06.22.07
Why so much guru stuff?
Someone expressed puzzlement at the material here on guru threads. Actually, in the round of the current New Atheists, and the initiative to critique religion it is important to try and establish some understanding of the labyrinth of Indian/Islamic spirituality.
We are getting an overdose, and these people, as Rajneesh made clear, finally, with his fascist nonsense, aren’t in the business of helping anyone. They wish to destroy modern civilization. In a way, that’s the best defense, assuming one survives: these people cannot grasp history, so much for enlightenment.
A new understanding is needed. And is already latent in secularism.
It can’t be accomplished by straight secular humanism. On the one we have to face the reality of what is going on with the guru shambles, on the other we are confronted with the oversimplifications of current science, especially the Darwinian absurdities on religion.
The question has been a crisis for a century plus, from Blavatsky through Gurdjieff to Rajnessh, et al.
Secular thought needs a new way to deal with the disintergrating mess of Indian/Islamic religion without getting involved in the round of destructive pseudo-understanding so common in humanist circles.
In a word, leadership is needed, but none is to be found.
That’s why a figure like Rajneesh is frustrating. He miscast the whole thing in a way that is indigestible to most. It could have been otherwise. He left the gross mis-impression that gurus, who might be crypto-fascists, are the spiritual authorities of last resort in some kind of hierarchy. His self-destruction shows that to be false. But as one commenter pointed out tonight, Rajneesh’s legacy is growing.
We need a new way to fight back, something that won’t work without some understanding of just how sneaky these gurus are, and how they operate. Noone will quite explain it in public.
We have to recast the foundations of a new understanding, but it will be a long fight against these guru entrepreneurs, who have, alarmingly, become corrupt.
Look at Wilber/Cohen and the attempt to annex the idea of evolution, via the ‘spiritual evolution’ thematic. There are actually three sets of lunatics here, the gurus, the ID gang, and the Darwinists.
Maybe they will all cancel out.
Jayen said,
June 23, 2007 at 3:13 pm
With respect, I think it is not leadership that is needed. Leadership has caused precisely the problems that you are describing. Any leadership is by nature corrupt.
I don’t share your assessment of Osho. I think he made these fallacies of leadership glaringly obvious, not intentionally perhaps, but certainly not making any effort whatsoever to prevent their shortcomings from manifesting.
And he talked at length about the fact that the era of the guru had ended, and included himself in this. At the end of his life, he said he wanted to be no more than a friend to his people.
None of our friends are perfect, but that does not mean that we do not love them. I certainly love Osho, his humour, wisdom, insight … but I do not expect him to conform to some made-up, impossible ideal of God. Hence he cannot disappoint me. What there is of value in his teaching stands on its own merits.
What is needed is people who think independently, who think for themselves. And by all means, the more they read of people like Shah, or Osho, or Gurdjieff, the better it is, in my view. But such reading should be a leaven for their own exploration of themselves, their inner space, their creative response to life.
That is one thing that Osho’s organisation today is promoting — the self-sufficient meditator. Meditators – yes; mediators — NO.
Of course there are others who want to play the same old religious games with Osho’s legacy, but that is only to be expected. Osho was a little too radical in this respect.
So we certainly do not need leaders leading others. We need people to live according to themselves, without reliance on any leaders. Inspiration — yes, leadership — no.
Here is Osho, again on this topic of leaders and followers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otGQqO2TYMI
In my view, Osho was a hundred years ahead of his time. I think he was not understood even by his own people.
Cheers, J.
Navarth said,
July 15, 2007 at 7:15 am
Alas, Osho was most definitely a fraud. Gurdjieff is much more interesting and if Javen had actually understood anything written by the latter, he/she would not use the word “love” so casually.
Suffice it say, that meditation is not all it’s cracked up to be either.. In my opinion, amateurish ‘meditation’ and so-called ‘tantra’ inevitably wrecks both body and mind, especially when practised for long periods and combined with homespun ‘breathing’ techniques. This assertion can easily be verified by reference to published data regarding the Rajneesh cult and many others.
nemo said,
July 15, 2007 at 8:34 pm
I replied to Navarth here:
http://darwiniana.com/2007/07/15/rajneeshgurdjieff/