Thread: From ISKCON to OSHO

When I left Brahma Kumaris and after my first journey to India, I had so much longing for indian culture, food and music, that I got in touch with ISKCON - the Hare Krishna Movement.
At that time they had a center in my town and every day they offer for very cheep price good vegetarian food for lunch. You could eat as much as you wanted. Because the devotees said that this food is divine so called "prasad". So by only eating that food you will get Krishna consciousness.
Step by step they started to manipulate me, sitting next to me during I was eating and giving me lecture about Gita and that I should buy books from them. To buy any scripture from this bhaktivedanta book trust will give you a lot of blessings. So I bought many books. They were so clever in talking that I bought also the 10 books of the Shrimad Bhagavatam. They said to me even if you have only this books at your home without reading you will get Krishna consciousness. Then they told me that I should chant the Hare Krishna Mantra, so I bought a mala in this bag and starting the japa.
They forced me to chant 16 rounds of 108 time Hare Krishna and they made me feeling bad if I could not manage it in one day. By this chanting whole day I was not longer really aware about my daily live. Afterward it felt like brainwashed.
It was really funny that the devotees even when there were chatting with each other, in between chanting the mantra.
They told me also that in night I should sleep only on backsite and that I should not touch my penis, even if I take shower I should wear my shorts, for not to have a look to my penis.
Later I got to know that there were many cases that devotees had sex with children.
Women try to find young boys imitating the pastimes of Shri Krishna.........
Or there were many homosexual cases, man are dressed like woman, wanted to become like a Gopi.


Then one day I got a nice translation from the Bhagavad Gita with commentary from Shankara. They told me that this translation and the commentary is very bad and that only the translation of Swami Prabhupada is the only right one. Later I found out that even some shlokas of the Bhaktivedanta -Gita are fully wrong translated into german.
The devotees created such a manipulation that I left ISKCON.
I felt very bad and getting mental sick for a while.
They were so much orthodox and narrow like the catholic church and creating the same fears for hell.........

But I was still longing for the truth, so I found a book from Paramhansa Ramakrishna and I liked it very much. Here I found for the first time that all religions are equal. There is only one GOD there are just different names. So I came in touch with the Ramakrishna Vedanta Ashram in Gretz near Paris.
I was so much touched by the atmophere of the ashram, that I decided to became monk. I spoke with the Swami, but he said that first I had to finished my study.
At this time I tried to practice what Shri Ramakrishna was teaching "to keep distance from women and gold". Again I was living in celibacy and I was thinking by myself that now I had reached to the high level of fully unattachment, vairagya. Women are only flesh, blood and bones................
But then I fall in love and I realized that I was only supressing my feelings all the time.
For the first time of my live this feeling of love was so strong and so divine, that it was just a healing for my soul.
So I left the Ramakrishna Mission, but still this longing for mystic and philosophy was in my heart.
Then I came in touch with an OSHO group. I liked it very much. For the first time spirituality and sexuality came together. So I learned about the Neo Tantra of OSHO reading now a lot of his books and lectures. The Kundalini Meditation, or dynamic, the no mind, or vipassana was just great to let out all my supressed feelings. We had sauna and massage together, jumping around, singing dancing, crying, laughing. Just freedom I was thinking. They were smoking or drinking alcohol, taking drugs, everything was allowed, just you had to be in mindful awareness.
"Zorba the buddha", I loved that philosophy. But then I came to a point were all this meditations were just repeating and only drama. I could not found a deep understanding of the truth.
Thats why I came to the ZEN buddhism.........................

But today I'm so much happy that I could left all this Masters, Gurus and sects.
Spirituality becomes just natural for me, nothing to speak about, nothing to be proud of it.
Actually nobody could give me what I have allready inside of my heart.
And I found the truth in myself and in every face of humans, in nature or in just cleaning the dishes.
I'm just now in love with every moment of my live.

Thomas, it is great to have your experiences here! You have tasted so many different waters, you can see the thirst of spirituality.
I believe many people, who are on the path of searching for the truth, are trying it in many different places.

However they get disappointed most of the times because truth is within you and not in the outside.

I hope that the experiences that you share here can help a lot of people who are on the same path as you were!

