Swami Anand Arun, Up Close and Personal
Swami Anand Arun, a 65 year-old-engineer first saw Osho in 1969 and was tantalized by his physical grace and firing speech. He began spreading Osho’s message in Nepal in 1970 opening a meditation centre at his own residence. Today, Swami Anand Arun is the Co-ordinator of Osho Tapoban International Commune in Nepal which has been spreading Osho’s message and helping seekers throughout the world since last 18 years. Through Swami Arun’s efforts Tapoban has already opened 22 Osho centres and communes in USA, Canada, Russia, UK and Germany and five communes and 60 centres only in Nepal. We sat down and talked with Swami Arun to know more about his experience with Osho and the ever-growing neo-sannyas movement. Here is what he had to say.
Would you please say something about Osho’s life and work?
Sw Arun: It’s very difficult to talk about Osho. He cannot be defined in words. The life of mystics and enlightened masters is like an iceberg. Only a small portion of their life is visible and the major portion remains hidden. He says that first you should know who you are. You should know your centre, your soul. Then you can understand at least a fragment of somebody like Osho who has become oceanic. An easier way is also to love him madly. If you are madly in love with him and you trust him totally, then you may be able to understand some of the mysteries of his life, what he is and what he wants to do for us. So, you either become self realized or fall madly in love with him. I can talk about him and his life endlessly, but it is completely unnecessary. It does not define who he is.
It’s been almost forty years since you met Osho and have been actively working to spread his message. What inspired you to give so much of your life for this movement?
Sw Arun: When I first met Osho forty years ago I was in a totally defeated state. There was no hope or zeal in life and I didn’t want to live. Before I met Osho there was a big question in my mind; What’s the purpose of living? But after I fell in love with him I found my answer. I should live to spread his message and to share his love with the world. I should live to meditate and to celebrate. He has given me this life, its meaning and the reason to live. I have surrendered my life to him and as his disciple I just want to become his medium. It’s not my life and therefore I don’t have any plans for it. He will keep me as long as he wants and I will continue with the same madness.
You have initiated more than fifty thousand people from all over the world and seventy five percent of them are below the age of thirty five. What attracts so many young people to Osho?
Sw Arun: I would like to correct you. I have not initiated anybody. Only a master can initiate. I only inspire people. It is their decision to take sannyas and its Osho’s energy and love that accepts them. I am just a medium. I can become an empty vessel and through me Osho initiates his disciples. You are asking why most of the people are young. Yes, when religion is alive, it attracts young people. All the great things done by great masters were done during their young age. Buddha left his palace at the age of 29 and became enlightened when he was 35. Shankaracharya became enlightened at the age of 16 and died at the age of 32. Vivekananda died at 39 and Jesus died at 33. They were young people and they have done miracles in the world. When you are young energy is alive and you are innocent. Old people become cunning and old minds become greedy. So when religion is young it always attracts young people. Only young people can create miracles. Only young people can be REALLY RELIGIOUS.
What is your opinion about the current global situation?
Sw Arun: The current global situation is very alarming. It looks like we are no more interested in life. We are heading towards total destruction. Global warming, over population, scarcity of water, rupture in the ozone layer are a few indicators to show that the world is moving towards destruction. Osho has said several times that it’s high time we corrected ourselves or we will have to vacate this beautiful planet. Enlightened masters have always been giving the indication but very few people listen to them. But now even sociologists, environmentalists and scientists have started saying that we are heading towards global suicide. It’s now very urgent to correct our mistakes. Osho is a messenger for this transformation; to show where we have made mistakes and how we can correct them.
Your efforts have culminated into numerous meditation centres and communes all over the world.
How do you manage so much?
Sw Arun: People can build houses but they can’t build temples. I have been to several temples built by rich people. Architecturally, they are well planned and well decorated but most of them have no spiritual energy because this energy cannot be created by money. Our meditation centres are Buddha fields where spiritual energy is alive. I would like to give you an example of the centre (Osho Sambodhi) that was recently opened in London. It is just an ordinary house but if you sit there for five minutes you will be charged by a divine energy. I cannot create this energy. Osho centres are created by existence and they are running because existence wants them to. Yes! We can become facilitators, we can become mediums, and I feel very lucky that existence has given me this opportunity.
What do these centres contribute to the society?
Their contribution to society is indirect. These centres make good and joyful individuals. A happy individual can make a happy society. If individuals are unhappy, stressed and angry then the whole society gets affected. So, these centres make people relaxed and joyful. At Tapoban you can see that people are happy even if they are not affluent. A new person can instantly realize that people here are always laughing and cracking jokes. Yes! We are happy people and we love to share happiness. These centres are like oases that radiate happiness in the world. And if the world needs anything, it’s happiness, love and freedom. These three most essential things in people’s life are all available in these centres. Osho centres are a free space, nobody interferes in anybody’s personal life. People have total liberty. It’s their life and they live according to their own intelligence. Centre coordinators or anybody in the centre does not have any right to interfere in anybody’s life. An individual’s right is highly respected. The centre attracts people who love Osho or who love humanity. You are here because you love Osho, because you love me and I am here because I love you. So, the basic ingredient is love. Freedom, love and happiness are a rare combination in the world. These centres provide the environment for love and life.
