Guru Papers

[Lisbon]

I was in the perfecting meetings and they were a complete farce. One young brother badgered Dick Bright unmercifully as WL looked on. You see what a real bond servant of Christ is.

What in the world is a bond servant? Is it really a dictator, king. top apostle, oracle? To hear RK's speaking at Lee's funeral does make one sick. But that is clearly what the Lord said when He caught the apostles bucking for top dog. "That is the way the gentiles carry on but it shall not be that way with you." Who ever will be leader, will be servant to all. WL's bible doesn't read the same as the NIV. Of course he writes his own recovery version as I think the JWs did also. OK for one cult, OK for another?

Lisbon

[TLFisher]

Originally Posted by Lisbon

I was in the perfecting meetings and they were a complete farce. One young brother badgered Dick Bright unmercifully as WL looked on. You see what a real bond servant of Christ is.

What in the world is a bond servant?

A bond servant in non-LSM Christian fellowship is different than you would find in LSM fellowship. Within LSM fellowship bond servant is a paradox. In LSM practices a bond servant lords over others.

What is perfecting meetings? Is it willfully subjecting one's self to verbal abuse?

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by Terry

A bond servant in non-LSM Christian fellowship is different than you would find in LSM fellowship. Within LSM fellowship bond servant is a paradox. In LSM practices a bond servant lords over others.

What is perfecting meetings? Is it willfully subjecting one's self to verbal abuse?

Lee used to talk about how Nee would listen to the sharing of trainees and then speak a super-perfecting word customized for that individual brother's perfecting. All in attendance would oooh and ahhh about how all-wise and all-knowing was Nee. It was the stuff of legends.

The Perfecting Training was Lee's Version of that.

[aron]

Originally Posted by Ohio

Lee used to talk about how Nee would listen to the sharing of trainees and then speak a super-perfecting word customized for that individual brother's perfecting. All in attendance would oooh and ahhh about how all-wise and all-knowing was Nee. It was the stuff of legends.

Nee had read Fenelon and Guyon and now was the ascended master, the Most Enlightened Person in the room, the 'seer of the vision in the present age'. If you didn't get this conceit then the church life wouldn't work for you. All you'd see was bullying brothers who elevated themselves above the flock and lorded over the saints. You had to put on the LC glasses to make it work.

The reason we're discussing Nee & Lee is because they really believed that they were better than the rest, and had somehow been sufficiently "perfected" and had thus "passed the riven veil"; that's what made their schtick so convincing. They didn't say, "I'm the apostle of the age", (wink, nod). They really believed it. Their socially-derived understanding put in them the unquestioned belief that absolute submission to the Most Enlightened Person, the ascended master, was the rocket ship to nirvana (or, the New Jerusalem). And hey, someone has to be MEP! Don't hold it against me if I'm the guru! That was God's choice, not mine!

So they produced books of esoteric theology, with secret raptures and ecclesiastical ages, consummating in their logical conjectures like the 'Processed Quadrune God-man', or the Four-in One God, and could simultaneously ignore their neighbor, and ignore much of the Bible (you know, the unhelpful parts of it), and ignore all the warnings not to do exactly what they were doing. Because they had the light. They had the vision of the age.

[OBW]

One of the early Life Study Trainings (still in the Anaheim Convention Center), Lee asked someone among the "young elite" to explain some esoteric concept that he had just covered in the message. Can't remember if it was Romans or Hebrews. But first one started in on it. Pretty quickly Lee sat him down as not getting it and asked another. I don't recall who was put on the spot, but was someone(s) like Dick Taylor and/or other somewhat young elders.

One by one he sat them back down until one seemed to get it right. And he (Lee) made a big deal of it. Funny thing was that I never could figure out what was different between the first one and the last (and all the ones in between). I got more of the sense of nit-picking over some single word that wasn't perfect or something like that. It always bothered me. But on the whole "we" were impressed that this was some complicated concept that was really hard to get right and Lee was the one who knew it and we didn't.

But while I cannot recall the content of the discussion, I know that I left with the sense that there was a molehill somewhere in there that had been blown into a mountain. Probably smoke and mirrors. I didn't have enough experience at the time to read back through the particular passage and challenge the premise, but it was always a little unsettling.

And yet evidently not unsettling enough. It took almost 10 more years to decide to leave.

[aron]

Originally Posted by aron

Nee had read Fenelon and Guyon and now was the ascended master. . .

