Self-Knowledge and Self-Realization

I posted a critique of a movie moment between Mooji and one of his students a few weeks ago and received many critical comments of the sort that a real teacher does not criticize other teachers.  This is just nonsense, absolute nonsense.  Even Robert criticized other teachers in private, although never at Satsang.


Below is the result of a 25 minute google search on gurus critical of other gurus.  I checked Osho first as he was well known for being critical of almost all other teachers. J. Krishnamurti was critical of ALL gurus and spiritual teachers. His talks always attacked the entire notion of a guru and the need to a guru. He found them all to be charlatans. 


People who have not actually lived with live teachers have so many concepts about how they should be. Not one teacher would ever live up to most of these concepts, such as a teacher is all-loving, never angry, never makes mistakes (The many who argued that Mooji did not make a mistake with the woman devotee), has perfect health,  etc., etc., and if they do not fit these concepts, they are not a true teacher, or "totally enlightened."  If only more people actually spent time with teachers rather than dealing with Facebook gurus, the spiritual arena would be a lot clearer.


Actually, Osho does provide a good short description below of the true teacher: he will not conform to ANY of your concepts and projections.

Osho on U.G. Krishnamurti and Muktananda

Now, he (U.G. Krishnamurti) missed two pinnacles...(J. Krishnamurti and Ramana) and this is what goes on happening. You have a mind, a certain mind. When you go to a master, you look from your mind. If it fits, you are happy; you start clinging. But that is not going to help -- because it fits, it will strengthen the same mind that you had brought with you. If by chance you come across a real master, nothing is going to fit. He is going to disrupt all your ideas about how a master should be; he is going to sabotage you. He is going to take all expectations. He is to frustrate you, he is to disappoint you in every possible way -- because that is the only way real work can start. And if you still can be with him, then... then you are going to be awakened.

Even a Muktananda can get followers. Once I passed Muktananda's ashram, and just to see what was happening there, I went in. I have never seen such an ordinary man becoming a great religious leader of people. No potential, no achievement, no insight -- if you saw him walking in the street you would not recognize that there is something there. Just plain ordinary -- and not ordinary in the sense of Zen -- just plain ordinary. But even he can find followers.

Osho on Yogi Bhajan:

You must have heard the name of a great sardar yogi in America, Yogi Bhajan. He was just a porter at Delhi Airport. He saw Muktananda coming with seven hundred Americans.... Of course at that time his name was Sardar Harbhajan Singh; he was a poor porter, but certainly he looked far better than Muktananda, more impressive. The idea came into his mind, "If this fool can be a PARAMAHANSA, A SATGURU, etcetera, etcetera, then why should I waste my time just being a porter?" He dropped the job, went to America, and is now the greatest spiritual leader of the Sikh hierarchy in the Western hemisphere.

Just a few days ago, he was back in Delhi with all his disciples. One of his bosses, who is a lover of me, passed by. He saw him sitting on the lawn of the Delhi Taj Mahal Hotel with his disciples. He could not recognize him, he had changed so much. He thought, "A great mahatma."

But Yogi Bhajan is a simple man in that way, far simpler than Muktananda or Nirmala Devi. He sent a disciple to the boss to tell him, "Come to my room. I have something to say to you."

The boss could not understand why the great yogi was calling him; he was thrilled, excited. He went into the room, Yogi Bhajan came in and he said, "Boss, don't you recognize me? I am just that poor Sardar Harbhajan Singh, your porter. Have you forgotten me completely?"
    Then he could recognize the face. He said, "But what has happened? You have become such a great yogi with so many disciples!" Then he told the story... that it is due to Muktananda. The whole credit goes to Muktananda!

Osho on Mother Teresa: Deceiver, charlatan and hyopocri

                                            

Just the other day I received a letter from Mother Teresa. I have no intention of saying anything against her sincerity; whatsoever she wrote in the letter is sincere, but it is unconscious. She is not aware of what she is writing; it is mechanical, it is robot-like. She says, 'I have just received a cutting of your speech. I feel very sorry for you that you could speak as you did. Reference: the Nobel Prize. For the adjectives you add to my name I forgive you with great love.'

She is feeling very sorry for me... I enjoyed the letter! She has not even understood the adjectives that I have used about her. But she is not aware, otherwise she would have felt sorry for herself.

The adjectives that I have used (for her)--- the first is 'deceiver', then 'charlatan' and 'hypocrite'. The deceiver is not only the person who deceives others, in a far more fundamental sense the deceiver is one who deceives himself. Deception begins there. If you want to deceive others, first you have to deceive yourself. But once you have deceived yourself you will never become aware of it unless you are shocked by somebody from the outside, shaken, hammered; you will not become aware that the deception has gone very deep on both sides. It is a double-edged sword.

