Freedom is one of the themes that runs through Nectar of Time. Below is everything in the Nectarium that touches on it.
Where it comes up 3
Within this theme 19
Concepts 6
- Gap Between Stimulus and Response
The idea Tamir credits to Viktor Frankl: there is a moment between what happens to us and how we react, and in it we can choose our response, whether to a hot stove, a driver cutting us…
- Need-based relationships
Sheela's diagnosis of most relationships: built on need, which turns into a bargaining point and a business. Both partners lose their freedom, feel captured, and fall into a dependency they…
- Addressed love
From the Osho audio that opens the episode: the 'basic fallacy' that love is always for somebody, and that the moment you address your love to one person you destroy it, as if saying 'I…
- Equal freedom in relationships
What Sheela learned from Bhagwan: don't be possessive, and give both partners full, equal freedom. She calls negotiating loyalty after one week together creating a prison.
- Pragmatism
Sheela calls herself 'a very practical woman'. She stays within her physical limits at 76 and would rather enjoy the view than philosophize. She says practicality protects her, makes her…
- Digital slavery
Tamir's term for being captured by phones and the internet so that presence feels unattainable. He asks Sheela how people can be freed from it.
Books 1
- Invictus
Poem whose closing lines ('I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul') Tamir quotes as one of the 'sources of truth' Sheela embodies.
People 2
- Ma Anand Sheela
Born Sheela Ambalal Patel in Gujarat, India (1949); personal secretary to Osho and spokesperson of the Rajneeshpuram commune in Oregon in the early 1980s, widely seen as its…
- Ambalal Patel
Sheela's father, who took her to hear Bhagwan's discourse because he believed that if this man lived long enough he would be 'the second Buddha'. He read Kahlil Gibran to her on his lap and…
Quotes 5
People have so much problem with relationships because most of the relationships are based in need. Then this need becomes a bargain point. It becomes a business. And neither partner is happy with it, because you lose your freedom.
The basic fallacy that you are carrying within you is that you loved always somebody... Their love is always for somebody. It is addressed. And the moment you address your love, you destroy it. It is as if you are saying, I will breathe only for you. And when you are not there, then how can I breathe?
The parents had only one desire of us, that we learn and learn in life. Don't give up learning. They taught us how to hanker for freedom.
I don't need their approval. I don't give them the honor of approval. I'm a bit of arrogant woman. And it's their problem. They have a problem with me, they have to live with it, not me.
I am on the happy side. Because my love doesn't depend on anything, except my feelings.
Insights 2
- Need turns love into a business
Relationships built on need become a negotiation. Each partner loses freedom, feels captured, and ends up trapped in a dependency of their own making.
- Nothing is coming; go get it
Nothing you're waiting for is coming on its own. The right mindset is to go and get what you want, not to expect something you haven't earned.
Practices 2
- Do it yourself to stay independent
At 76, Sheela does everything she can herself, because it keeps her free and stops her from becoming dependent. She also stays within her physical limits so she doesn't get hurt.
- Full, equal freedom for both partners
Don't be possessive and don't set unequal rules. Give both partners full freedom if both want it, schedule time together openly, and end it if jealousy takes over, rather than negotiating…
Stories 1
- Drop both lovers if they're jealous
Sheela told her lovers plainly that none of them could compare with Bhagwan, 'a category of its own', and they loved him too, so they understood. If her lovers grew jealous of one another…