15.1.1999

PETER: Hi,

RESPONDENT: I have enjoyed your writings. But only one thing has been questionable to me. Its about being disciple of Osho. As far as I have understood, you seem to had been a disciple of him to get something, Enlightenment, actual freedom, or anything you can call. It sounds a kind of bargain to me. It is very strange compared with my experience of being a disciple of him.

PETER: Yes, I am starting to wonder myself what people become a disciple of a Master for? What is it that they are seeking – if anything at all?

When I said I was seeking peace and freedom I was howled down.

When I said it was a New Man – peace on earth – I was similarly scorned.

And yet when I ask anyone why they are a disciple the silence is deafening – it as though I have asked some very strange question that they have never ever thought about. I know that when I took Sannyas I was pretty much ‘going with the flow’ and it was at a stage when it became apparent what an awful place the ‘real’ world was.

It was only the death of my 13 year old son, that shook me out of my lethargy and set me searching for freedom from the ‘shackles’ that I could feel bound me. And I wanted to be free – as this flesh and blood body – before I died. The sight of the dead body of one so young and so close to me gave me both the intent and the sense of urgency to ‘get off my butt’ and to not stop searching until I found.

A month later, I was watching Rajneesh’s body burning down by the river, and ‘more shit hit the fan’ – I knew I was on my own ... my Master was dead.

Still, I hung in out of loyalty, love and gratitude, but I could also see the religion forming all too clearly. I got a glimpse of the absurdity of it all one night while shouting Ya-Hoo to an empty chair, with thousands of others dressed in long white robes – ‘Is this what my life has come to?’

Despite this glimpse of sanity it still took me another 2 years to swallow my pride and admit I was in a religion.

By the way, my dictionary defines a disciple as ... ‘an adherent of the doctrines of another; a follower’ – Macquarie

RESPONDENT: You are now OK. Its good. But I think being disciple of Osho is not what you have experienced while you were a Rajneeshee.

PETER: Well, in the ‘good old days’ we renounced the ‘real’ world, joined the commune, donned orange robes, wore a mala, and ‘worshipped’ 10 or so hours a day.

There seems to be a milder more laid-back ‘Meditation Club’ type disciple emerging these days. Fair enough, the ‘serious’ approach really ended when the Ranch folded.

‘Aye ... it’s not like it was in the old days’ ... Oops ... I’m starting to sound a bit like the ‘old boys’ talking about the ranch days in the corner at some Sannyasin gathering.

No, look, I haven’t got a problem at all with your objection to what I say being based on questioning my ‘disciplehood’.

I’m ‘OK’ now, as you put it, precisely because I questioned my disciplehood, and the facts I discovered were a shattering blow to my pride.

For me, it’s just so unbelievably good not to need to follow, to need to trust, to need to have faith, or to need to believe ... to be free of all that is an amazing experience, to be free of the ‘shackles’ I felt when I stood by my son’s coffin.

*

P.S. – I am curious as to what your ‘experience of being a disciple of him’ is?

Continued on Actual Freedom Mailing List No 14