sannyasnews

I began to wander around China in 2007. In those 3 years, I have changed, and so has Osho in China.
Vilas’ story.

In 2007 I began to wander around China to share Osho’s meditations. In a southern city, there was a girl who would come to do Dynamic meditation every morning, she would do it totally and completely. After the meditation she would feel great relief and power, but her daily life became more chaotic and miserable. Finally it became clear that the channel of her energy had not changed. She was accustomed to use her energy for misery. Before she had little energy, so the misery was little. Now doing the Dynamic certainly increased her energy, but the misery seemed to increase as well.

Suddenly aware of this one day, we both burst into laughter. Why we do meditation is far more significant than how we do it!

During that time I thought the only way to show an interest in transformation was not to talk or think about meditation, but simply to do it. In this I imagined I was behaving as an honest and brave warrior. However one day whilst on the Chinese road I was talking to a friend. I found myself complaining that everybody talks but no one takes action, including that friend. . Finally he got angry, I suddenly realized I am not here on the Chinese road sharing Osho meditations where I can simply to quarrel, so I apologised. Then he said:”Most people cannot simply move into meditation, however what they need is not judgement and condemnation but understanding and compassion.” This shocked me as a hit, I thanked him and laughed and changed my definition of growth. Since then if somebody asks me how I measure my growth through meditation? I answer:”The people that once I judged get less and less.”

In this period of wandering I again encountered the fear of no money. I tried an experiment this time - just relax and wait and see. However as the money became less and less, I became more and more anxious. There was an inner tension urging me to do something, but I persisted. Then when the money was almost no more, for some reason I suddenly relaxed! When money decreases to the bottom, it becomes zero, then it cannot decrease any more. The only change for it now is to increase, the question simply becomes when and how. Somehow a subtle peace arose in me, the fear of the unknown changed into a trust of the existence. And soon the money came, and I found the unknown is really a wonder!

Ever since I was interested in spirituality, I thought I was different from worldly people. My lifestyle was courageous and rebellious, they were just cowards avoiding themselves. But when I asked their attitude towards my own lifestyle - they said I was just a coward avoiding living in the world. Amazing! On the surface the way we live was different, but the way we think of each other was just the same! By and by I found what I experienced in my lifestyle, they also experienced in society! It is the same source with different expressions, it should be appreciated and celebrated. The way to be unique is not to be different from others but to be the same as oneself.

Once turning in the road, I met a Chinese lover of Krishnamurti. We had a nice talking and deep communion. This sounds a miracle because the meeting of an Osho lover and a Krishnamurti lover is often a quarrel! We talked of the event when Krishnamurti and Osho,when they were in the same city did not come to see each other. I laughed and said:”These two old guys are so petty,why take it so seriously? But I think the real reason was that they were too old to travel! What they did not do, we have done today.”

And what is my report after wandering where the existence took me these three years on the by-roads and highways of China? … Something of Osho is coming true in China, stealthily and peacefully and silently.

In 2007, the autobiography of Osho—— “Osho’s life”,with 1500 pages — was completely translated into Chinese. Some of his books on Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, and Zen have been published again. There are about 70 ebooks of Osho in the Chinese language available online, and also a lot of his audios and videos. The lovers of Osho can communicate and share with each other through bbs; many foreign sannyasins have been invited to hold workshops in China in an irregular way but it is happening……

Moreover, Osho is not just the name of Osho. To me, he represents the whole of life. Maybe somebody does not know Osho and meditation, but anybody will know life, love and laughter. So the situation here is no longer something to fight or fear but to love and transform.

So for a while I seem to have stopped wandering but it is now in my bones -
“Life is not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be lived” - and a joke to be joked!!!

Tags: News by sannyasnews
200 Comments »

Mobiles, bags barred from Osho Resort

As part of what are called “fresh security measures” in the wake of the Pune bombing, that has now claimed 11 lives and injured many more, mobile telephones and bags are now banned from the Osho Resort in Koregoan Park.

Reports however indicate that the terror attack on the German Bakery just down the road from the Resort has not affected the normal buzz at the Ashram/Resort. Many disciples of Osho both westerners and Indians are continuing to use the Resort during this the peak season, which usually ends in March when the weather hots up too much for most foreign visitors.

There are increased security guidelines enforced by the Indian authorities. Commandos armed with sophisticated weapons stand guard at the main gate.

Bags are now also checked assiduously at the “Gateless Gate”. Mobile telephones cannot be taken into Buddha Hall, where most meditations take place during the day and in the evening.

To reach the Osho resort from the Main North Road, people now have to take a long detour because a part of this road has been blocked by the security forces.

Indian security personnel are also checking all flats in the surrounding area.

