rs: Shocking Story by and about Sw Chetan Samveda
I see mostly that a big number of sannyasins for one reason or another, they don't have the perseverance to meditate on their own and therefore they go guru shopping. They go to anyone who proclaims some special power or some nonsense, so that they don't have to meditate themselves or take responsibility. And as far as sannyasins are concerned I see a lot of sannyasins are not sannyasins anymore.
What does your name mean?
Chetan means Consciousness, Samveda means Sensitivity.
What is the meaning for you?
The more conscious, I become the more sensitive and the more sensitive I become the more conscious. So I have those two techniques within one name. To be more sensitive I need to become more conscious and to be more conscious I need to become more sensitive. How long it will take I don't know. I have had this name about 20 years.
Your story began in Pune?
I was first time in Pune 1980 and since then I was doing many many groups.
As a young boy, I wanted to find someone, who knew, what life is about. So I read lots of books and used to read a lot of poetry, listen to great music and I used to wonder why I was living in a world where there were no great people. I didn't know any great man - or a great woman. I didn't know any great people, no great musicians, no great poets; no great authors no great saints or no great mystics, no great people as I had read about in my books.
And this for me was somehow a little bit of a mystery, a big question mark. I felt my search was for someone who represented truth. Later I was studying the Enneagram and it seemed each type under this system has certain characteristics depending on his/her type. Each type has a particular thirst, characteristic or virtue. They also have particular interests and passions. So my essential quest was for truth, which put me into a certain personality classification. And therefore I was looking for someone who represented sincerity and authenticity and truth. And in society all we usually see, is hypocrisy.
So you have found Osho. Do you think Osho is for certain type of people?
I think for sure he is not for everyone because the message or the essence of what he says is usually quite shocking when you first hear what he is saying. It's quite a jolt to the system, when you first hear really what he means. I mean, even if I don't know what he means, (which I don't otherwise I would be enlightened), in the beginning and even now, if I let it sink in a little bit and let it touch me, what he is saying is quite shocking and this is not for everybody.
Isn't it because the truth is shocking? Or is it a matter of a form?
I think as we are living, the truth is shocking, because we are living mostly in lies and we tend not to be honest with each other. So therefore the truth will be shocking. If someone is living in truth, I guess our life (lie) will be shocking. When people in the society are living a lie, (until they open the door a little to truth) they will not be prepared to do that.
What was your shock, when you took sannyas?
He was the shock as I had been leading a very hypocritical life. So, basically the shock came before I took sannyas or before sannyas took me. The shock was when I read the "Book of Secrets", volume 1. And when I read the first chapter or something I had the most incredible high fever for one a week, it was such a shock. So after having read few pages or chapters I was very, very sick. Something touched me so deep that I don't even know what that was. The truth of the fact was that my life as it was going, was to be destroyed. And unconsciously I knew this. And it took some years for it to be destroyed.
How many years?
It took, it really took seven years for it to be demolished and one more year for it to be completely finished. So for one year I was slowly falling like a domino. In '87 it seemed like there was one domino left and in '88 the last was finished. It took that long because I was resisting and not wanting really to change. It started happening when I first saw him. He walked in to the big hall in India in Pune, and he was someone very present, to me he was very aware, kind of strong confidence, authority, some sort of authority or power, which I couldn't understand what it was. But there were the words of truth - that was shocking to me. So that was the second shock. The first shock was the book, the pages I have read; that was the end of 1976 and the second was seeing him and listening to him, speaking effortlessly and easily about incredible things and without hesitation; that was 1980.
Did you take sannyas immediately after experiencing Osho's presence?
I didn't take sannyas then, in 1980, I didn't take sannyas because I lacked the courage to do it. So the third big shock came in 1981 when he went into silence and left India to America and then I thought I had missed him, I thought I had really missed the boat, that I missed the train and then I was really in a state. I really was in a crisis. So as soon as I read the newspaper, I had to go for a five-mile-run immediately. I knew about dynamic, but I didn't... somehow... you know... I had to go for the five-mile run. It was the third shock actually.
Is there anything in your ordinary life now, which is shocking you?
No... about the ordinary life... no, I don't think so. Unless someone died or maybe if she (Agar) left me, if my mother dies, my sister dies, something like this - this is shocking; this touches the heart and the guts. About ordinary life of people sometimes I get disappointed and once in a while I am a little bit shocked but not really so much anymore.
Some people today talk about sannyas conditioning, something among sannyasins, which is not the truth, or it is far from truth.
Yes, that might be true. I think we all have what we call "the sannyas conditioning"; we just try to be aware of it as sannyas is actually about de-conditioning. So what we call sannyas conditioning is just our lack of understanding of sannyas; there is no such thing as sannyas conditioning. These two words are opposite in meaning.