Being one of the pioneers of the Osho movement what would you to like to say to those involved with it today?
Sw Arun: I don’t consider myself a pioneer. I am only an ardent lover of Osho. I am not alone. Thousands of people are working for the master according to their understanding and I am one of them. I always work with the understanding that I could also be wrong. So, when I advise someone I also remind him that he is free to do what his intelligence tells him to. I have this experience that working for the master is the greatest pleasure of my life. Nothing can give me more happiness, more satisfaction. My experience says that if you want to be happy, if you want satisfaction then become a medium of the master. When the master starts working through you the whole existence will bless you, the whole existence will love you. Lots of people think that they will work for Osho after five years, after ten years, after they complete their studies, their service and so on.
NO! If you are postponing, it is never going to happen. It has to happen from this moment, from now. It is the greatest illusion of the mind. Right it down in your diary that if you are not doing it today, you are not doing it tomorrow either. If you are not meditating today, you are not meditating tomorrow. If you don’t love Osho and become his medium today, there is less chance that you’ll become his medium tomorrow. In fact there’s NO CHANCE.
Interviewed by: Swami Aatmo Neerav, December, 2008
Arun says:
“My experience says that if you want to be happy, if you want satisfaction then become a medium of the master. When the master starts working through you the whole existence will bless you, the whole existence will love you.”
I disagree.
The business of working for Existence is not about the choice of the individual, often disciples make the wrong choice when they are not ready to give up “their other life” and are very miserable when they join communes, etc.
It was a common phenomenon in Pune one for people to “give up their life in the west” only to be seen in a London street a month or so later. In most cases a wise retraction..
Arun here makes a mistake, it is not the disciple who chooses, it is existence who chooses, and for that work existence is very fussy!
Finally it is nothing about personal happiness. If one is involved with Existence so imtimately, then “human” happiness does not come into it. Even Jesus got fed up of being on the road sometimes, and cursed those villages who would not put him and his disciples up.
Since you are using your intelligence to work out your life you are doing what he reminds you to do when you are taking his advice.Isn’t it the same pit-fall it is so easy to fall into when listening to our master of contradiction? That we want something that was said to hold onto is only natural and it can be useful but we do well eventually to see it in the light of experience.
hey heraclitus and hev i cudnt understand u both.
But man i really didnt know so much of Osho is happening in Nepal. They have so many communes and centres there? hats off to this Swami dude! He must be something.
Hi Alec
So it would seem.
What about this place a bit nearer though?
I’ve got more interest in that.
I tend to agree with Heraclitus. Not many of us are “called” to be mediums, and if you try it against the flow of existence, you will just cause trouble for yourself.
I agree with you Alok John.
But I am sure Swami Arun knows what he is saying and doing.
Alec you are surprised at what is happening in Nepal. Well i’m surprised at what is happening around the world. I never thought we will again have so many Osho centre and communes in the West where they conduct daily Osho meditations at such affordable cost. Otherwise for us it was either these expensive therapy centres under the Pune resort or these so called growth centres where nothing grows at all. I went to Sambodhi in London and I am very thankful to him for opening it.
From my perspective Sw. Arun;s making a delicate point, of ‘allowing’ existence to work through you rather than forcing it to!
But there are a few prequisites before this happens: first is meditation. If anyone would like to do “osho’s work”, which means to many: sharing his meditations, books, vision etc.—than doing regular meditation makes imbibing Osho clearer.
And when great love and gratitude, again not forced but that which comes naturally, is present than existence does help you and work through you. And the word ‘existence’ is obviously an abstraction, which could mean different things for different people.
Atleast, this is my experience. When I take myself out the way and just start to do things, things happen! Its out of love and gratitude, and when these two are there, many things are possible.
‘I always work with the understanding that I could also be wrong. So, when I advise someone I also remind him that he is free to do what his intelligence tells him to’
This quote from ol’ ‘ Swami Dude’ (hats and since I’m not wearing one — other pieces of clothing off to him),seems to me to be pivotal.
Not to just do what we are being told (advised).
If something feels against the flow there may still be intuition to stay with it, and see what happens. The point is we are free either way. We can move away from harmful situations.
Amrito, words like ‘medium’, intelligence’ ,including as you say ‘existence’ ,”could “, indeed, “mean different things for different people.”
Somebody make me clear Is Arun Swamiji really worth loving??
Does he deserve the purest form of that love which is beyond all?? does he?? does he undertand the language of heart that OSHO was talking all his life .
He is not more than a professional extrovert who loves media and always busy praising himself with his few stupid non meditative people around.He is running after a big crowd and so his people. Its a sheer wastage of time and energy to write something abt him and against him because he never deserve that trust and love.
Manisha Says:
“Somebody make me clear Is Arun Swamiji really worth loving??”
Are you an economist of love? And if yes, where did you earn this power to judge and which institution of the mind?
