Osho and Vinod Khanna(Swami Vinod Bharti)
As I rewind my memory, I first came to know about Osho during my college days, and that too, unusually, through the movie magazines. At that time, 1978-80, Vinod Khanna was one of the top league Hindi movie actors. It was sensational news to the Indian tabloids, that is: how a very successful actor had got into the trap of a controversial sex guru. It was just unprecedented.
As a baptised proud Sikh, the idea of going to some guru never arose. at that time. But as Cinema was my only entertainment, and reading magazines and newspapers my passion, so Vinod Khanna and Osho became part of my subconscious.
In October 1984, when I too became a Rajneesh ka Chela (Disciple of Rajneesh) and started wearing Orange and the Mala in India, many times I was stopped by curious people with the question: “What do I see in Rajneesh - and, is Vinod Khanna still a disciple, or is he also in America?”
Then many of them proffered, ” Nowadays we don´t read much about Vinod in the newspapers. But one is sure that Vinod Khanna will come back to normal life and his work as an actor”.
In November 1985, I did see in the flesh, OSHO and Vinod Khanna together at New Delhi International airport. News of Osho´s arriving date from America spread like wild fire at the time. With other Karnal Sannyasins, I also went to Delhi. I think one or two thousand disciples from across North India were there with hope, anticipation and positive energy. No one knew, from which airline Osho will be arriving, so neck and eyes were stretched not to miss the glimpse.
My picture memory recalls: being surrounded with the disciples who came with him… Smiling Osho, Waving Osho; he entering a black Mercedes, me holding the back of the car and running behind; simply a once in a many life times event. During these few minutes I had the opportunity to see together Osho and India´s much appreciated Cine actor Vinod Khanna!
My last glimpse of them together is those flickering moments when they entered the black Mercedes and drove towards the hotel Hayat. Before the car picked up speed, I was running behind holding the car!
Before coming back finally to Pune in 1986, Osho spent some months in Mumbai in a villa of a disciple. From there, he started giving discourses before a small gathering. It was there I heard him for the first time. I have no idea whether Vinod ji was still part of Osho´s core team or not in Mumbai, but when I became part of life in Pune after Osho´s second home coming, the gossip was that Swami Vinod Bharti is banned from the ashram. In the Osho Pune world at that time, being banned from the ashram was like being cut off from the movement.
So after 87, whenever I used to go home, family and friends members would ask, ” When you are coming back to the real world – look even Vinod Khanna has come back to the real world.”
Naturally I would shoot back, ” Do you think I am in the ashram because of Vinod Khanna? Everybody has their own way.”
But they would not stop, ” Think about your future. You will regret it later on. We don´t think the Acharya Rajneesh movement will survive his death.” It seems that a passerby is the first to see a burning train, rather than the passengers.
Much water has since now flown down all the rivers of life. Just the other month, in one of the newspapers I have read some reason why Osho felt utterly disappointed with Vinod Bharti and that he did not want to see his face ever again. After the deportation from America, it is not difficult to imagine on rearriving in India, the meaning of ” A friend in need is a friend in deed.” The story runs that Osho asked Vinod to become the Pune ashram CE. But Vinod declined the offer by saying, ” I have no administrative experience.” Osho answered, ” This you can learn. it is not big deal.” Vinod must have declined it in clear terms. When a master says to his faithful disciple about something such as this, it is not like a movie director asking a change of shot from an actor. In such situations, there is no retake!
During those years of Pune two OSHO recreated the spring, the best spring of a Master again. Vinod Khanna went back to his movie world and was happily welcomed by the film fraternity.
I think two or three years after Osho´s departure from this life, and when the Inner Circle was keeping the fire alive, Vinod Khanna was seen surprisingly in the ashram with his family. I am sure, it must have been a big discussion among the inner circle members to lift the ban or not. As Vinod had always cordial relations with Ma Neelam, one assumes she must have played a role. I can imagine, this must have left the seeds of resentment in other inner circle members that she is allowing again a person who was persona non grata by the Master himself, and that she is misusing her power, that she treats herself as the Queen.(Exactly such charges were levied, when Neelam and other prominent members choose to leave the organisation by the present day regime).
During the years since Osho’s death, Vinod Khanna became a prominent politician. In the recently concluded parliament elections, he convincingly won his seat, after having lost in the last election. Before the loss of his seat, he had risen to be a minister in the central government. (One might say, so much for his lack of administrative ability!).
Quite often I see him in the photos of Osho Nisarga Meditation center in Dharamshala. His love for Osho and His people seems to still be there, visible all around his aura. I am sure, he as a politician has really helped Osho Nisarga to take roots. I just hope and really wish, Shri Vinod Khanna aka Swami Vinod Bharti will do something about the Pune Resort, which was built and cherished by Osho Himself. Present management has used all kind of corrupt means to dig their holes in a Lotus Paradise.
