Spiritual Business

Why Spiritual Truth is Distorted into Lies

Rajneesh (Osho) had a horrible character. He was a University Professor who by his own admission thought it would be more fun to have people serving him while pretending to be Enlightened.

Horrible things happened around him. For example in order to prevent some Oregon residents from voting in the election, some Rajneeshis sprayed harmful bacteria at local resturants (i.e. salad bars), to make the local residents sick. Ma Anand Sheela was convicted for this and spent time in Prison.

Rajneesh tried to distance himself from all that; however he made a statement on an American News program called Nightline where his character was revealed. When Rajneesh was in jail he made the statement on Nightline that his people would do what it takes to get him out including using bombs. He was obviously making a threat. He could have said he would not want his people to do that; however he never said he did not want his people to do that.

Some wise advice is: stay as far away from the followers of Osho as you can get, because evil and corruption attracts evil and corruption. Usually I would not post a quote by someone who had as evil, corrupt and horrible a character as Rajneesh. However, the other side of the coin is that although Rajneesh was not a liberated sage, Rajneesh was one of the most intelligent human beings who ever lived and he had a tremendous depth and quantity of knowledge reflecting an insight into human nature.

The following is a quote from the book Philosphia Perennis. It is on the subject of Spiritual Business and why Spiritual Truth is distorted into lies. Rajneesh has stated all this so well, that it is well worth being included here.

The questioner asked:

"Bhagwan - Buddha, Mahavira, Mohammed and Christ were enlightened men. They tried to teach their disciples the methods to become enlightened. They wanted to form an endless chain of enlightened people, and, instead of becoming enlightened, almost all of them [the followers] tried to be cunning enough to cheat the common people by making large scale business firms behind these great men. Will you explain the reason for this? Will this ashram become the head office of such a new business?"

Rajneesh answered:

"Everything that is born dies. The flower that is in the morning, full of life and juice, by the evening will be gone. It is a natural law: nothing can live forever. In time, things appear and disappear. In time, everything is just a soap-bubble. You don't condemn the morning flower just because by the evening the petals have withered away, or do you? You don't condemn the sunrise because once the sunrise has happened the sunset is coming closer.

"When there is a Buddha, a flower blooms. But it cannot remain forever - that is not the way of time. The flower will disappear. And man is cunning, and man is calculating. A few cunning and calculating people will gather around; they will make a business out of it - that too is natural. When a Buddha is not there, whatsoever he has done is bound to become a business. But that is no reason for a Buddha to stop doing whatsoever he is doing.

"Even knowing perfectly well that things will deteriorate, a Buddha tries with all his heart – he lives his light, he shares his light, he lives his love, he shares his love. And those who are receptive enough become enlightened. Those who are intelligent absorb the energy of the Buddha, and are transformed through it. They don't bother about what is going to happen later on; there is no question of bothering.

"You are here, - rather than becoming a sannyasin you are worried about what will happen later on: 'Will this ashram become the head office of such a new business?' It is bound to become. It has always been so, it will always be so. Before it becomes one, you become a sannyasin. While I am here, let me transform you. And why should you be worried about the future? There will be future Buddhas too. They always go on happening.

"So those who want to become enlightened, seek and search for a living Buddha. And they are always around; the earth has never lacked them. Sometimes a Jesus, sometimes a Mahavira, sometimes a Mohammed, sometimes a Pythagoras - they are always there. Those who are thirsty, they always find them. But there are millions who are not thirsty.

"Those millions who are not thirsty, they also want to pretend they are thirsty. It is these millions who are not thirsty and yet want to pretend that they are religious, seekers of truth – they become the victims of the cunning and the clever people, of the priests.

"The priests succeed in exploiting because there are people who want to be exploited. It is a perfect arrangement. The priest cannot make a business out of religion if there are real seekers – they will see through it; they cannot be deceived.

"But in fact there are millions of people who don't want to know the truth. That hurts. For these people, plastic truths are needed. For these people, plastic flowers are needed. And plastic flowers have one thing about them: they never wither away.

"This is something to be understood: the false has a longer life than truth, because the false adjusts to the process of time; it is part of it. The true comes from the beyond; it is not a part of time, it is a part of eternity. It does not belong to time. It enters into time, but it is a foreigner. Time cannot absorb it, and it cannot adjust itself to time.

"So it is only for a moment that you see the light of a Buddha ... and then it disappears. It is only for a rare moment that eternity gives a glimpse into the world of time.

"That's how a real flower dies. But the plastic flower remains. In fact, now scientists, particularly those who are interested in not polluting nature, those who are ecology-oriented, are very much worried about plastic – because plastic is something that never dies. It cannot be absorbed back by the earth; it will remain for ever and ever. You throw away a plastic bag or anything that is made of plastic – it will remain. The earth cannot reabsorb it, the sea cannot reabsorb it. It is so unreal that it will persist.

"Lies persist for thousands of years; lies have their own ways of remaining, because they adjust to time, they are part of time. But truth is something strange in the world of time. It is timelessness. It is a miracle that once in a while it expresses itself in the dimension of time – it is a miracle. The Buddha, the Christ – these are miracles . . . something that should not be, something that is going against the law of necessity; something that follows the law of power, of grace, and comes from the beyond. That ray comes and goes.