Nothing wrong with Fenelon and Guyon, or Penn-Lewis. Also nothing wrong with Eastern culture per se. Not inferior to my Western culture. And if Nee and Lee were frightened little men, hiding behind bravado and clouds of words, maybe I moreso.

But what happened with Nee and Lee is that they insisted that they had no culture; and we were convinced they had no self, no ego. Their "someone here has to be God's Anointed Seer" was an unquestioned and culturally-ingrained statement which they took as truth, and they convinced us it was so, and created an institution. Thus self-delusion became collectivized, institutionalized. Which is arguably much worse than our own personal foibles, however tough they may be to struggle through on a daily basis.

We thought we could be free of self by taking Nee as our person, the Ascended Master who supposedly had no self. Dead end.

Originally Posted by OBW

"we" were impressed that this was some complicated concept that was really hard to get right and Lee was the one who knew it and we didn't. . .

it was always a little unsettling. And yet evidently not unsettling enough. It took almost 10 more years to decide to leave.

It took what it took. There's an old Russian proverb that says, "No matter how far down the wrong road you've gone, turn back." How far someone went is how far they went. Turn back. (And it somewhat reminds of the prophet telling the seven Asian churches, "Repent". Same words they'd heard on day one.)

[aron]

Here's a guru, whose followers bought up the tiny town of Antelope Oregon. They showed up with the Swami and 93 Rolls Royces. When I heard of this group, I was a card-carrying Protestant, who would never fall for such foolishness. Uh-huh.

Originally Posted by Wikepedia

"Bhagwan Shri Rajneesh"

Born Chandra Mohan Jain 11 December 1931 Kuchwada Village, Bareli Tehsil, Raisen Distt. Bhopal State, British India (modern day Madhya Pradesh, India. Died 19 January 1990 (aged 58) Pune, Maharashtra, India

Nationality Indian

Known for Spirituality

Notable work Over 600 books translated in several languages, several thousand audio and video discourses.

Movement Jivan Jagruti Andolan; Neo-sannyas

OSHO (11 December 1931 – 19 January 1990) was a mystic, guru, and spiritual teacher, born in India. The international Rajneesh movement has continued after his death.

Osho continues to be published by over 200 publishers worldwide and in over 60 languages. His commune, now known as a meditation resort, is one of India’s main tourist attractions, and offers a wide range of meditations.

A professor of philosophy, he travelled throughout India in the 1960s as a public speaker. He was a critic of socialism, Mahatma Gandhi and institutionalised religions. He advocated a more open attitude towards human sexuality, earning him the sobriquet "sex guru" in the Indian and later international press, although this attitude became more acceptable with time. In 1970, Osho settled for a time in Bombay, initiating disciples known as "neo-sannyasins" and expanded his spiritual teaching and work. In his discourses, he gave his original understanding and views on the writings of many religious traditions, mystics, and philosophers from around the world. His intelligent discourse and charisma attracted a growing number of westerners.

He moved to Pune in 1974, where his disciples established a foundation and an ashram for his presence and work, where a variety of transformational tools could be offered to the visitors. Among those transformational tools, the ashram offered various original meditations that Osho developed for the modern man, many with an original musical score specifically designed to accompany each meditation. In addition, therapies derived from ancient and modern Western traditions including the Human Potential Movement were offered in the ashram to function as a cleansing tool before the subject began meditation.

By the late 1970s, tensions mounted between the Indian government and the Ashram, which prevented the Ashram from obtaining a larger property away from big cities. The search then shifted to the United States. In mid-1981, ranch property was found and purchased in Oregon in the United States by a US Foundation devoted to Osho's work. The ranch comprised 64,000 acres in the semi-desert, 16 miles from the nearest town, Antelope, Oregon, which had fewer than fifty residents. The Foundation established an intentional community, later known as Rajneeshpuram, in the state of Oregon. Osho came to the Ranch at the end of August 1981. Almost immediately, the development met with intense local, state and federal hostility and opposition from the government, press and citizenry, who took numerous legal actions to limit and ultimately terminate its existence. Citizen groups were formed to stop the development. An Oregon court determined, based on polling evidence, that the group could not receive a fair trial. Multiple litigations sought to slow or stop the development.

In 1985 Osho revealed that his personal secretary and a small number of her close supporters had committed a number of serious crimes against their own community and against local residents and public officials, including the 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack on the citizens of The Dalles, Oregon, conspiracy to murder the US Attorney, attempted murder of Osho's physician and the local District Attorney, and a massive wiretap at Rajneeshpuram, including in Osho's bedroom. Osho was deported from the United States in accordance with a plea bargain.

