In August, 1988, Osho called Shunyo (Chetana) into his room in the middle of the night. He did this by using the beeper system thereby sidestepping other caretakers.
Osho’s room was always locked at this time, and certain people had the key, one of whom was Shunyo.
She unlocked the door. Osho said bring a notepad – I have something for your book. (The book that became “Diamond Days with Osho”.)
Osho basically gave Shunyo thirteen names.
He said in the middle was Bhagwan, surrounded by a circle of 13 names.
The people in the circle were Kavisho, Nityamao (Niity), Jayesh, Avibhava, Nirvano, Maneesha, Devageet, Neelam, David, Chetana, Hasya, Anando and Amrito.
According to Shunyo, Osho declaimed that this was to be a “secret” group, a secret group of thirteen, and in the middle the unknown Bhagwan.
Osho then went back, almost immediately, to sleep.
I am therefore always more than a little surprised that many “devotees” continuously attempt to dethrone the remaining people in this group who remain 100% engaged with Osho’s work. . After all, irrespective of whatever those outside such a group argue, the names were given by Osho, and Osho is the Master. Why it occurs to me dont they simply “surrender” and stop judging. True some have left the group, but the main groundswell of criticism is often orchestrated by those who might be concerned that their own names do NOT appear on the list, like Arun and Keerti!
The ways of the Master are not their ways, and cannot be fathomed.
Parmartha
Parmartha, you were not mentioned as one of the names, therefore what you are describing is a version of someone else’s story.
Surely, if anyone mentioned there wants someone to accept their metaphysical power and embodiment of appointedness, they might just ask you to pass on the message…and we at SN could all hold a mass surrendering event online where we just agree…to whatever it is that we should agree to…and surrender…Then nip round your place for some pretend disagreements like the old days, some mild bickering followed by sandwiches and fractious heckling…
Why we never thought of unanimity before on your website is quite predictable of us poorly equipped amateurs. Still, you could always offer gold stars for most likes for a post, to be spent on a free session of neo-nodding therapy?
Many suppressed their more intellectual instincts during the period 1975 to 84 in the name of surrender, others may have over-embraced it, and it became a sort of obedience mantra. It’s a moot point, but in neither case it would have done no good.
What I found valuable was to play with that aspect of oneself. A rare opportunity under the umbrella of someone like Osho. I still maintain it is a rare quality in human beings as it is so far beyond any sort of pride, which almost all human beings have in a myriad of forms.
The present situation in sannyas politics is a long way from any of those considerations of surrender simply to Osho himself.
Parmartha should ask Shunyo to add new chapters in her book.
‘What happened after Osho’s death?’
For how many hours or days this group worked as an Orchestra?
From their behaviour these people have shown Osho was a ringleader who could make all kind of minds sit in the circle.
Before leaving the body, one has heard Osho saying, “Don’t use past tense with me. Describe me in present.”
In language it is possible. Yet, contemprary men know and live with the belief, “Gone is gone.”
This secret ‘group’ was not the 21 Inner Circle, Shantam. You may get the two confused. They were in some ways the custodians of something else.
Surrender is a rare cove. Very unusual in the character of men or women. Neem Karoli Baba was a Bhakti, and appealed to westerners back in the seventies. Steve Jobs was on his way to see him when the old man died from a diabetic coma. I remember one thing distinctly about him which was when he told Ram Dass (Richard Alpert), perhaps his most famous disciple, not to turn other people on to him, and said it specifically. What happened was Ram Dass (Richard Alpert) went off and told loads of people about him…what a fine example of non-surrender!
My view of what happened after Osho’s death is that quite soon people started quarreling with each other, both in and out of the various circles. The old rare and novel ‘atmosphere’ of surrender had gone, which was particularly prevalent in Pune 1.
I myself think that many of the decisions that were made after Osho’s death by the tattered remains of the group announced back in 1988 by Shunyo, were in fact the right ones, and that Osho himself would have initiated in creating an international non-cultist movement.