Now when a Lotus has bloomed in India. A proper judicial enquiry is needed and may be some kind of MEDIATION among the varying groups of MEDITATORS. Who else can do this role better than a seasoned disciple and politician. Vinod ji can really show the world of sceptical disciples that politics becomes a mission when it flows through the right heart. So called politician hater seekers, play the worst politics through their shadowy side, history has shown time and again. So my sincere wish is that through the political lobbying and state´s interface, corruption of all kinds can be uprooted. Without doubt, a disciple as a member of parliament and that too, from the ruling side, is the best option.
It is never too late to repay the old debts. It is never too late to bring life among the ruins.
Shantam,
I respect your experience of those days of Osho’s return to India, etc. But are you sure you have the exact story around Vinod correct?
I assume the pic is from this week, when Vinod has been voted back to his MP seat again?
The actual argument of your article is somewhat skewed. According to you, he was banned by Osho himself, for not taking up the mantle of a Chief Executive role in the post-1985 organisation. I doubt this, he well may have been banned, but people were and still are banned, usually due to the politics of the Inner Circle.
Appealing to Vinod as a clearly active politician of the ‘Right’, to act as some kind of mediator in the Resort disputes is a little off-track.
Where the busy politician in the past wanted the solaces of sannyas he has gone to his friends and Neelam, in Nisarga. But no doubt he is ambitious for ministerial office again, and if he gets it, he is very unlikely to have much time!
I must say, looking at his present day picture, he does look like a candidate for the politician’s disease of heart attack, etc. Well overweight – and likely to live a stressed life!
“Now, blessings light on him that first invented sleep! It covers a man all over, thoughts and all, like a cloak; it is meat for the hungry, drink for the thirsty, heat for the cold, and cold for the hot. It is the current coin that purchases all the pleasures of the world cheap, and the balance that sets the king and the shepherd, the fool and the wise man, even.”
Miguel de Cervantes, ‘Don Quixote’, 1605
Thanks for a Cervantes’ ‘Don Quixote’, reloaded 2.0 , May 2014.
Looking forward for the blessings of a good night’s sleep to forget the impression a pic had on me as well as the reading Bollywood mixtures of politics in meditation as well as meditation in politics.
I heard Osho (more than) once say:
Tthe word ‘Guru’ has become a four letter ugly word’
and maybe the word ‘meditation’ used by actors of all kinds has gone down the drain as well.
If words lose all meaning but yet are used
I have a problem with reading.
So tired just now,
looking forward to meet Don Quixote maybe in my dreams…
Maybe a little laughter then,
who knows?
Madhu
We have a word in English which stands for the way words lose meaning if used to loosely, to liberally, and I am damned if I can recall what the word is.
MOD: Redundant?
Lol. No. There is another specific term. Tried to find it last night.
Got it, although I had the idea was a single word.
Semantic satiation
http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/46306/whats-the-term-for-when-a-word-is-said-so-many-times-it-sounds-weird
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_satiation
Trivialized?
Trivalized words:
Enlightenment
Love
Meditation
Master
Osho
People having no interest in the politics of Pune means one should treat it as good as dead.
Long live the books!
I just wonder what, if any, difference it would make to your own life, Shantam, should how you believe Poona ought to be run ever comes to pass.
I suggest that the words you list as having been “trivialized” are – if that is indeed the case – subject to that sort of degradation at least as much by your own perspective and apparent lack of any ongoing self-enquiry, as by the actions or inaction of anyone else.
Not that I’d expect you to accept or even understand this, of course.
Shantam, I can see you fancy Neelam and Indian movie stars. However, you might not like it in Nisarga, Shantam, because it’s a residential place, you have to participate in some programme, and you cannot sleep on a sofa watching TV there.
Satya Deva, with due respect, don´t always wait to jump on my words. My words are my experience, part of my constitution. I share them with utter honesty.
(MOD: MUCH OF THIS POST HAS BEEN EDITED OUT AS WE COULDN’T SEE ITS RELEVANCE. PERHAPS YOU’D LIKE TO EXPLAIN IT, SHANTAM?)
Fresch, if a student of 8th class writes the essence of this whole article as you have written in 2.5 sentences, believe me, teacher will advise the parents for private tuition or extra coaching.
Shantam, if a student of 8th class writes the tripe you do, believe me, teacher will advise the parents for private tuition or extra coaching.
Shantam, of course teaching is the best way to learn or keep up, that’s what all self-help groups’ sponsors – and therapists/meditation facilitators are about. So, you could teach me out of my compassion for you.
But as I have written before, it would be easier for you to just find some people near you. I would be interested to read about it here.