Dear Balendu,

yes it is right the thirst for the eternal, the question "who am I" and what is the meaning of life, made me so much running after all the masters and gurus. Reading all the scriptures and becoming more and more confused. Not able even to manage my daily life, becoming a stranger in the society.
I'm so much thankful that I met you. Your support and your love was the helping hand to come out of all manipulations and to leave this mind fuck of the Gurus.
You showed me a way just to become natural, easy and authentic.
I really hope that more spiritual seekers will become more aware about there inner Guru which is simply the love of the heart.

There is a nice song from the mystic Baul tradition of Bengal:

"Whom will you regard
as your Guru, O my heart,
and bow in reverence?
A Guru is a guest
in your home
and a traveller on the road.
Countless are the Gurus, my heart,
for bowing in reverence.
The Guru is you offering dignity to all
and to the agony of death.
The Guru is the suffering in your heart
that makes you weep.
To whom will you bow in reverence,
my heart?"

I'm so much thankful that I met you. Your support and your love was the helping hand to come out of all manipulations and to leave this mind fuck of the Gurus.
You showed me a way just to become natural, easy and authentic.

You are welcome my dear. I am just only normal human and your friend. Of course I know all these mind f*** of the Gurus as being a former Guru But this is only a game, where is Love and spirituality?
Will be very happy if I can be any help just as a friend, just please don't come to me if you want to leave your current Guru and searching for a new Guru. No followers, No sheeps. Just friends.

I'm so much happy that this forum exists.
I think it is a great help and support for spiritual seekers who are manipulated by Gurus and want to come out of the grip of the sect. Many seekers becoming more and more psychic sick and there is nobody with whom they could exchange their feelings.
If I would have some more information’s about Gurus or different sects, than for sure I would have be more aware.
When I left the sects I was feeling like lost, there was nobody which whom I could speak about.
Many things were so intimate and I had the feeling nobody will understand this topic.
It is great to find in this forum Swami Balendu who had lived the life of a Guru.
He knows what I'm talking about and was giving me always his lovely helping hand.
And today what people are teaching in the name of the old tradition of yoga and tantra,
cheating with their wrong teachings and just making people more confused.
So I really hope that this forum will be a great help for many spiritual seekers.

Thank you for your words Thomas.
In many ways you are right. I am still searching, I believe this is my path in this life. If I will reach to a goal, I will be happy. If not, also then, I will be happy. But I have the choice to go with whom I want.

There are many wonderful books of wisdom to read, which cost nothing but the price of purchase, and meditation at home or alone in nature is completely free of charge.

You are right and the internet is a great way to find more information, too.

But still I prefer meditation in a group, i like to have the energy of like-minded people around me. I enjoy reading OSHO's wisdom and pearls of truth but was not able to find a community here close-by.
You are saying you did not like them though. What in particular? That they smoked and were drinking? Or was it more a decision from the heart to leave them? Because as I see it, OSHO has a 'deep understanding of truth'.

I still love the lectures of OSHO, he was a great philosopher, no doubt.
But what I found out in the groups, that the meditations like kundalini or dynamic which are of course good for therapy, became like a drama, a show. It was good for that time, but I saw also people who were running from one workshop to the other. So I was missing in the group the mystic power of OSHO, it is today just only business specially in the ashram of Poona.
There is no fresh wind of teachings it is just stucked.
OSHO himself always said that he wants the people to be free without bondage................
Nobody can give you, what you allready have inside your heart.
When there is nothing to search for, than you just share your overflowing heart, dancing in a group or allone, it doesn't matter.

But don't you think that this what you call drama was there also when OSHO was still alive? I somehow believe he enjoyed this drama - not that this is criticism, I just believe that he intended it like this. Otherwise why would he ask in a meditation to jump for 20 minutes just shouting one sound?
Sometimes I believe he was above this all and wanted to see how far he would get people to go. Of course they should be free and without bondage - but he advised them ways to get there which look like drama. But if this drama helps you, why not?

From time to time he talked as if he was crazy but just to see the reaction of others. And he gave freedom to everyone to react how they want!

One needs to look into the heart though, to see if OSHO's teachings are really present in one of these new OSHO centers or not. It is like with every other group: you first need to find out who they are and whom they follow. And then at some point you will see if they really understood their own guru or not.

Have a nice day