One of these conditionings I think you are referring to might be to quote Osho in situations as if he would have said that about the situation and in fact he could have said anything. And we are using what we remember to support our own conditioning - this you could call sannyas conditioning but it has nothing to do with sannyas.
I quote Osho, I do it more for myself, maybe once in a while I do it - with the girlfriend - but I usually know that it is conditioning and it is actually a little bit a joke because the quote is from the past and present is always fresh. So sannyas conditioning has lots of conditionings because Osho has talked about everything, he talked about marriage, about relationship, sex, relating. I feel we are quoting because we don't really know. I think if we know what love is, for instance, we're not going to quote Osho, certainly I'm not. There is lots of sannyas conditioning like this but this is our conditioning nothing to do with sannyas.
Do you also see any conditionings in Pune?
In Pune there are as many conditionings as there are many people because Pune is a big place and to run it requires a few, you can say, mutual understandings for the survival of the commune. What Osho said, i.e. about the work, is how one may transform consciousness and that is to work every day minimum six hours and go to White Robe in the evening. He said, he guarantees transformation, he says 'it is scientific'. I have tried this and when I go to Pune I usually do that, and I have found, it's true, what he says. It's communal therapy to work in a commune. And other people, say now the inner circle run the commune, that they use this quote, so that the people have to work.
But the question is, that you can choose to work or not and the people who are saying the things against the inner circle or against the commune have not experienced, that what Osho says about work is true.
Working in the Commune is the best group you can do for free. You can go to Pune, you can even get work and live in the commune, if you're lucky, or you can have a room in the commune, you can go to White Robe, you can work and you can transform yourself for nothing. And White Robe is better than any group.
Be careful, because people are mixing everything up all the time, so you come up against all the different projections or all my projections about people, how they should be, how they shouldn't be. It's easy, you can say it is conditioning but the conditioning I am thinking about comes when you don't trust something or the process.
It's like you know, every new sannyasin should do three months' dynamic. Now, I agree with that because I have done three months' dynamic, I have done it more than once, I have done it quite a few times and I have also worked, so I know that dynamic is good. White Robe itself as it is, is the most valuable moment of your life. When I go to White Robe, I know, that something happens. Even if in the White Robe my mind is going crazy, thinking about anything, Mexico or anything, thinking about breakfast or dinner, because I know that I get to see how the mind is moving. So White Robe is showing me something about my mind, so something definitely happens there.
Sannyas conditioning as you refer to it, has basically something to do with what Osho may have said and we quoted - wrongly. I think if we quote it to encourage us, then it is fine. If I quoted to convince you about something, then this is wrong and this is just the conditioning you are talking about- I am trying to prove a point. So the conditioning comes when we quote and we are quoting a lot. For certain, about relationship, about love, about meditation we quote a lot. Sometimes he says that you shouldn't meditate, it is bad for you, 'forget about enlightenment, and forget about spiritual goals'; he said 'enough', 'just be an ordinary person, live your life'. This might work as well. But for me I have gone to White Robe, sometimes I sit silently and I feel good.
How do you see today, what is happening with sannyasins around the world after Osho has left his body?
I see mostly that a big number of sannyasins for one reason or another, they don't have the perseverance to meditate on their own and therefore they go guru shopping. They go to anyone who proclaims some special power or some nonsense, so that they don't have to meditate themselves or take responsibility. And as far as sannyasins are concerned I see a lot of sannyasins are not sannyasins anymore. Basically I feel, anyone who is meditating, is a sannyasin. As far as I am concerned, Osho's meditations are most powerful for me. I work with people, I do groups and sessions and all this stuff and I have seen that his methods, techniques and approach are radical. Dynamic is radical, it's effective and it's fast, very fast. You do dynamic every day for three months and you will know, that this is a very very fast method. It's a method that can defeat the past for twenty years, if you do it totally, no holding back!
So I see this question or doubt about sannyasins, that many of them don't have - I guess - the trust or the experience of having done Osho's meditations for some extended period. What he said was, his meditations are not dependent upon his physical body, they are dependent upon your presence or my presence. When I am doing dynamic or I am doing kundalini or while I am sitting at the White Robe. These techniques, meditations, devices are dependent upon my presence, not on Osho's body. So I think sannyasins around the world have got lazy, they have... I am a little bit judgmental about this but I feel, I have also got lazy. I have relied upon the amazing experiences that I have had with Osho, when he had been in the body. When I do this I'm hanging onto past experiences through meditation. Forget about it. It means nothing anymore. All that matters now is now.
What about new people, new sannyasins?