“He is not more than a professional extrovert who loves media and always busy praising himself with his few stupid non meditative people around.”
I’ve also met a few, and they weren’t “stupid” or “non-meditative”, and from which state of mind are you stating this—from a meditative stand-point or non-meditative standpoint. Both are idiotic because meditators judging other meditators defeats the purpose of meditation which is “Who Am I?”.
” Its a sheer wastage of time and energy to write something abt him and against him because he never deserve that trust and love.”
Thanks for writing and wasting your energy.
Manisha, you speak so authoritatively – have you met Arun recently or are you passing judgement from a distance?
Manisha
after making such bold critiscisms you should atleast tell us about thier base… from where did you assume all that?
Dear Friends
Thanks for criticise of Sw. arun,But ,You know love and life starts only after meditation ! Arun is doing that job which u must follow to ur self ,Meditation is not a “show buisness” But “see buisness” of your self,
my love to all of you.
dear all,
Its gives me immense pleasure to read all your comments. Neither i am economist nor sociologist nor biologist of love…….i m just a lover of everything…… I know my statements are authoritative…… wat can i do? i just felt it …..i saw his dark side and his attitude…. I know how cleverly he pulls u towards himself and how cunningly he throws u ……… YEah he has contributed a lot to this generation and ofcourse helps OSHO tremendously…… it doesnt mean he is a super human, it doesnt mean he is a extra ordinary person….
and for u all amrito, dharmen, atmo and karuna prem… I cherish him, i love him, i treasure him and the most i hate him.
and will it be the wrong statement again if i say, he doesnt have media phobia? He doesnt have foreigner phobia? He doesnt have rich and executive people phobia??
hahahah..
Maneesha you remind of those press conferences with Osho. These were the same question journalists asked Osho?
“Being a spiritual teacher why are you so media friendly?’
“Why do so many foreigners come to you?”
“Why have so many rich people become your disciples? Are you the guru of the rich people only?”
I don’t personally know if Swami Arun has these stupid phobias. However seeing what he’s doing today, sharing Osho at such a large measure i dont think he does.
Love.
Well, of course Sw. Arun has become the most controversial personality in the sannyas world. Remember how much controversies were there with Osho. They missed HIM who just kept on criticizing HIM. They were never capable to look into HIS depths. Whoever is misunderstanding Sw. Arun is missing a lot too. I just wonder why people are so jealous of Sw. Arun? Just a Nepali sannyasin like him getting so popular around the world, hurting others’ ego…
I thank all of you who is criticizing Sw. Arun, it will make him and his work more popular. Keep it up..
That was the way of Osho. Osho used to create controversies on purpose….If you know HIM….
Yeah maybe jealousy is one ingredient that forces people to talk bad about simple people like our master or a simple person like Swami Arun. They are not concerned about creating controversies but yet controversy follows them everywhere.
The key of life is simplicity! And this is what we have to practice
in order to live happily(keep it to yourself and enjoy it because you know YOU have got it) OSHO did something spectacular and wanted to share it, and this caused his death (poisoned in
the USA) We all know what i am talking about….
do u mean to say that they will kill Swami Arun also?
I had a wonderful meeting with Swami Arun in Tapovan commune.
Tapovan commune reminds me of Poona one.
It is blesses with Osho’s energy as Swami Arun.
If any one has really loved Osho, it is time to come out and let him work through your body.
Master is in the need of bodies which are avialable to him to enter.
I want to thanks to Swami Arun for his love to the master.
love from
OSHO
Sw. Arun answering some wonderful and popular questions like:
Are you a self-proclaimed guru?
Why are you so much interested in the media?
Why are you always surrounded by the crowd?
It seems that you like foreigners otherwise why do you travel so much.
People claim that you are only interested in the rich and executive.
http://tapoban.com/?q=swamiarundiscussion
Love,
Satya
SW Arun is one of the great example of MAD relationship ; i mean Master n Disciple relationship……we should learn from him that how can we become good disciple of beloved OSHO!!
dear friends,
i am more concerned about a simple human being that is reflecting in sw arun`s interview.he clearlly mentioned that whatever work is happening it is all by osho`s grace and i am just instrumentall i.e. medium. even he has said that when i met osho i was totally defeated and hopeless about life …and osho gave me new ray of life…and so this is not my life. and my dear friends this is not only arun`s story there are lacs of people who went through same agony and osho gave them reason, purpose to live and die for…and they became osho lover`s and sanysins….my dear friends..few of you are not osho sanyasin`s rather few of you really are not good human beings…how violentally you creticised a simple human being ..who is so much in love with a man like osho..it`s all love affair…it is as simple as anyone`s love story…..my dear friends you creticised love….love that is so sincere and authentic that has made arun a devine person..experience…..love someone like a mad and as god and you will become devine..you will become medium for existence..for that you need not be a ossho sanyasin..really, really, really….you need to be a human being ..a simple human being……. being……sorry ………what we have done here…is worth…to say sorry…sorry…..so sorry……..we hurt hearts……