She is a deceiver in this double-edged sense. First she has been deceiving herself, because meditation can certainly create a life of service, a life of compassion, but a life of service cannot create a life of meditation. Mother Teresa knows nothing of meditation: this is her fundamental deception. She has been serving poor people, orphans, widows, old people, and she has been serving them with good intentions, but the way to hell is full of good intentions! I am not saying that her intentions are bad, but the results don't depend on your intentions.

On Jiddhu Krishnamurti:

    J. Krishnamurti has been saying that there is no need for a Master. He is right -- and absolutely wrong also. He is right because when you become awakened, you also know that there was no need, you were dreaming. When you become alert, dreaming stops, and then you can't feel what the need was.' It was just a dream, I could have shaken myself out of it.' But it is an afterthought. Even Krishnamurti needed Annie Besant and Leadbeater -- he had his own Masters.

It is an afterthought. When a thing happens, then you can always feel: I could have done it. But when it has not happened, you cannot even think because your thinking will also be a part of your dream.

A Master is needed when you are asleep. When you become awakened, you also will think a Master was not needed. Then for you, of course, the Master is not needed. But then many will be deluded because many egoists will surround you, as you will find. You cannot find anywhere else such a mass of egoists as you will find near Krishnamurti, because the moment the egoist hears that no Master is needed, he feels very happy. He says: Right! He always thinks he is the Ultimate; no need to surrender to anybody because ego resists surrender. And this man says that no Master is needed -- egoists feel very happy. Around Krishnamurti you will find all sorts of egoists because it seems very good, very convenient -- no need to surrender.
 

    J. Krishnamurti, a man who struggled for ninety years -- his last words have some great meaning. One of my friends was present there. Krishnamurti lamented, he lamented his whole life. He lamented that "people have taken me as entertainment. They come to listen to me...." There are people who have listened to him for fifty years continually, and still they are the same people as had come for the first time to listen to him. Naturally it is annoying and irritating that the same people... Most of them I know, because J. Krishnamurti used to come only once a year for two or three weeks to Bombay, and slowly, slowly all his followers in Bombay became acquainted with me. They all were sad about this point: What should be done? How can we make Krishnamurti happy?

The reason was that Krishnamurti only talked, but never gave any devices (Methods) through which whatever he was talking about became an experience. It was totally his fault. Whatever he was saying was absolutely right, but he was not creating the right climate, the right milieu in which it could become a seed. Of course he was very much disappointed with humanity, and that there was not a single person who had become enlightened through his teachings. His teachings have all the seeds, but he never prepared the ground. 

    (My Comment: This same argument can be used against all the neoAdvaitins who also claim no teacher or surrender is necessary. They really have no method or preparation of the student for awakening. All that they have is "just talking.")

U.G. Krishnamurti on Jiddhu Krishnamurti and Osho:  Osho is a pimp, Jiddhu Krishnamurti the greatest fraud of the 20th Century

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHw6wfWQ630

Osho on Muktananda again and on Muktananda's teacher, Nityananda:

I know many people, like Muktananda, who have nothing to give. It is a miracle that Muktananda can also become a guru. But still if somebody is following Muktananda, I will not say don’t follow him. I will say go headlong. Because that is the only way to find out, to figure it out. I will say, ‘Go headlong with open eyes; maybe this is how your life is going to grow.’ Nothing is wrong in it. Why be so much afraid?

One learns from fools as much as from wise people, and one learns from pseudo-gurus as much as from authentic gurus. They are part of one phenomenon. In fact, you get that which you deserve. Now there are a few people who deserve Muktananda. What to do? They have earned Muktananda through their lives; many lives of karmas and they have earned Muktananda. Now who am I or who are you to prevent them? Why? They deserve, that is their growth, they have to pass through it.

Osho on Nityananda Maharaj: 

One of the great Hindu monks, Nityananda, the master of Swami Muktananda — Muktananda was very well known in America. Nityananda had only one unique quality: his belly. I don’t think in the whole history of man anybody had such a big belly! When he lies down you can see a strange shape.

When I saw him I told him, “You don’t have a belly, your belly has a head and legs, because that is your major part!” But he is worshipped, he is thought to be enlightened. And his belly is proof enough. And now this man cannot be celibate: he is eating so much that he will create sexual energy. What is he going to do with that energy? Anything that he will do will be a perversion; and the easiest way is always homosexuality, because if he is found with a woman, all his respectability and great sainthood will disappear. He has to be with a man, and then nobody suspects.