I have heard even Shunyo’s account has been questioned in some places – because she was on the list (as Chetana). This is nonsense, anyone who has read her ‘Diamond Days’ can intuit a fellow-sannyasin who was totally immersed in Osho.
Immersion in the master when He is alive is one thing, when dead, trend-setters are those 12,13 ‘uneducated people’ who were with Jesus.
what Shunyo calls the secret group: almost all of them were retained in the Inner Circle.
One fact is very clear, Osho in His fragile body was giving His best and also looking at all the possible ways for the continuity of His work. His Ashram, that was called Commune, was the top in His priority. In business language, Osho Ashram was almost equal to the headquarters of Apple Inc. or Google Business model.
What were the national origins of this group, Parmartha (or anyone)? Mostly westerners, I suspect?
Satyadeva,
There is much material available on the net about biographical data of chosen ones.
Also, you can watch the videos of Osho in Buddha hall. In the very first line sit these ladies and gentlemen.
So the vast majority (if not all) are (or rather were) westerners?
Neelam was Indian. Most of the others were westerners. What is your point, SD?
Just curious…Also I’m wondering how much Shantam’s apparent distaste for this issue arises from a distrust of and resentment towards the fact that westerners formed the vast majority of both ‘circles’ that Osho instituted. (Or was the ‘Inner Circle’ of 21 more evenly balanced, at least at the start?).
All around the world in all the ages, for esoteric kind of people it is very difficult to accept basic facts of life. If someone gets fever, it means devil is entering the body. There is a Jehovah the Witness in everyone, including in some sannyasins. They will try their best to prove some secret, some mystery, instead of accepting the human errors and blunders.
It is almost impossible for few to accept Individual Mind works even when NO Mind is talked non-stop. Also, many will keep their rosy picture intact, it can be a shock of the life to see their lifelong saving plan is nothing but a pyramid scheme.
Rationalisation is like thermal control.
For you as well, you insufferably pompous fool.
(Every word of that is projection. Every word of that is about you as much as anyone.)
Parmartha, what’s gone and done, is done.
That you can broadcast it and sense your identity relinquish itself through its remembrance will have to do, after what was done. It’s not replicable by default or intent in my experience of the sannyas world as it is today, and was only barely dispersed amongst individuals, in fullness, when that surrender was required to translate itself into integrity amongst fellow sannyasins and their relatings. Lovely when it shone.
I’m always happy to have that surrender be addressed and called for – who knows, it may resurface in places where each of us walks. As the saying goes, ‘Don’t look for it, take it with ya.’
Thanks, Martin. I totally accept what is, is!
I like to press the buttons of those who keep on speaking as though they were in some sixties political rally and seek to institute a “new regime”. There are various pressure groups who want this, but I find them mostly offering a concealed conservatism and Indian devotionalism, which I loathe!
“I’m always happy to have that surrender be addressed and called for – who knows, it may resurface in places where each of us walks. As the saying goes, ‘Don’t look for it, take it with ya.’” = Prem Martyn
What else, though, are our contributions on this website as some more, some less, the sharings of pain, what one is not able to surrender to?
If it is Shantam Prem, sharing his bitterness and jealousy too, remembering those of us who were sitting “in the first rows” or seemingly ‘in power’…
Be it Parmartha, who seems to be in pain about the loss of Essentials going down the drain by power-plays and immature fights…
Be it me, who often feels so deprived without a Buddhafield with friends, a situation and space and address too (not a virtual one!) to sit together.
You are formulating a truth in your lines, Prem Martyn, which can not be denied.
Yet the interdependence in everyday´affairs we all have to face and the need to recharge our energy bodies and have a place or a space for that. With Friends.
You could have said what you said at any time; also in the historical times which are gone now, quite a common statement, the one or the other ways to be expressed.