To find people near about me and offer Dynamic or Kundalini, Fresch, this I will never do, never ever. It is the nature of the things. We all have our ego and self-esteem size. Crocodiles don´t jump in Basho´s pond, they die on the sand.
And second thing is the sense of hospitality. Why I offer only a Maggi soup when I was served a complete course?
Those who do it, do it. My consciousness does not allow.
I wonder what soap you offer.
Well, if Osho active meditation’s not your thing, fair enough, I guess.
But how about simply offering Osho videos, Shantam?
Perhaps also offering to loan out books and magazines for anyone interested?
Don´t tell to me, but do it yourself, Satya Deva.
You can even offer Osho books like Hare Krishna people selling their publications.
Take Fresch and Madhu with; they can dance to the tune of
Gobind Bolo…Osho Bolo…Gobind Bolo Osho Bolo…
Hare Osho Hare Osho…Hu Hu Hu!!
But Shantam, you’re the one who constantly broadcasts his discontent with how Sannyas is going, claiming ‘nothing’s happening’ in western Europe, lamenting a perceived lack of ‘centres’, publically available meditations etc. Personally, I’m not in the least disturbed by such concerns.
As Madhu and Fresch have pointed out, these suggestions are efforts to help you out of what often seems to be rather a depressive state.
By the way, Shantam, in case you haven’t checked, a few days ago I replied to your last-but-one post at the ‘Death of an Old Disciple’ thread.
Shantam, this sounds to me that, faced with the prospect of simply offering your self and what you have re Osho to others, you feel your self rather ‘small’ – perhaps even ashamed – while preferring to identify your self with something rather ‘big’ (Osho’s former ashram, as it was in ‘the good old days’).
Pretty well par for the course, I suppose, in Eckhart Tolle’s terms: ‘the little self wanting and trying somehow to be a big self’ – even through imagination. And getting frustrated when it simply doesn’t work, as for you the external pieces of the structure don’t fit – except in terms of the dead past.
But, getting away from such tricks of the mind, ultimately, what do we really ‘have’ anyway, except what we simply are, at each moment? That’s the truth of our person-al reality, isn’t it? However ‘unsatisfactory’ it might be to any idealised fantasy self?
You’re eloquent enough online about your apparently life-changing experience with Osho. Why not express that passion to a few people around your area who just might be interested and, who knows, even positively influenced by you?
Especially as, really, you wouldn’t have to come across as a hyped-up ‘salesman’, with all the concomitant effort and probable phoniness implied, as just providing the space for others to find their own way would be enough.
Take away any delusions of grandeur that would, relatively speaking, make any such small-scale effort seem bound to be ‘ultimately futile’, a ‘hopeless failure’, and you just might find it person-ally therapeutic. In any case, far more ‘real’ than merely pontificating on the internet, wishing things were different (and imagining that your words are making any sort of difference).
Thanks, SD, for sharing this much energy with good intentions. If one looks around at the life with a bit of depth, ‘Good intentions are never enough.’ Many people with good intentions have brought mango seeds from India to plant in their courtyards; and then in every garden in neighbourhood.
I feel like writing an article on this point, ‘Why sharing Osho with the world is an expired idea, albeit untimely.’
MOD: PERHAPS THIS THEME HAS ALREADY BEEN EXPLORED AT SN, SHANTAM, BY PARITOSH (CO-FOUNDER OF SN), BACK IN NOVEMBER, 2002!:
http://www.sannyasnews.org/sannyasnews/Articles/Things%20Fall%20Apart.html
“Me holding the back of the car and running behind; simply a once in a many lifetimes event. During these few minutes I had the opportunity to see together Osho and India´s much appreciated Cine actor Vinod Khanna!”
Shantam’s declaration produces an image that is at once amusing and absurd. It also betrays much about his mindset…childish. He sounds like a teenager worshipping pop icons. One can only wonder that he is unable to see this himself.
I remember Vinod Khanna showing up in the ashram. He was just another fish in the tank and seemed from a distance to be an alright guy. Round about that time a few famous folk took sannyas, sannyas having become an ‘in’ thing to do. We were all gods and goddesses, if Osho was to be believed, but if you were a rich and famous one preferential treatment was a given due to guidelines laid down by the old man.
The other day I was talking to a friend, who hung out a bit with Osho in the late sixties. Osho gave talks in hotel rooms down in Mumbai’s Colaba district during that time. As I mentioned before, Robin Brown, an old India hand, told me stories about Osho, when they met in Diptis milk-shake bar and the young Osho encouraged him to trawl around for potential disciples. How things had changed by the late seventies. The rich and famous were lining up to see him, along with every Tom, Dick and Hari Hari.