Meanwhile, a range of Indian sannyasins have urged the Indian government to protect all Osho centres in the sub-continent.

One spokesperson said:
‘It is something really terrible and very shocking that innocent people lost their lives at the German Bakery, which was always frequented by international tourists. It was a heinous act of terrorism.”

‘It is unfortunate that the terrorists could strike near a place known for spirituality, meditation and peace.

‘Osho disciples and centres request the immediate action of the Indian government to take all necessary measures to provide for total security of the ashram,’ the statement said.

Other Osho meditation centres in India are also located in Dharamshala, Dehradun, Shimla, Indore, Jabalpur, Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Pondicherry, Karnal (Haryana), Bhimtal (Uttarakhand), Rishikesh, Guwahati, Amritsar and Chandigarh.

Tags: News by sannyasnews
47 Comments »

Bhatkal bros emerge as prime suspects

Pune police wait for the chemical analysis reports to establish which group was responsible for Saturday’s bomb blast in Pune However Riyaz Bhatkal and his brother Iqbal Bhatkal, founder-members of the Indian Mujahideen (IM), have emerged as prime suspects.

Sources said the modus operandi of the blast looks the handiwork of IM led by Riyaz Bhatkal, held responsible for at least 11 blasts across India since 2005. The blasts stopped in 2008 when Mumbai crime branch busted the module and arrested its leading members. ‘‘Bhatkal has been masterminding various blasts since 2005. But it was only after the Mumbai police busted the ring that his and Sadiq Shaikh’s names cropped up. Until then, all investigating agencies had been speculating the hand of Lashkar-e-Taiba,’’ said an officer on condition of anonymity. ‘‘The only difference this time is that they have chosen the place frequented by foreigners to make a big impact like 26/11,’’ an ATS source said.

IM has a strong presence in Pune. ‘‘Many of its members who are at large belong to Pune and adjoining villages; as their base, Pune becomes a soft target,’’ said another source. In 2008, when crime branch arrested 21 IM members, the prime accused, Riyaz Bhatkal, his brother Iqbal Bhatkal, and their associates, Mohammed Ali, Amin, Irfan and Abu Rashid remained at large. Among the 21 arrested, most are well educated and from well-off families. Top among them were the computer engineer Mohammed Mansoor Asgar Peerbhoy and MBBS doctor Anwar Bagwan. During interrogations, the accused revealed that all the operations were carried out under Bhatkal, a small time extortionist in Kurla.

Sources said the Bhatkals were born in Bhatkal village in Mangalore, and grew up in Kurla, Mumbai, where they ran a leather-tanning business. In Kurla, they stayed at Pipe Road, a stone’s throw from the place that once housed the banned organisation SIMI’s head office. It was there that the two brothers became strong SIMI members and ran the office until the Maharashtra government sealed it in 2001.

To escape the police, Riyaz came in contact with Naseer Aydeet, a member of the Fazlu Rehman gang. After the fall of the gang, Riyaz and Naseer decided to start their own gang named RN (R for Riyaz and N for Naseer).

Their names cropped up after the 7/11 blasts, but they had already fled Karnataka. While the two brothers are on the run, their family members are underground, police said. It’s learnt they went to UP where they recruited youth from Azamgarh to send them to Pakistan for training. Bhatkals are accused of hatching conspiracies ranging from recruiting youth, training and selecting targets and even supplying RDX.

The same group was responsible for sending e-mails by hacking into WiFi systems in Sanpada, Chembur and Khalsa College, Sion before the Ahmedabad and Delhi blasts.

assembled by sannyas news from Indian Reports

Tags: News by sannyasnews
53 Comments »

List of those killed in Pune terror attack

Pune, Feb 14 (IANS) Nine people, including two foreigners, were killed in Saturday night’s Pune terror attack at the German Bakery in the upmarket Koregaon Park, an area of the city frequented by the elite and foreign nationals. The names of the victims announced this evening by Pune Police Commissioner Satyapal Singh are:
Dead:

P. Sundari, 22, of Bangalore

Anik, 24 and Anandi Dar, 19, brother-sister from Kolkata,

Vinita Gadani, 22, of Mumbai

Shilpa Goenka, 23, of Kolkata

Shankar Pansare, 40, of Pune,

Gokul Nepali (waiter in the German Bakery)

Saeed Abdul Ghani, 26, Iranian (student in Symbiosis)

Nadia Materinia, 37, Italian

Injured - 60 injured (46 male, 14 female). Nineteen (14 males, 5 female) discharged and 41 still in hospital. 12 foreign nationals (5 Iranians, 1 Yemeni, 2 Sudanese, 2 Nepalis, 1 Taiwanese, 1 German) among the injured.
Indo Asian News Service