If we are able (as sannyasins) to make space for a new way to celebrate a festival of Love and Light, nobody knows.My feeling (here) is that so much has ‘to die’ for it; also, these never-ending political discussions about ‘who did what and who is dong what and when and how.’ And the ratings all over the place about humans mostly absolute unknown in the spectacle have to ‘die’ too. That´s what Arpana pointed to, as far as i understood him rightly.
Even knowing most of the here mentioned people throughout the decades, by having seen them I don’t know them a bit in depth. I also read for sure Chetana’s book the moment it came out, reading which left me in awe – and knew nothing more than before.
I have been sharing tea and talk with very ‘outer circles’ and just had a few intimate sannyas friends, who have by now for a long long time already taken ‘flight’ to feel at home in other countries. Sometimes I look at a website and see their faces, having grown older. It did allow me sometimes to sing ´Wish You Were Here’ (which Lokesh cured me of, giving some background information to the song – and I thank him for that, it made me sober, so to say).
This website here is a space which seems to be a meeting of souls in grief or discontent (mostly with a few exceptions!).
And there is no wrong in that, but it’s good to see what we are at – and maybe see why, and that after all it is very individual stuff (mostly) and very human too. A GAP, as a situation where new orientation can be found. Maybe transforming in a ´AGAPE´ again, and who knows what form will come out of that – if any?
Or if we are all blind and can´t realise yet, what Kabir mentioned with:
“All is fine and already happening.”
Let’s stick to the latter – i would like to propose.
Love,
Madhu
P.S:
Please spare me of some interpretations why i chose this word ´AGAPE`. It’s just a wonderful, beautiful Greek word for that which I mean – and doesn´t come from organised Christian conditioning in growing up, because I experienced none, I grew up as a pagan.
And my ‘God’ was Nature around when i was a child – when I felt more welcomed by Nature than by the ever so tremendously exhausted humans after world war two.
But I grew up having a wild, overgrown park around the house, (my refuge), where I used to hide whenever I could manage.
“One fact is very clear, Osho in His fragile body was giving His best and also looking at all the possible ways for the continuity of His work.” — Shantam
Osho was often asked what would happen after he dropped the body and his answer, as I remember it, was along the lines of: Who cares? I am here now. This moment is here to share.
“Inner circles” and “secret circles” are some of Osho’s best jokes. The best response to such a joke is to laugh.
Osho did not want his words to become a religion. He did not want an organisation; he wanted a living organism. These circles were an effective way to destroy any possibility of his work being turned into a religion. 21 people who have to come to unanimity to act? Great joke!
The Ranch was a lesson which helped us to realise Osho did not want “Rajneeshism.” The ‘circles’ are just other devices to destroy the possibility of a religion developing. The Ranch also helped us become more sensitive about obeying sannyasins who supposedly were acting on Osho’s behalf but were actually engaged in political trips.
Osho did not like politics or politicians, regardless of national, personal or spiritual reasons for their politics. Reagan, Mother Teresa, Gandhi, Sheela, etc…it didn’t matter who…if they were engaging in politics, they got hit by Osho’s Zen stick.
Sannyas is a heart-to-heart organic connection with Osho which does not require any ongoing organisation. No politics are required.
“I want to make a complete break. As far as I am concerned, you are all intimate to me. I can afford the intimacy of all of you, because there is no question of any succeeding. Nobody is going to be my successor. I want everybody to be a master unto himself.” — Osho – Talks on Zen: Ma Tzu: The Empty Mirror, Chapter 5: Like a Cow
My feeling is that, with or without circles, everything is going perfectly.
“When I am gone, continue to dance and rejoice in remembrance of a man who gave you freedom, who gave you individuality. What else is there to bother about the future? Wherever I am–somewhere I must be–I will go on showering my love on my people and I know they will find ways to respond. But that is something very private; I cannot reveal it to a non-sannyasin.” — Osho, Last Testament
“Inner circles” or “secret circles” are not the continuity of Osho’s work.
