prayer vs meditation

[Guest guest]

hi all

what do u think of this?

 

"Prayer is addressed to a fictitious God; hence, it has no value in

reality. Meditation is a totally different affair.... meditation leads you

to your own reality.

 

Osho:

Jesus did not meditate during the forty days and forty nights he spent in

the wilderness. If he could have meditated the shape of things in the

world would have been different. What he did in those forty days and forty

nights was prayer. Prayer to a god whom he knows not; no one knows whether

he exists or not. Millions of people have been praying and the sky remains

utterly indifferent; no answer, no response.

 

The whole ideology of Jesus and Christianity is based on fiction. It is a

religious fiction. The same is true about all the religions that are

religions of prayer.

There are two kinds of religions in the world: religions of prayer and

religions of meditation.

 

The religions of prayer are fictitious because they begin with a belief

in a God. Belief is not knowing, and belief cannot destroy your doubt. At

the most it can repress, it can cover up your doubt, but underneath the

belief you are always suspecting whether your belief is true or not. Doubt

dies on its own accord when you know something; then there is no question

of doubt.

Belief carries doubt with it. And to make the belief system strong, prayer

is the method. First the God is bogus -- you create the God out of your

fear, it is a phobia, and then you start praying to that God, which is

your own creation.

 

The Bible says God created man in his own image. Just looking at this

statement, it does not need much intelligence to see the utter stupidity

of it. The humanity that you know, is this the image of God? -- all these

jealousies, all these miseries, all these despairs, anguish, anxieties,

wars, murders, rapes? The list is infinite. This is the image of God, this

is his reflection in the mirror? So firstly, the statement is very

disrespectful and irreligious.

Secondly, it is untrue. The truth is that man created God in his own

image. God has not created man, it is man who has created God. That's why

there are hundreds of gods in the world -- because different people

created different kinds of god, according to their own idea. And the

foolishness is they are sitting before a mirror with folded hands praying

to the reflection of their own face and hoping that they are doing

something religious, something spiritual. They should be treated

psychologically!

 

Prayer is addressed to a fictitious God; hence, it has no value in

reality. Meditation is a totally different affair.

Jesus had no idea of meditation.

 

The West, unfortunately, has missed the dimension of meditation, and it

has missed because of Judaism, Christianity, Islam -- which have dominated

the Western sphere and forced people to pray. In fact, there has been a

condemnation in the West -- particularly by the Western religious people

-- of meditation. To them meditation looks selfish because meditation does

not need God, meditation does not need any prayer. Meditation is simply

sitting in deep silence so that you can sink to your very center; it is

sinking within yourself. It has nothing to do with anybody else. So those

who do not understand can call it selfish. But meditation leads you to

your own reality.

 

Prayer is only leading to your own reflection, which is futile -- talking

to your own reflection. It is not going to help you in any way. It may

give you a good ego -- "God really looks like me, he must have created man

in his own image." So the people of prayer are bound to become egoists,

arrogant, holier-than-thou -- that will be their attitude.

 

The meditator becomes humble. He does not feel holier-than-thou. As he

reaches to his center he becomes more peaceful, more blissful, more

harmonious with existence. He loses all problems, all questions. He knows.

Now there is no question of doubt.

 

The religions of prayer begin with belief. The religions of meditation

don't begin with belief but end in an absolute certain knowing. But the

knowing has to be differentiated from knowledge. They don't become

knowledgeable. They simply know that the whole existence is divine. Their

knowing is innocent, not knowledgeable. Their knowing makes them humble --

because they can see everybody has the same center; we are different only

on the periphery, but at the center we are one. You can see many points.

 

The religions of prayer have been fighting, killing, burning people alive,

in the name of religion -- forcing people at the point of a gun or a sword

to be converted to their religion. The religions of meditation have not

done anything like that.

 

The prayer religions have been creating religious wars, crusades, jihads.

Their whole history is full of blood. They have not made man better, they

have made him worse. Religions of meditation have not had a single war.

They have not even tried to convert anybody, for the simple reason that

there is no point. The other person is as divine as they are, he is just

asleep. And it is his right to sleep as long as he wants; whenever he

wants to wake up he will wake up.