"Millions of people want to pretend to be religious. These are the people who go to the churches and to the mosques and to the temples and the gurudwaras. These are the people who want religion cheap. They want only a formal kind of religion – a Sunday religion. They don't really want to become committed; they are playing a game.

"And the game seems to pay in their mundane life – the churchgoer is respected, and the person who is respected can cheat better than anybody else. The churchgoer is thought to be religous; nobody thinks he will deceive, hence he can deceive more easily. The church fits with the marketplace perfectly well; it is part of the market-place.

"Jesus was always a misfit; otherwise, why did people crucify him? People have never crucified priests; they have always crucified Buddhas. A Socrates is dangerous, disturbing, shocking; but the priest is perfectly good – consoling, helping to make your life easier through his lies. His lies function as buffers, shock-absorbers. He helps you in every possible way to live the false, pseudo life that you are living. He helps you to forget about truth, and he gives you truth and God in such cheap ways that you need not risk anything at all.

"By being a Christian you don't risk, by being a Hindu you don't risk. By being a follower of Jesus, you were risking. To be with me is a risk! To be with the Shankaracharya is not a risk. To be with me is costly, it will create a thousand and one problems for you. Unless one is really committed to truth, really involved, really thirsty and hungry for God, one cannot be here around me.

"But millions of people want plastic flowers. Plastic flowers are very convenient; you need not grow them; you need not take the trouble of growing them. To grow real flowers is troublesome; think of the soil, prepare the ground, bring the manure and the fertilizers and water, and then protect. And then too it always remains unpredictable what is going to happen.

"Plastic flowers are perfectly convenient; ready-made you get them. No soil is needed, no preparation, no gardening – nothing of the sort. And they don't fade away. Once in a while you can give them a good bath, and they will be again as fresh as ever. They only collect dust, that's all; dust can be washed away.

"That's how beliefs are – plastic flowers. But millions of people want plastic flowers, hence the priest can exploit you. Remember always one of the most fundamental laws of economics: wherever there is a demand, there will be a supply. Because the false is demanded, there are falsifiers.

"And this is a natural process. I am not saying, I cannot say that my place will not become a business one day – it is going to become.

"Every Truth, sooner or later, will be organized. And the moment it is organized, it dies.

"There is a famous story:

"A disciple of the Devil came running to him and said 'What are you doing here? A man sitting under that tree has become enlightened! He has found the truth. Our whole business is at stake, and what are you dong here? We have to do something!'

"Certainly, if somebody finds truth, then the Devil's whole existence is at stake – he lives on lies. But the disciple must have been a new disciple, just a learner. The old Devil laughed and he said 'Don't you be worried. Let him find it – we will organize it, and once a truth is organized, it dies.'

"And all truths will be organized. There is no way to protect them, there is no way to make safeguards; there is no possibility. Every truth will be organized. Every truth will become a religion.

"So the way for the perceptive is: while the Buddha is there, drink of him as much as you can, and forget all about what is going to happen later on. That is the only intelligent way."

Commentaries on the above:

An excellent test to see if the spiritual group you belong to is a spiritual business or not is: if fees are charged or any money is accepted as a donation, then that group is a spiritual business. There are no exceptions to this rule.

Incidentally, Rajneesh was always a businessman, even from the beginning.

The key is not if a sage's body is living or dead. Most living spiritual teachers are really just spiritual business people.

Examples of plastic flowers that are no longer a direct means to Truth are:

Buddhism (Tibetan, Theravada and Zen), Christianity, Christian Mysticism, Islam, Sufism, Judaism, Jewish Mysticism, Hinduism, The Gurdjieff lineage, Krishnamurti, Scientology, the Poonjaji (Lucknow lineage), the Ramesh Balsekar lineage.

These are all plastic flowers pretending to be living flowers. These are all indirect paths with an almost endless number of delays in them. They are all distortions of the original intentions. Because the Lucknow lineage is modern, it provides an excellent opportunity to see how a Sages teaching is distorted. The Sage being Sri Ramana Maharshi and the ones distorting the teaching being the Lucknow lineage. The same is true for the Ramesh Balsekar lineage. The Sage being Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj and the ones doing the distorting being the Ramesh Balsekar lineage.

If you would like to see direct Teachings that have no delays or detours to the Truth, that are still living flowers, click this link:

DIRECT PATH LINKS: AWA Index Page

Authentic spiritual teachers never accept donations and they never allow organizations to accept donations for them. Whenever there is an exchange of money, that is business. Beware of "spiritual" business people. As soon as you see a solicitation for donations or fees, run away quickly. Just imagine if I wanted to learn something from my father, if my father said "OK, but first you must pay me $10 or $100." It is easy for you to see that something would have gone wrong with such a relationship. However, people usually fail to see that when a spiritual teacher is collecting donations, something has gone wrong with that relationship. Where there is Love, there is no need for an exchange of money.

 

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Michael Langford