Osho’s love is still showering and our dance of celebration with Osho continues. Love, dance, celebration, laughter… that is the continuity of Osho’s work.
Kabir, have you ever spent a single day in any of Osho’s ashrams or it is only through books you are trying to create present and the future?
In around 25 years of time, last of the youngest sannyasins who has seen the life and times of Osho will also be gone; then it will be a field day for the asshole scholars to go on examing the stool test reports and create the menu accordingly.
As you have written, “Osho was often asked what would happen after he dropped the body and his answer, as I remember it, was along the lines of: Who cares?”
If anyone has little brain he can see such sentences were spoken years ago. It is like asking a newly married person about his tombstone. Answer will be similar, ” Who cares, I am living here and now.”
Person who doesn’t care, doesn’t tell in the last moments how to take care of the ashes.
The Ashes!
” “Inner circles” and “secret circles” are some of Osho’s best jokes. The best response to such a joke is to laugh.
Osho did not want his words to become a religion. He did not want an organisation; he wanted a living organism. These circles were an effective way to destroy any possibility of his work being turned into a religion. 21 people who have to come to unanimity to act? Great joke!”
Unfortunately though, Kabir, such a view remains just that, a view, an opinion informed by hindsight, unprovable, however confidently expounded.
Some will simply say believing this might be just a way to explain anything Osho did that didn’t quite work or that failed, ie “It’s ok, it was just a ‘device’, Osho knew exactly what he was doing and its outcome.”
Perhaps most of the people Osho trusted to run the show turned out to be ‘unfit for purpose’…maybe their ‘selves’ (‘egos’, if you like) failed him (and, according to this line, everyone else)?
Or perhaps he misjudged character (as he seemed to do with Sheela)?
Who knows? You, I and everyone else don’t, we can only guess at the truth – and hopefully bear in mind our own personal bias before reaching any conclusion.
Kabir, well chosen quotes. Essential Osho.
” “Inner circles” and “secret circles” are some of Osho’s best jokes. The best response to such a joke is to laugh”
Kabir,
I would like to question what you put out here, in these (special) lines above. Not only because of Chetana’s book, but also in reference to the ‘Living Mandala’ one can see us all in, different in different phases.
And wasn’t it you who quoted something picked up from Osho, short time before he left His body, about the Silence happening in the Sangha?
Anyway, a point I don’t feel to laugh at – at the Suchness of this.
Another point is, as a Lover of Truth and a fellow-traveller of Meditation, that (for me) surrender to the fact that at any given time, anybody is just at the right place to be ; and the latter a challenge quite often to surrender to (for me).
And it has been ever that way, also in His Lifetime in the Body up to Here-Now, seemingly living a Hermit´s life for quite a very long time.
A ‘Mandala’, as a visible parable of an energy-field being interconnected, allows us to see how everything is connected with everything else – yet some structure is formed.
What I love about some of the Tibetan ART of Mandala Meditation is that when a Mandala made out of coloured sands, having served the Teachings process about the phenomenal worlds and the Meditation, is being taking care of with great love and respect: the coloured sands are gathered and given to the river.
A great Symbolic Act: To give a n y Vision to the River of Life.
Has to be done almost daily, isn’t it? And may take more than one lifelong learning to be respectful this way.
Madhu
“..Anyway a point I don`t feel to laugh at….”
That sounds like the intro to a very long list!
Cheer up,love…. it may never happen!
(enlightenment,that is)
I have spent quite some time with Tibetans and what generally impressed me about them wasn`t their mystical ramblings about how everything is interconnected etc but their all-round cheerfulness in the face of often hardship.
Grand contribution Frank.
Like to hear more about your time in Tibet.
Because they don´t carry the Whiteman’s burden on their shoulders!
That`s true.
And more inportantly, they don`t carry chips on their shoulders either….
Frank, I can dig it.