 

Being awake themselves, the people of meditation have found tremendous

treasures of blissfulness, of ecstasy. They would like to share it, so

they go on sharing it but there is no question of conversion.

 

Jainism, Buddhism, Taoism -- these three religions are the religions of

meditation. Their history is simply clean, no bloodshed.

Judaism, Christianity, Islam are the religions of prayer. Their whole

history is full of blood and so ugly that to call it religious and to call

these people religious looks like a mockery.

 

Only one religion, Hinduism, is left. Hinduism is a totally strange

phenomenon, different from both the religions I have described. Hinduism

is many religions together, it is not one religion. So you cannot

characterize Hinduism with other religions which have a certain

personality. Hinduism is a chaos. There are hundreds of religions under

the umbrella of Hinduism, different from each other.

 

For centuries, everybody was accepted; whatever he was doing and whatever

he wanted to do, it was his right. But now, slowly, slowly, in these two

thousand years, even Hindus have started thinking of themselves as one

religion. But they are in continuous difficulty because they have

contradictory religions within themselves. So nobody can say what Hinduism

is; one sect will define it in one way, another sect in another way, and

the third sect in a third way. And there are so many sects and all have

equal value, so that Hinduism has no definition. From godless people to

people who believe in god, all are in the fold -- under the same umbrella.

But looking at it as a whole, not thinking much of the inner

contradictions, Hinduism will also be one of the religions of prayer. It

cannot be one of the religions of meditation.

 

There are a few sects in Hinduism which have meditated, but they are in a

minority. For example, yoga -- the founder of yoga, Patanjali, was really

a daring man. Five thousand years ago, in his yoga sutras, he says

something which even the contemporary man has not the guts to say. He

says, "God is a hypothesis. It is not a reality. If you enjoy prayer, then

the hypothesis of God is needed; otherwise to whom are you going to

address it?"

People like Patanjali are also under the same umbrella. They should be

taken out. They belong really to Taoism, Jainism, Buddhism -- the

religions of meditation.

 

Taoism, Buddhism, Jainism -- they don't believe in any god. They don't

believe in anything. They believe only in one thing -- and that, too,

hypothetically. You know you are. You feel you are. You cannot deny it

because even your denial will prove that you are. If you say, "I am not"

that will be simply a proof that you are, because who is denying? It is

just as if you are in your house, and somebody knocks on the door and you

say, "I am not in the house. I have gone out to the market. Come some

other time." Do you think the man is going to believe you?

He will simply say, "This is hilarious. You are inside the house and you

are saying, `I have gone out to the market.' Open the doors." You cannot

deny yourself. This is the only fact in existence that is undeniable --

everything else can be denied. It is possible that you may be all just a

dream. It is possible that I may be to you just a dream. It is not

certain. But one thing you cannot deny -- you can deny the dream, but you

cannot deny the dreamer. You can say that it was a dream, but you cannot

say, "I was not." Even in a dream your existence is absolutely necessary;

otherwise, how will the dream happen?

 

So the only thing in the religions of meditation is "I am." And now the

question is to discover who I am.

Meditation is only a methodology to discover who I am. It is purely

scientific.

 

Jesus was not doing meditation. He was praying, praying to the Jewish God

-- who is not a very good or nice fellow. Of all the gods of the world, he

is the worst. And it is not that I am saying it, he himself says it. In

Talmud he says it: "Remember that I am not a nice God; I am terrible, I am

very jealous, I am revengeful. If you go against me, you will be thrown

into hell. I am not your uncle!" -- Because uncles are nice people, more

than fathers. He makes it clear, "You have to be afraid of me." And it is

fear that will make you religious.

 

But fear has been the base of all the religions of prayer. The Talmud

declaration of God that "I am terrible" is just to help you to pray, not

to go astray -- to obey, not to be a rebel.

And Jesus was not a rebel, as many understand him to be. He was born a

Jew, he lived as a Jew, he died as a Jew. In fact, he had never heard the

word `Christian'. He had never known that he would be known to the world

as Jesus Christ.

 

`Christ' is from the Greek, and he knew not even Hebrew. He used only his

own local language, Aramaic. He was uneducated. Hebrew was of the educated

people, scholarly people -- rabbis. He used only the local villagers'

language, Aramaic.