After Osho was deported from the US twenty-one countries denied him entry, causing Osho to travel the world before returning to Poona, where he died in 1990. His ashram is today known as the Osho International Meditation Resort. His syncretic teachings emphasise the importance of meditation, awareness, love, celebration, courage, creativity, and humor— qualities that he viewed as being suppressed by adherence to static belief systems, religious tradition and socialisation. Osho's teachings have had a notable impact on Western New Age thought, and their popularity has increased markedly since his death.

Please note that this Wikipedia entry has clearly been heavily edited and/or composed by one of the Swami's faithful ones. Nonetheless you can see the chaos that followed him, and the supposedly liberating principles he espoused. "No religion, just joy." Uh-huh.

Note also that the swami gave "original views" on various subjects. His views didn't have to be self-consistent, or correspond to reality as we usually know it. He was enlightened, so his views were enlightened, and if you didn't get it then clearly you weren't enlightened.

[aron]

Confession: I continue to follow a guru to this day. He's from the East, the Near East to be precise. The Eastern Mediterranean Region, aka the Levant.

His name was Jesus and was held by many to be God's Anointed Christ, the King of the Jews. He was wisdom personified (Matt 12:42; 1 Cor 1:21), and Savior of the World (John 4:41; 1 John 4:14). His disciples called Him "Master" (Gk: kurios), also translated as "Lord". And these disciples, aka Christians, of whom I profess to be one, claim that God furnished proof of His divine character and status, by raising Him from the dead (Acts 17:31).

But I don't see any of His immediate followers claiming the "mantle" for themselves. Paul for example was an apostle, which means "sent one", which means today missionary, or traveling evangelist. Not Paul the Uber Boss, the Big Kahuna Maximus, who can do no wrong and whose every pronouncement is fawned over as "God's Oracle." No; that kind of man-elevation seems to come from a source outside of the Christian tradition.

Look at 1 Corinthians, for example. It is from "Paul and Sosthenes" (1:1). Who was Sosthenes? Perhaps the bearer of the letter. But his name was on the letter, too. This wasn't from the church of Paul. Nobody wrote, "Lovers of Jesus affiliated with the ministry of Paul". No; they were affiliated with Jesus, as was Paul, as was Sosthenes. Who was baptized in Paul's name (v.13)?

Was the apostle John "absolutely obedient" to or "absolutely one" with the leading of Paul, recognizing him as God's chosen vessel for that present age? No? Why not, was John then in rebellion against God? Or was maybe this reading of "one special [dominant] vessel per age" a kind of hopeful reading, and rather culturally-biased at that?

Did Paul really expect that the church in Corinth would identify themselves as "Lovers of Jesus, whe recommend the rich ministry of God's bondservant Paul"? I think Paul would have torn his clothes (see Acts 14:14) had he heard such nonsense.

On Witness Lee's death in 1997 the blendeds said that the age of Spiritual Giants was over, and it was the age of Small Potatoes. From whence cometh such statements? Not from scripture, history, or logic. Why should God have one Top Minister per age and give this up post-Lee? Was Lee really that good, that God couldn't find another charismatic soul and henceforth must rely on caretakers and bureaucrats?

[aron]

Originally Posted by Lisbon

I was in the perfecting meetings and they were a complete farce. One young brother badgered Dick Bright unmercifully as WL looked on. You see what a real bond servant of Christ is.

Sarcasm duly noted.

In complete contradistinction to the apostles' warning "not to think yourself higher than others" (cf Phil 2:3; Rom 12:3 &c), the subjective mysticism of Nee, combined with ingrained eastern thinking, opened the door for not MVP but MEP, "Most Enlightened Person", who could tell us the 'feeling in the Body' and what the latest 'flow from the throne' was. LC'ers even used similar terminology: Lee "had the light".

Once you got the essential LC revelation, if he then said that we were (stupid) mooing cows, we were, because he had the light. If he said that nobody on earth had seen what he'd seen, then this was true because he had the light. If he told us we were dark, confused and impure, we were, because he was more enlightened and pure. Relatively speaking, of course: he'd always "claim the blood" and give the "I am nothing" qualifier. But if he was in the room, he was unchallenged MEP.

No wonder Bill Mallon, John Ingalls and others got expelled. They saw the man behind the mask.