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Dave Oshana – East End Vedanta Dave calls himself "Oshana", but he was never a sannyasin, or let's say he never took the orange. But he did hang out at the old Bell St Osho Centre ( Nirvana-the first sannyas centre in the UK) years ago and got into sannyas meditations with Gautama, the late Shyam Singha's leading disciple at the time. Furthermore Dave does attract sannyasins, the night I went to his satsang, sannyas names were flying about everywhere. The model of Dave's satsangs is pretty close to the Papaji format. No formal silence, not much of an introductory talk, and an emphasis on participation with him in a one to one on the sofa, except in Dave's case it's a chair. In terms of the outward form, Dave is great in that he seems totally ordinary, and is always full of what I take to be a ready London humour. You might get a little metaphysics with Dave, but it wont last for more than a minute. You will get though, a line from Pink Floyd or a pop song, that sums up all that Hegelian stuff in a single shot. And you wont get those long shakti stares like those from Mikaire or John de Ruiter, but shakti is there none the less. Energetically something is going on. As Osho used to say, I just keep talking and talking, but what is really going on here is not a talk at all. Different people choose different ways to describe it. Dave uses the "consciousness" rap. I prefer the "beyond mind " or rather the "before mind" rap. But for me there should be no quarrel, for where it is authentic it always seems to lead to the same place, an infinite flow of love towards all the objects of experience. Dave talks Ramana 'who am I' self enquiry a fair deal, frankly I think it worked for Ramana because he was "ready". I don't think it can be a pro forma for everyone, and feel Osho was right in creating loads of life situations partly through therapy, meditation and communal living, that ripen the soul. However what is going on energetically with Dave is of a high order. In the face of a realiser it does seem that it doesn't matter what they say, but some alchemy goes on beyond ordinary consciousness. Such an alchemy is worth more than rubies, and has a value beyond anything of this world. No one has a monopoly of it, but it was good to come across it in Soho. There is also an article by him called "The Pursuit of Happiness" in Issue 17 of the Glastonbury based "Avalon" magazine. Dave gives satsang in Brighton, Glastonbury, Totnes, Bath and London, and anywhere he is invited. Details on the listings of this web-site. Check him out .
Dave Oshana gives satsang wherever he is invited, tonight I hear he is giving satsang at a rave in Brixton. Brave man… and perhaps a good man for being so open to whatever the existence might bring… When I went to a satsang of his recently in Soho, I thought: if he wasn't a teacher of Advaita Vedanta you could easily imagine him as a pretty smart and friendly wide boy. Dave woke up recently, and started giving satsang, as far as I can make out about seven months ago. He told me in an email that he woke up after he gave up… like them all!
If you want to get to know a bit about Dave you could read an exchange he had with John De Ruiter in 1998, presumably before he was enlightened in the Self-Enquiry' magazine of the UK Ramana Maharshi Foundation (vol 8, no 3, December, 2000) or in John de Ruiter's book "Unveiling Reality". Dave has internet exchanges with others at www.oshana.org Some of these where he gets into a discussion or whatever are good to taste his flavour.
Parmartha