Tags: News by sannyasnews
147 Comments »

Nine Persons reported killed in Terrorist Attack near Osho Resort. Sannyasin hang-out of German Bakery under attack

Explosives planted in bakery frequented by western sannyasins

In a major terror strike after the November 26, 2008 carnage in Mumbai, nine persons including four foreigners, all women, were killed and over 40 injured in a bomb blast which ravaged the famous German Bakery on North Main Avenue in Pune’s Koregaon Park near the Osho Ashram around 7.30 p.m. on Saturday. Unofficial figures put the number of injured at 50.
The bodies were charred beyond recognition.
An eyewitness who was travelling in an autorickshaw said he heard a loud explosion and blacked out. Another eyewitness said bodies were scattered and more than 10 were seen at the site. Four shops were damaged near the bakery, which has been there for 22 years.

The bag containing the bomb was said to be under a table, according to one account, and a waiter is said to have tried to open it. This caused the explosion which devastated the bakery, located near both the Pune Resort and the Jewish Chabad House.

Sources said the bakery was close to a hotel where Lashkar-e-Taiba operative David Headley had stayed while visiting Osho Ashram.

The Indian Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) has also reached Pune, apart from forensic experts. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) will reach there by Sunday.

The blast has sent shockwaves in Pune, prompting a high alert in Mumbai and other cities in Maharashtra. The police have been asked to look out for unattended baggage.

Joint Commissioner of Police Rajendra Sonawane said that prima facie it looked like a bomb blast.

Congress city president Abhay Chhajed confirmed the number of deaths. “I myself have seen six bodies at the Sassoon Hospital. There are more at other hospitals.” He said the injured had been taken to Ruby Hall, Jehangir, Budhrani and Sassoon hospitals in the city.

The bakery is a popular spot with sannyasins. Six or eight of the injured are said to be foreign nationals.

Mr. Chavan has announced ex gratia payment of Rs. 1 lakh to each of the families of the deceased and Rs. 50,000 for the injured.

Security for the Indian and South African cricket teams has been tightened. The second test match is beginning in Kolkata on Sunday.

Pune MP Suresh Kalmadi said: “I appeal to the people of Pune to be calm. Minister of State for Home Ramesh Bagwe, who is at the site, has confirmed to me that it was bomb blast. Further details are awaited.

Tags: News by sannyasnews
29 Comments »

Recent account of 48 hours in Pune Resort by a Newcomer

Hours 48; moments of epiphany 4; hugs 3 (totally platonic); kiss 1 (avuncular at best); sex free or otherwise zilch; PDA (Public Display of Affection) ditto.

Things have changed since Osho “left his body’’ 20 years ago—the word die isn’t ever mentioned. India has become much more liberal—free sex isn’t restricted to his meditation resort. Ashram is another taboo word. “There is this particular image about the word ashram that we don’t want to encourage,” says Sadhana, in-charge of media and my shepherd for the two days I was there. The world squandered more of its ability to wait, Rajneesh himself has been embraced as an original thinker by no less than Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister of India, and Osho is a hit on Youtube. On January 1, he had eight million users.

It is still like walking on to the sets of Hare Rama Hare Krishna—dark glasses, the dirty blond hair, the strumming of the guitar, lots of dancing, the quintessential ‘hippie scene’. There are more goras on the serene campus than on the streets of London. But quiet, yet alive, with stagnant pools of water with statues of Buddhas sitting meditatively, there is this feeling of energy that is impossible to miss. (And it isn’t the high of marijuana, even though the idea of dancing uncontrollably to Destination Unknown at 9.30 a.m. without any form of stimulant, except life, is baffling.) Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, couldn’t escape it, Vinod Khanna has famously talked about his experience, the greatest Indian musicians have played here, and even David Headley couldn’t resist.

“It is good that Osho left his body,’’ says Meera, a Japanese artist who is Indian in her soul. “People have become more responsible, more aware. They are not here looking for a guru. They genuinely want to find themselves.”
One of the first few followers, Meera threw away all her clothes in the garbage and decided to go orange with a vengeance. “We even painted the walls in our house orange. We were that committed. My ex-husband, a professor in MIT in the US, went to teach in orange robes and a huge mala. Osho was so radical,” she says.

Meera’s first Osho experience—all the old-timers talk about their firsts with an obvious thrill—was at a mandap near the now gleaming black granite welcome centre. There was only the ground full of sand, there was music and him. “He has left so much to be completed. Everything changes, even bamboo,” she says, as she reaches out to embrace me, the first of my all platonic comfort hugs.