In those forty days he was praying. And what can you pray for? Whenever

you pray you are always begging; prayer is, deep down, begging. On the one

hand it is begging for something, on the other hand it is impressing God

that you are great, you are the greatest of the great.

 

On the cross, Jesus was waiting just as everybody else was waiting,

expecting that some miracle was going to happen. Nothing happened. And

after a few hours, when nothing happened, he looked many times up into the

sky, hoping that angels would be coming with their harps, playing on the

white clouds. Not even a white cloud appeared. Finally he had a breakdown

and he shouted at God, "Have you forsaken me?"

 

Naturally a man who had lived his whole life fanatically with belief, who

had risked his life and was hanging on the cross -- and God is absolutely

absent -- it is natural that he should ask "have you forsaken me?" A doubt

has entered into his mind. Doubt was always there, hidden behind a belief

system.

 

If he had been a meditator, things would have been totally different. He

would not have declared that he was the only begotten son of God. He would

not have declared that he was the messiah the Jews had been awaiting for

centuries. He would not have declared that he had come to redeem humanity,

that he was a savior. These are impossible statements from a man of

meditation.

 

A man of meditation knows there is no God. He knows there is godliness, a

quality but not a person; not like a flower but like a fragrance. And

godliness is all over, you just have to be alert and awakened at the

center of your being. There is no question of the only begotten son, and

the meditator knows that nobody can save you except yourself because

nobody else can enter into your center. That is your privilege and your

privacy. You can be killed, but nobody can touch your innermost being, for

good or for bad.

 

A meditator cannot say, "I can save you," or "I can save the whole

humanity," or "I am the savior." A meditator cannot say, "I am a messiah,

a messenger" because there is no God who is sending messiahs and

messengers. A meditator can do only one thing. He can make himself

available to you with all his joy, with all his grace, with all his dance,

with all his beauty. He can remind you in a certain way that the same

reality lies asleep within you. He can only become a pointer. He can show

the finger pointing to the moon, he cannot take you to the moon.

 

If Jesus had meditated, there would have been no crucifixion, and without

crucifixion the world would have been saved from Christianity. That's why

I say that he did not meditate and he has left the world in the hands of

Christians who have done every crime against humanity and who are still

doing every crime against humanity.

 

Meditation cannot be violent. Even to convince you is not possible for the

meditator. He can only communicate. He can only commune with you in a deep

friendship and love, "I have found something. Perhaps you can find it too.

Just look within." He can tell you how he has looked within himself and

how he has found the very source of life.

 

But he is not a prophet. He does not claim any specialty, he does not

claim that he is higher than you. He simply says he is as ordinary as you

are, with just a little difference -- that he has opened his eyes and you

are still snoring.

 

http://www.spirituallyincorrect.com/spirit12a.htm

---------

Courtesy osho.com

 

1999 Osho International Foundation

Spiritually Incorrect® is a registered trademark of Osho International

Foundation, all rights reserved.

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

"what do u think of this?

 

If only Osho learn to stop picking/criticising on other religion and

instead look at himself first, he might have still be alive and be

considered a great man.

[Guest guest]

Good point. Also, I thought in the Gnostic Gospels Jesus was

aligned with meditative awareness rather than "belief" in

something outside himself (per the Ardhanarishwari page on the

Shakti Sadhana site, the quote about two being one). The

problem wasn't Jesus, but who (mis)shaped Christianity after

his death.

 

, "N. Madasamy"

<ashwini_puralasamy> wrote:

> "what do u think of this?

>

> If only Osho learn to stop picking/criticising on other religion

and

> instead look at himself first, he might have still be alive and be

> considered a great man.

[Guest guest]

OM hyacinth

 

You asked, "what do u think of this?"

 

I think that Osho's (aka Sri Rajneesh's) comments show a lack

of respect and compassion. I think his comments show a lack of

understanding about what lies below the surface of religions. I

think his comments show a frightened soul who has lost

connection with the Divine.

 

If you read the books by many of the great Christian saints, eg. St

Augustine, St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, etc., they

had the same experiences of the Divine and say the same

things about the Divine and how to attune oneself to the Divine

as any of the great Hindu saints and sages. If you factor out the

topical references from the writings of the Christian and Hindu

saints and sages, what they write is indistinguishable from each

other: you cannot tell whether the writer is Christian or Hindu.