El Chudo draws the following conclusion: “Who else can do this role better than a seasoned disciple and politician? Vinod ji can really show the world of sceptical disciples that politics becomes a mission when it flows through the right heart.” Note the Vinod ji, adding that extra ji to show the man is held in high esteem. How Vinod graduated to the rank of seasoned disciple is anyone’s guess, but basically it is utter shite.
Once more El Chudo returns to his political stance, seeking back-up from any corner. He needs it, because any sannyasin worth his salt will agree with Osho in the sense that politics is for power-hungry idiots. There are doubtless exceptions, but I am not interested enough to talk about them. Boring. Still, El Chudo will continue to raise his low standard on a battlefield where he fights with imagined foes. Arpana delivered the perfect Don Quixote quote there.
Nobody has commented much so far on this thread. Perhaps the engine of SN needs some steam……..hissssssssssssss! I noticed the other day that El Chudo posted a comment to Parmartha. I read it and thought, “What a patronising twat!” I also noticed that none of the regulars made a comment. This signalled to me that, even though it has been fun at times, putting El Chudo in the stocks and pelting him with well-deserved shit has become tedious.
Basically, Osho gave sannyas to anyone, from the rich and famous to absolute losers. The rich and famous were treated differently because of their money. It is a bit of a bummer to realize this. In the enlightenment stakes you would imagine that money would have no value. In Osho’s world it did. Idiots, like El Chudo, find this all perfectly acceptable, to the extent that he runs after cars like a kid hoping to get a few pennies from newly-weds.
Vinod Khanna is nothing special, unless everyone else is. In my experience, everyone is interesting and everyone has a story to tell. A sign popped up on my head screen…’Don’t be a Hero, be a Zero.’ That was a Poona One slogan. Now we have sannyasins worshipping heroes and counting their zeros. The times they are a changing.
“I must say, looking at his present day picture, he does look like a candidate for the politician’s disease of heart attack, etc. Well overweight – and likely to live a stressed life!”
Agree. I heard from some private circles that Narendra Modi (aka NaMo) also has a high regard for Osho too. So let’s see if somehow things come together one after another and give a snowballing effect in supporting Osho’s dream/vision one day! It’s never too late.
I enjoyed reading the article. No matter who comes into power, corporate world has their ways to get things done. I am sure the J-gang is no exception.
Shantam Prem,
If these words you mention today (11.28 am)
are dead
they are dead IN YOU.
Truth is cruel
as truth is.
And it’s not only painful for you
but also painful for your readers here,
and that for a long, long time.
And once again,
as I can see it,
you have friends here on the way -
look just only at Satyadeva’s response.
Others I didn’t read yet but will do so later.
Lots of energy you’re getting and attention.
Madhu
Dear Shantam Prem,
Your decision to plug in and to send off the following words:
“I feel like writing an article on this point, ‘Why sharing Osho with the world is an expired idea, albeit untimely” -
to plug in to a microscopically tiny part of a virtual worldwide operation, the electronic ‘brain’, the so- called web,
open for everybody with the ability to plug in and read as well as comment,
seems to have been taken from an outdated understanding of that form of communication.
Ages ago in India, an Indian fellow-sannyasin once touched my forehead,
smiling and saying, “Take care that you don’t get lost in your own spider’s web of thoughts.”
We have been laughing then, knowing (both) how often that happens
so that then is a memory of a friend-to-friend talk.
Plugging in to the electronic web, sharing words,
I often feel (before and after sending)
like a Don Quixote miss
riding on virtual horses – in my hands empty books and empty love letters too,
having clearly a heart’s address
but not knowing about the receiving end as well as the outcome.
The best moments I have, when I write like a bird, are making music
just like this,
and the best moments (before and after) are
when I am not up to something special, or better said, when I am able to open the inner fist into an open hand,
often helpless.
Madhu
And a PS…
Quite often I have to plug into the dictionary’s web possibilities for better understanding or formulating too…
Then
plugging into that,
the face of the former Apple founder, Steve Jobs, comes into my requests as well as “Google Earth” advertising and whatnot…
So the daily meditation special tasks (to stay grounded) are as challenging as ever.
You may not get what you want
but have to deal moment-to-moment with what you get (not only before your eyes).
I confess, that I prefer a virtual mango to so much else presented so often…
And I dare to say,
“Mangos for everybody and everywhere” –
they are delicious!
(smiley)
From Madhu
Shantam, if you think you do not have to meditate, you seem to like an audience. So, where is your following, which so much appreciates your precious words? None of them is supporting you here.
Fresch,
If no one is supporting me here then it is a compliment. Masses on one side, Majority of the one on the other.
If it reminds you of someone else, tell my greetings if you come across.
Much love…you dear meditative and sexy woman!
Lol