There was no sex. Not behind bushes or in the quiet corners of the green campus, where trees grow thick, wild and green. It was like being in a 1970s Hindi film—incredibly sanitised, plenty of music, crazy dancing, beads and people speaking Hindi with bad accents. There was a tiny bit of skin show, as my prudish friend would refer to it, near the pool. My heart raced, as this young lissom girl peeled off her maroon robes to sit in the sun in a bikini—Zeenie Baby was much bolder—and my heart raced hoping that I would catch some of that famed free-love moment. Only to come to a screeching halt as time was fleeting and as short as the attention span of a child after a box of candy and a huge can of Coke.

For Osho, the biggest change has been the internet, says Pramod, hugger number 2. Osho’s is one of the most popular channels on the web. His speeches are translated immediately and beamed across the world—to reach out to millions of people, and to those who are in desperate need to find inner peace. His philosophy of not frowning on comfort helps—he has touched people from Latvia to Brazil. At the touch of a button.

Sadhana, who is always dressed immaculately with a string of pearls around her neck, says that basic comfort levels ensure that meditation is easier. “You won’t constantly think of the dirty bathroom that you have to go back to or the room. It is easier to find yourself.”

Anyone who has been part of the active mediation that is specifically designed and practised here, especially those who believe that changing channels is exercise, will probably find it easier to find muscles they didn’t know existed. However, there is a strange sense of peace—or stillness—that fleetingly, in the kind of euphoric moments that Elizabeth Gilbert describes in Eat, Pray, Love, creeps in suddenly. Holding on to it is incredibly tough. It is like hanging on to a wet, soapy glass—very slippery. Meditation, the constant switching from music to quiet, to music again, helps you feel centred.

The sit-alone-chanting-a-mantra to find that moment of epiphany doesn’t work here. It is all about dancing (to my utter horror and deep embarrassment). If you are the kind of person who cringes at the thought of moving to music, this is your nightmare come alive. Every form of meditation has some form of dancing involved—rattling off in gibberish, letting go, jumping up and down shouting “Hoo Hoo’’ deep from your genitals and sudden bursts of stillness.

“This is to let all the conditioning go,” says Sadhana. “In India women are conditioned all the time. It is very tough to give it up and choose this life. My parents were shocked. I was always on the look out for spirituality. He offered me meditation. But I didn’t have to bow down to him.”

These finding-your-self-through-mediation stories abound. Everyone seems to have one. “I had read a few books and I decided to stop by on a trip to India. I stayed here for a week and just fell in love,” says Chota, who works at the tiny coffee shop. A Spaniard by birth and a sanyasi by choice, he abandoned his name, Raoul, for Chota. “This place got me in touch with my inner child. Meditation is the key to self growth. I’d like to grow up here.”

A hot shot executive in a leading designer firm, dressed stylishly in a deep maroon slinky robe, has been coming to the resort since she was a baby. “I was two,’’ she says. “It was not easy. We had to wear only orange and this huge mala even to school. The kids in school were very mean and used to call me Rajneesh. But I come every year.”

Aamir Khan would fit in here. His magical potion that has made time stand still for him—unlike his other competitor Khans—seems to be an open secret in the Osho world. Sanyasins—you can tell one from her eyes, they shine, says Meera—seem to have defied age. Sarani, 38, looks at least 10 years younger (she runs an Osho centre in her country). But perhaps, that is because Osho is still young, too.

He still gives darshan each day at the evening meeting with the help of technology, of course. Dressed in pure white robes, everyone in the resort waits to get in. Their reflection in the black granite pool is like swans, as Sadhana puts it. The only sounds that you can hear are of pressure cookers whistling in nearby flats and birds going home. There is a sense of anticipation as you walk into the hall quietly to dance, find a little silence and meet Osho.

He is beamed into a hall full of white-robed seekers tired after the dancing session (the band plays instrumental music and the auditorium turns into MTV grind, without the skimpy clothes) to listen to the Master, as he leads 7,000 Buddhas into mediation. The evening meeting is thrilling, terrifying, powerful, chaotic, crazy. (It doesn’t matter if you don’t dance, as I found out later.)

Masais only know the present, claimed Robert Redford in Out of Africa. They have no sense of the past or the future. They would die in jail. Osho wants people to be like that tribe. It is far from easy, especially in a world that is changing every second. For those in the business of tracking these minute spilt-second decisions, it is perhaps impossible. I realised that in a second of clarity as I walked out of the meditation resort two days later. My laminated pass is in my bag—a prized possession and a great way to break the ice at parties. I feel lonely. “Together, but alone,” is Osho’s philosophy. Will I go back? I am not sure. I am still not ready. But I think, it is important that I should.

Tags: News by sannyasnews
154 Comments »