Role of the leader: power, trip or group protection?
Affairs in the Czech sannyas community inspired us to ask a question to the public. It happens. Someone leads the group or is a head of the center and one day he decides to throw someone out. What is the motivation and how people react to that situation is to be the theme of the series of answers we got from different people. The first one is from Sw Deva Sarlo. Questions were:
- is it ok, when the leader of the group throws somebody out of the group? under which conditions?
- is it ok when the owner of medicenter throws somebody out of the group or cancels his participation in another group? under which conditions?
Role of the leader - power, trip or group protection?
Sarlo: "At first i thought to say no to this idea since i haven't been seeing myself as a leader of a group or a center leader. And i stopped being involved in center stuff almost a year ago. But then i thought it needn't be so literal."Osho talks about using thorns to remove other thorns. So it is with the various issues which revolve around the use of power. Since the earliest days of his communes there has been an organization around him. The Master Anarchist has a hierarchical org! It is not and was never for him, it is for us.
Whether i am on the receiving end or the dishing-out end of a power trip there is grist for the mill. So almost all the workers, especially in Pune Une, had opportunities in their jobs to say no to someone. I was a guard for almost two years and had more opportunities than most. These were the days before laminated ID cards. To say yes or no was a decision based on a variable brew of intuition, memory and rules, from as often as five times per second to less than one an hour, Vipassana.
And some of those no's! It was always a relief when the "victim" went quietly, but when they didn't, i would have my nose rubbed once again in the "inner fascist." Sometimes it felt just awful. I knew i could escape by saying yes but i understood that "the rules" were not just there for "the good of the ashram," but also as a tool for me to look at the inner conflict. Even if the rule in any given instance was clear, i might shrink from enforcing it, out of cowardice, compassion or anarchist zealotry.
But beyond my own little processes there was the actual good of the ashram. Some people were not wanted there because they were too disruptive or just plain nuts. For the benefit of the many, a few were not allowed in. I had to remember a hundred faces in the bannee book. And Osho was behind it. He once answered a question from someone named Sudesh -- "I feel there does exist a hierarchy in this place and that some people are big on power trips. And I don't like it. I stay, for my feeling for you, for my friends and for myself. But I don't like the organization and the vibe of it. Should I get out?" -- with the single word, "Please." Grist for the mill.
Fast forward to Pune Five, or is it Zero? The net.
Osho's sangha is scattered around the world but one place we can easily meet is on the net. There are many websites, quite a few of them interactive. One such watering-hole is Sannyas List. Every day there are 5 to 150 messages, in a group where we variously celebrate, share, gossip, push each others' buttons and argue, not excluding bitter personal attacks. Currently i am the moderator, or "guard," of this group.
Inevitably, just as Osho's "real-life" communes attracted people who "didn't belong," so there come occasionally to Sannyas List those who seem to have no purpose other than criticism and disruption, in the name of growth, truth, freedom and Osho. Osho made it clear in his carbon-based communes not to indulge unconscious negativity endlessly. If it arose, give it space, let it flow and clear by itself. If it wasn't clearing there was another pic in the bannee book to recognise.
On the net, and with Osho gone from the body, subtler challenges arise. What to do with a cyber-pest?
Sannyasins are among the least deferential-to-authority people in the world, so there is no central authority in the list other than the consensus of the active members, currently around 20. (A further 20 or so write occasionally and another 200 lurk silently). This is not a democratic process but a balance-tension between our unconscious mobocratic tendencies and collective years of experience with Osho, expressed individually.
Many of us still harbour some negative tendencies, but the list can handle it. Balance shifts and is restored, as list dynamics sort things out. But a truly dedicated pest can destroy that balance, even if some of the members can deal with him creatively as individuals. Eventually the list consensus is to limit the offender and i am the enforcer. But this consensus can take time.
For two years a certain offender has hung around the list. For the last year he has been "moderated," ie allowed to receive messages but not post. So he complains on every sannyas forum he can about the loss of his freedom. Well, he still has his freedom to do this to anyone who wants to listen, but our one little club is closed to him. (He was also thrown out of the ranch and Wioska commune in Germany).
Now why anyone would want to hang around sannyasins and complain about Osho and sannyas so persistently is beyond me but there's no reason to accept this burden, in the name of freedom or anything else. The first time he was booted from the list, two years ago, there were issues of power, freedom and personal agendas that had not been settled yet. At that time i was an assistant moderator and supported the main moderator in throwing this guy out but it was done before there was that all-important consensus. The howls about freedom and fascism lasted for months and made the list impossible until he was allowed back.
Soon enough, though, his supporters came to see their support repaid with the same kind of negativity he was dishing out on the list, and finally he could be kept out for good. But it could not happen before a general agreement was reached, and for that a lot more time and processing was necessary. Authority was no solution.
Sw Deva Sarlo, webmaster of the following pages:
Osho Pulse is a webzine created by Vancouver sannyas community in 1996-1999
Ten Thousand Tales is a collection of short tales by people having had a direct experience with Osho
Guru Rating is a famous Sarlo's Guru Rating list
Space for sharing
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Satrup: Sudesh's question to Osho | Oct 16, 2002 |
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phil: | Apr 24, 2003 |
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karajaal: RE:Sudesh's question to Osho | Oct 26, 2002 |
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Paul Eisenkopf: RE:RE:Sudesh's question to Osho | Nov 11, 2002 |
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