 

Paths are many. Truth is One.

 

OM Namah Sivaya

 

Omprem

 

, "hyacinth"

<gaychaos@h...> wrote:

> hi all

> what do u think of this?

>

> "Prayer is addressed to a fictitious God; hence, it has no value

in

> reality. Meditation is a totally different affair.... meditation leads

you

> to your own reality.

>

> Osho:

> Jesus did not meditate during the forty days and forty nights he

spent in

> the wilderness. If he could have meditated the shape of things

in the

> world would have been different. What he did in those forty

days and forty

> nights was prayer. Prayer to a god whom he knows not; no one

knows whether

> he exists or not. Millions of people have been praying and the

sky remains

> utterly indifferent; no answer, no response.

>

> The whole ideology of Jesus and Christianity is based on

fiction. It is a

> religious fiction. The same is true about all the religions that

are

> religions of prayer.

> There are two kinds of religions in the world: religions of prayer

and

> religions of meditation.

>

> The religions of prayer are fictitious because they begin with a

belief

> in a God. Belief is not knowing, and belief cannot destroy your

doubt. At

> the most it can repress, it can cover up your doubt, but

underneath the

> belief you are always suspecting whether your belief is true or

not. Doubt

> dies on its own accord when you know something; then there

is no question

> of doubt.

> Belief carries doubt with it. And to make the belief system

strong, prayer

> is the method. First the God is bogus -- you create the God out

of your

> fear, it is a phobia, and then you start praying to that God, which

is

> your own creation.

>

> The Bible says God created man in his own image. Just

looking at this

> statement, it does not need much intelligence to see the utter

stupidity

> of it. The humanity that you know, is this the image of God? --

all these

> jealousies, all these miseries, all these despairs, anguish,

anxieties,

> wars, murders, rapes? The list is infinite. This is the image of

God, this

> is his reflection in the mirror? So firstly, the statement is very

> disrespectful and irreligious.

> Secondly, it is untrue. The truth is that man created God in his

own

> image. God has not created man, it is man who has created

God. That's why

> there are hundreds of gods in the world -- because different

people

> created different kinds of god, according to their own idea. And

the

> foolishness is they are sitting before a mirror with folded

hands praying

> to the reflection of their own face and hoping that they are doing

> something religious, something spiritual. They should be

treated

> psychologically!

>

> Prayer is addressed to a fictitious God; hence, it has no value

in

> reality. Meditation is a totally different affair.

> Jesus had no idea of meditation.

>

> The West, unfortunately, has missed the dimension of

meditation, and it

> has missed because of Judaism, Christianity, Islam -- which

have dominated

> the Western sphere and forced people to pray. In fact, there

has been a

> condemnation in the West -- particularly by the Western

religious people

> -- of meditation. To them meditation looks selfish because

meditation does

> not need God, meditation does not need any prayer. Meditation

is simply

> sitting in deep silence so that you can sink to your very center; it

is

> sinking within yourself. It has nothing to do with anybody else.

So those

> who do not understand can call it selfish. But meditation leads

you to

> your own reality.

>

> Prayer is only leading to your own reflection, which is futile --

talking

> to your own reflection. It is not going to help you in any way. It

may

> give you a good ego -- "God really looks like me, he must have

created man

> in his own image." So the people of prayer are bound to

become egoists,

> arrogant, holier-than-thou -- that will be their attitude.

>

> The meditator becomes humble. He does not feel

holier-than-thou. As he

> reaches to his center he becomes more peaceful, more

blissful, more

> harmonious with existence. He loses all problems, all

questions. He knows.

> Now there is no question of doubt.

>

> The religions of prayer begin with belief. The religions of

meditation

> don't begin with belief but end in an absolute certain knowing.

But the

> knowing has to be differentiated from knowledge. They don't

become

> knowledgeable. They simply know that the whole existence is

divine. Their

> knowing is innocent, not knowledgeable. Their knowing makes

them humble --

> because they can see everybody has the same center; we are

different only

> on the periphery, but at the center we are one. You can see

many points.

