bring beauty to the earth. The sannyas movement was an example of the old corrupt face trying to put on a pretty mask. But the greed and insecurities from underneath always show through. The world is in desperate need for those who have the courage to live with an authentic face to stand up and find a new, more simple way to live. It doesn't matter one bit what organization they belong to, or through whom they accepted the courage to be free.
Perhaps we seem to be living in a cultural wasteland of apathy and commercialism. But that is only because each person allows it to be so. We are trying to buy "God Realization" now, for gripes sake! The greed for enlightenment has turned out to be the highest greed for the poor modern mind.
I remember the months before Osho died. He said over and over that he would always be there through us - BECAUSE - at his death every sannyasin would realize their enlightenment. He wouldn't be there as some ethereal spirit, or feeling. It wouldn't be an invisible, hard-to-touch essence, but the actual presence of the awakened being. There would be ten thousand buddhas, deeply ordinary beings, true and utter nobodies laughing at the complexity of the ego.
So what happened to everybody?
I still remember the shock of being rejected by the whole community because I had the audacity to wake up. It was such a simple thing that I, naturally, assumed everyone else got it when I did. But I was immediately choked into silence by the attacks of fear that came from everyone I dared speak to about it. Of course, it didn't have anything to do with me. I was an invisible face on the computer network. It was because everyone else had such a huge greed for enlightenment that they perceived my declarations of emptiness to be bragging about the impossible.
At that same time I was contacted by a large number of other sannyasins who had also woken up. They were also afraid of the overt fear and greed in the community. So most of them just silently slipped away and sannyas lost their benefit.
Since then the unenlightened have been absorbed with White Robe Brotherhoods, inner circles, banning enlightened sannyasins from Poona, trying to get the good feeling back, chattering with fear about whether so-and-so is really enlightened, turning our beloved master's words into "isms," and getting sucked up into any quick fix solution that comes along.
So come on, everybody. It's time to get over it. Every single one of you, who has listened to Osho has everything you need to wake up right now. He didn't teach for everyone to spend their lives in a miserable inner squalor, grasping with greed for the unattainable. He didn't teach you to be dependent, fearful and lonely for his presence. If you have meditated with him at all you know emptiness, you know ordinariness, you know where your inner confidence and light lies. Get a grip and go all the way.
There is a lot of work to do around here on this planet that has nothing whatsoever to do with Poona and the White Robe Brotherhood.
(Zareen is a humorous teacher of the truth. She has recently published a lively memoir about her early years of awakening: Walking Without Footprints: Going Native in America. She is an avid knitter and craftsperson, and a dynamic 'Dances of Universal Peace' Leader. You can see her work at www.mysticdance.com.)
From Avasa
Dear Sannyasnews,
Let Life unfold the answer!
Avasa