Two Recent Departures of UK sannyasins
Swami Anand Anutosh aka Hugh Armstrong
March 6, 1944 – January 26, 2016
Anutosh, or Tosh, as most knew him, died peacefully in his armchair, like he was ready to go out to dinner. He had been living with several challenges with his body including cancer, hepatitis C, arthritis, and he was becoming increasingly frail. He had also suffered from depression for most of his adult life. He took on the pain of separation and the mind that so many people experience. He had many friends and was greatly loved. In his heart he was a humble man, a noble man, and one crazy dude who bore his suffering with humor and authenticity.
In the sixties and seventies he was an actor in London in the Royal Shakespeare and the National Theatre companies. He was perfectly cast playing the lead in One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, as well as in several movie parts. He was a wild man who loved women and adventure.
He took sannyas in Pune in 1976 and loved “the Baba,” as he always referred to Osho. He was best known as director of the Rajneesh Theatre Group for three years in Pune One; he said this was the hap- piest time of his life. The group toured India with Shakespeare plays and performed Twelfth Night for Indira Gandhi.
His funeral in London was attended by friends from the acting world as well as by the many sannyasins who loved him, more than he ever knew. The loss is ours, not his; he was ready to leave.
His dear friend Laura Noticing (Anuradha) said, “Tosh, I know of no one who is more loved than you. [...] Magnificent, freedom- seeking wave that you were, now joyfully sink back into the ocean.”
Ma Anand Rajyo (rajyo@rajyo.com) and Ma Alima (alima@ pathoflove.net)
Swami Prem Joe
November 27, 1941 – February 3, 2016
Our dearest dad passed the threshold of this world on February 3, at home, with both his sons by his side. The cause of his death was a brain tumor.
Dad took sannyas in the late 1970s in Pune. He told us that it was the most incredible inner experience he had had up until that point. There he was, gazing into Osho’s eyes, and suddenly he dropped deep within. He said
he felt like a small boy at the bottom of a deep, dark well. He felt safe and warm looking up into the eyes of god. From that moment on he was devoted. He visited Pune many times, invested in the Ranch, and was chosen to be the Ambassador to UK, helping to start the London center. He was close to many of the group leaders, hosting Veeresh, Teertha, Poonam, and many others, and at the same time he was supporting their individual projects in the UK. He was also a big supporter of the Medina project. He continued to sell Osho books till the last months of his life.
Dad was a conscious, warm-hearted fighter, and that was there to the very end. He had an extraordinary death process where every bit of his indi- vidual spiritual will shone through. His humor continued even when he had stopped talking, his breath deep into his belly and controlled till the last one. He was a meditator to the end, and that allowed him to walk consciously into his death, seemingly choosing each step with full consciousness.
His journey of awakening began with meeting Osho, and it continued in his own hands. All that knew him will have known either the warmhearted fighter or the conscious Joe; some of you like us, his children, may have been fortunate to have known all of him.
Prem Joe’s children (s.romero@hotmail.co.uk)
These two obituaries first appeared in Viha Connection www.oshoviha.org