>

> The religions of prayer have been fighting, killing, burning

people alive,

> in the name of religion -- forcing people at the point of a gun or

a sword

> to be converted to their religion. The religions of meditation

have not

> done anything like that.

>

> The prayer religions have been creating religious wars,

crusades, jihads.

> Their whole history is full of blood. They have not made man

better, they

> have made him worse. Religions of meditation have not had a

single war.

> They have not even tried to convert anybody, for the simple

reason that

> there is no point. The other person is as divine as they are, he

is just

> asleep. And it is his right to sleep as long as he wants;

whenever he

> wants to wake up he will wake up.

>

> Being awake themselves, the people of meditation have found

tremendous

> treasures of blissfulness, of ecstasy. They would like to share

it, so

> they go on sharing it but there is no question of conversion.

>

> Jainism, Buddhism, Taoism -- these three religions are the

religions of

> meditation. Their history is simply clean, no bloodshed.

> Judaism, Christianity, Islam are the religions of prayer. Their

whole

> history is full of blood and so ugly that to call it religious and to

call

> these people religious looks like a mockery.

>

> Only one religion, Hinduism, is left. Hinduism is a totally

strange

> phenomenon, different from both the religions I have

described. Hinduism

> is many religions together, it is not one religion. So you cannot

> characterize Hinduism with other religions which have a

certain

> personality. Hinduism is a chaos. There are hundreds of

religions under

> the umbrella of Hinduism, different from each other.

>

> For centuries, everybody was accepted; whatever he was doing

and whatever

> he wanted to do, it was his right. But now, slowly, slowly, in

these two

> thousand years, even Hindus have started thinking of

themselves as one

> religion. But they are in continuous difficulty because they have

> contradictory religions within themselves. So nobody can say

what Hinduism

> is; one sect will define it in one way, another sect in another

way, and

> the third sect in a third way. And there are so many sects and

all have

> equal value, so that Hinduism has no definition. From godless

people to

> people who believe in god, all are in the fold -- under the same

umbrella.

> But looking at it as a whole, not thinking much of the inner

> contradictions, Hinduism will also be one of the religions of

prayer. It

> cannot be one of the religions of meditation.

>

> There are a few sects in Hinduism which have meditated, but

they are in a

> minority. For example, yoga -- the founder of yoga, Patanjali,

was really

> a daring man. Five thousand years ago, in his yoga sutras, he

says

> something which even the contemporary man has not the guts

to say. He

> says, "God is a hypothesis. It is not a reality. If you enjoy prayer,

then

> the hypothesis of God is needed; otherwise to whom are you

going to

> address it?"

> People like Patanjali are also under the same umbrella. They

should be

> taken out. They belong really to Taoism, Jainism, Buddhism --

the

> religions of meditation.

>

> Taoism, Buddhism, Jainism -- they don't believe in any god.

They don't

> believe in anything. They believe only in one thing -- and that,

too,

> hypothetically. You know you are. You feel you are. You cannot

deny it

> because even your denial will prove that you are. If you say, "I

am not"

> that will be simply a proof that you are, because who is

denying? It is

> just as if you are in your house, and somebody knocks on the

door and you

> say, "I am not in the house. I have gone out to the market.

Come some

> other time." Do you think the man is going to believe you?

> He will simply say, "This is hilarious. You are inside the house

and you

> are saying, `I have gone out to the market.' Open the doors."

You cannot

> deny yourself. This is the only fact in existence that is

undeniable --

> everything else can be denied. It is possible that you may be all

just a

> dream. It is possible that I may be to you just a dream. It is not

> certain. But one thing you cannot deny -- you can deny the

dream, but you

> cannot deny the dreamer. You can say that it was a dream, but

you cannot

> say, "I was not." Even in a dream your existence is absolutely

necessary;

> otherwise, how will the dream happen?

>

> So the only thing in the religions of meditation is "I am." And

now the

> question is to discover who I am.

> Meditation is only a methodology to discover who I am. It is

purely

> scientific.

>

> Jesus was not doing meditation. He was praying, praying to

the Jewish God

> -- who is not a very good or nice fellow. Of all the gods of the

world, he

> is the worst. And it is not that I am saying it, he himself says it.