I think the new sannyasins have a big advantage. They missed Osho in the body, that's true, that's one thing but I feel they can still move quickly, if they want. They can still experience what is necessary to keep meditation going. They don't have a lot of opinions or prejudices about how it should be. I remember the story Osho told us about, we all are spending 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years and it is like we are all in a circle, meditating for all these years. And one day someone decides to jump into the center, now that person might have come into the ring, into the circle. It doesn't matter - new sannyasin, old sannyasin, someone might be 80, someone might be 20 and someone might have been meditating for one year, other one for 30 years. So that one, who has been meditating for one year, might be quite impatient, so this person might (I feel I have missed sometimes) - be more enthusiastic, they might decide to jump into the center first, before the person who has been meditating for 30 years. I think that is what matters because we all have had certain experience; I have missed certain things and you have missed something else and someone else also has missed something else. I think to compare what we have missed is wrong and we should focus on the positive aspects of what we have available to us and in this case I'm talking about Osho's meditations. The new sannyasins should forget about what they missed and focus on what they have. Because the focusing on what they've missed is negative, it comes from the mind, it's a waste of energy, and I see the opportunity they have right now. For them things can be as valuable and the process can be as quick as anyone's. My experience is - the intensity matters a lot. And without the intensity we all tend to be little bit "wishy- washy", myself included. Someone's little bit lazy, bit sloppy, but I know when I increase the intensity, and then something happens again.
Do you have any experience with people here, with Czech sannyasins? How do you see Czech people?
I see them with a lot of energy; I see them as very fresh, I see them a little bit impressed by occult powers, in the psychic phenomenon. That one used to impress me 25 years ago, so I went into the occult. I was also working with esoteric things but this is a part of human experience, it's a part of the mind and has nothing to do with enlightenment or awareness. Enlightenment I can't talk about because I am not enlightened but I know it has nothing much to do with spirituality or growth.
The psychic powers are a part of the faculty of the mind and I had played with it for many years. And now I don't take it too seriously because actually it's the mind wanting to be powerful and get something what you don't have. It might be a girlfriend, like your girlfriend here, I might use some secret shamanic energy to attract her or she might use some special sexy herbs from the fields... It might be just becherovka :-))... But I was interested in power, 25-30 years ago and I got interested into the psychology and the esoteric and then I had many different experiences and it was a fascinating field and what I can say is that it encouraged me to keep going. I got into it initially when my father died and I began to contact him after he left his body, after he died. My mother and I got into the occult and we started to communicate with spirits and people out of their bodies. And that time it was actually very important because I was very shocked by my father's death. So then I found out that the personality survives beyond physical death. And that is how it started for me with the spiritual dimension in that sense. And I became very psychic, just for myself. Whatever you put your attention on, you become. This is one of the secrets.
If you put your attention on money, you become rich, if you put your attention upon meditation, I heard, Osho said, you become enlightened. If you put your attention upon psychic powers, you become psychically powerful. You can manipulate people for business; you can do also these things. But this is against meditation. No, making money, that's fine but any sort of psychic manipulation is against your essence and it's against my essence and it's against my meditation. I try not to do that. But it's a natural thing because the mind wants to have something or wants to do something, wants to be successful, wants to lead a different life.
And in terms of sannyas conditioning, there are a lot of ex-sannyasins there, who somehow feel, it's easier to go to some guru rather than to meditate. But that's fine because that's their path. But that has nothing much to do with me.
I had a lot of money but I wanted to destroy that; I wanted to live an insecure life because I felt that that would make me more alive. I had so much money that it took me three years to lose it. Somehow successfully :-) I did it. Part of that was coming to Osho and when I saw him then the rest was happening. So leading an insecure life, it made me, I also feel more alive, a lot more fresh, a lot more trusting and I get more relaxed about lots of things. It's good to make money, nothing wrong with it. It's not against meditation.
I don't know anybody here who is against money because it is not so big burden for people here. Not many people have enough money.
OK, so if the idea is not a burden and they'd like money, then the question is, why don't they go and do it? Do you know the answer?
The answer is to do it :-)
No no no. Why don't they do it? If I want the money and the idea is not a burden, then why they don't do it? What's the answer? They don't want it enough!! They don't want it enough! They haven't yet contacted the desire. Now in this case the desire is good because otherwise it always will be like this - fifty fifty. Connect with that desire. Nothing wrong with the desire. But if you are not connecting with the desire you are not connecting with yourself. So I always say then - do it. And do it quickly. Because otherwise you are going to be thinking about maybe I should have done it or couldn't have done it or maybe I should have done something different. So it will be bothering you in your meditation. It will; it will haunt you and it will bother you. You can't even say that the desire is bad. Not to do something about it, is worse because that desire's going to bother you. Or bother me :-)
Thank you for inspiring us ...