In

> Talmud he says it: "Remember that I am not a nice God; I am

terrible, I am

> very jealous, I am revengeful. If you go against me, you will be

thrown

> into hell. I am not your uncle!" -- Because uncles are nice

people, more

> than fathers. He makes it clear, "You have to be afraid of me."

And it is

> fear that will make you religious.

>

> But fear has been the base of all the religions of prayer. The

Talmud

> declaration of God that "I am terrible" is just to help you to pray,

not

> to go astray -- to obey, not to be a rebel.

> And Jesus was not a rebel, as many understand him to be. He

was born a

> Jew, he lived as a Jew, he died as a Jew. In fact, he had never

heard the

> word `Christian'. He had never known that he would be known

to the world

> as Jesus Christ.

>

> `Christ' is from the Greek, and he knew not even Hebrew. He

used only his

> own local language, Aramaic. He was uneducated. Hebrew

was of the educated

> people, scholarly people -- rabbis. He used only the local

villagers'

> language, Aramaic.

> In those forty days he was praying. And what can you pray for?

Whenever

> you pray you are always begging; prayer is, deep down,

begging. On the one

> hand it is begging for something, on the other hand it is

impressing God

> that you are great, you are the greatest of the great.

>

> On the cross, Jesus was waiting just as everybody else was

waiting,

> expecting that some miracle was going to happen. Nothing

happened. And

> after a few hours, when nothing happened, he looked many

times up into the

> sky, hoping that angels would be coming with their harps,

playing on the

> white clouds. Not even a white cloud appeared. Finally he had

a breakdown

> and he shouted at God, "Have you forsaken me?"

>

> Naturally a man who had lived his whole life fanatically with

belief, who

> had risked his life and was hanging on the cross -- and God is

absolutely

> absent -- it is natural that he should ask "have you forsaken

me?" A doubt

> has entered into his mind. Doubt was always there, hidden

behind a belief

> system.

>

> If he had been a meditator, things would have been totally

different. He

> would not have declared that he was the only begotten son of

God. He would

> not have declared that he was the messiah the Jews had been

awaiting for

> centuries. He would not have declared that he had come to

redeem humanity,

> that he was a savior. These are impossible statements from a

man of

> meditation.

>

> A man of meditation knows there is no God. He knows there is

godliness, a

> quality but not a person; not like a flower but like a fragrance.

And

> godliness is all over, you just have to be alert and awakened at

the

> center of your being. There is no question of the only begotten

son, and

> the meditator knows that nobody can save you except yourself

because

> nobody else can enter into your center. That is your privilege

and your

> privacy. You can be killed, but nobody can touch your innermost

being, for

> good or for bad.

>

> A meditator cannot say, "I can save you," or "I can save the

whole

> humanity," or "I am the savior." A meditator cannot say, "I am a

messiah,

> a messenger" because there is no God who is sending

messiahs and

> messengers. A meditator can do only one thing. He can make

himself

> available to you with all his joy, with all his grace, with all his

dance,

> with all his beauty. He can remind you in a certain way that the

same

> reality lies asleep within you. He can only become a pointer.

He can show

> the finger pointing to the moon, he cannot take you to the

moon.

>

> If Jesus had meditated, there would have been no crucifixion,

and without

> crucifixion the world would have been saved from Christianity.

That's why

> I say that he did not meditate and he has left the world in the

hands of

> Christians who have done every crime against humanity and

who are still

> doing every crime against humanity.

>

> Meditation cannot be violent. Even to convince you is not

possible for the

> meditator. He can only communicate. He can only commune

with you in a deep

> friendship and love, "I have found something. Perhaps you can

find it too.

> Just look within." He can tell you how he has looked within

himself and

> how he has found the very source of life.

>

> But he is not a prophet. He does not claim any specialty, he

does not

> claim that he is higher than you. He simply says he is as

ordinary as you

> are, with just a little difference -- that he has opened his eyes

and you

> are still snoring.

>

> http://www.spirituallyincorrect.com/spirit12a.htm

> -------=

--

> Courtesy osho.com

>

> 1999 Osho International Foundation

> Spiritually Incorrect® is a registered trademark of Osho

International

> Foundation, all rights reserved.

>

>

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

, "Mary Ann" <maryann@m...>

wrote:

> [....] The

> problem wasn't Jesus, but who (mis)shaped

> Christianity after his death.

 

Namaste' Mary Ann,

 

Both the Gospels and the Gnostic Gospels require a fair bit of

interpretation, and interpretation is subject to error, the influence

of (our) culture(s), and of course, abuse.

 

The Gnostic Gospels, in particular, feature some very opaque

statements. To get a taste, take a look at the Gospel of Thomas

(it's short) at the Nag Hammadi library site:

 

http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/nhl.html

 

There is quite a bit of scholarly research (and speculation) with

regards to what, in the Gospels (Gnostic and "standard"), that Jesus

might have actually said. If you're interested, you might want to

look into the work of the Jesus Seminar, and in particular, the work

of John Dominic Crossan.

 

http://religion.rutgers.edu/jseminar/

 

And now back to Shakti Sadana!

 

Blessings,

j.

[Guest guest]

There are about eighteen different levels to go after this but tonight I don't

wish to prove anything.

 

The big problem with what Rajneesh or Osho write here is that he confuses belief

for faith. Those are two different things altogether.

If something comes from faith it comes from the heart. It is one. It doesn't

require constant reminders or affirmation. It simply is. like

the way that one knows one is either tall or short. There are no internal

arguments. They asked a great psychologist if he believed in

God and he said, "No, I know."

 

That is experiential truth.

 

My experiential truth maybe different than the guy I met on the street today

who talked about the Holy Spirit and caused me to have

goose bumps. He prayed for my sister and her broken leg.with words. It was

wonderful. That my truth or the man's truth or

Rajneesh's truth are probably different but not invalid. I mean my experience

with God seems very "personal" and not a cloud of

energy. I don't know why it is that I experience God that way, but it is my

way.

 

There is something powerful and life changing in the wordless prayer, too. He

is right in that view.

 

Eirc

 

 

 

 

 

, "hyacinth" <gaychaos@h...> wrote:

> hi all

> what do u think of this?

>

> "Prayer is addressed to a fictitious God; hence, it has no value in

> reality. Meditation is a totally different affair.... meditation leads you

> to your own reality.

>

> Osho:

> Jesus did not meditate during the forty days and forty nights he spent in

> the wilderness. If he could have meditated the shape of things in the

> world would have been different. What he did in those forty days and forty

> nights was prayer. Prayer to a god whom he knows not; no one knows whether

> he exists or not. Millions of people have been praying and the sky remains

> utterly indifferent; no answer, no response.

[Guest guest]

Namaste:

 

Thank you for the link and suggestions for further reading

materials. Here are some suggestions for your reading

enjoyment: Elaine Pagel's book The Gnostic Gospels influenced

my perspective on this. Also, the book Chalice & the Blade by

Riane Eisler has a wonderful overview of the history of

Christianity and other religions in terms of a specific way she is

analyzing our world culture. And the best-seller The DaVinci

Code also deals with these topics, bringing them to mainstream

America in 2003, which I find amazing and exciting.

 

Regards,

Mary Ann

, "msbauju"

<msbauju> wrote:

> , "Mary Ann"

<maryann@m...>

> wrote:

> > [....] The

> > problem wasn't Jesus, but who (mis)shaped

> > Christianity after his death.

>

> Namaste' Mary Ann,

>

> Both the Gospels and the Gnostic Gospels require a fair bit of

> interpretation, and interpretation is subject to error, the

influence

> of (our) culture(s), and of course, abuse.

>

> The Gnostic Gospels, in particular, feature some very opaque

> statements. To get a taste, take a look at the Gospel of

Thomas

> (it's short) at the Nag Hammadi library site:

>

> http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/nhl.html

>

> There is quite a bit of scholarly research (and speculation) with

> regards to what, in the Gospels (Gnostic and "standard"), that

Jesus

> might have actually said. If you're interested, you might want to

> look into the work of the Jesus Seminar, and in particular, the

work

> of John Dominic Crossan.

>

> http://religion.rutgers.edu/jseminar/

>

> And now back to Shakti Sadana!

>

> Blessings,

> j.