But what was it like, talking to Osho at darshan? What was he really like, face to face?

Shapeshifter  (from Life of Osho by Sam)

But what was it like, talking to Osho at Darshan?  What was he really like, face to face?

I have been staring into space, trying to find the right way of putting it.

“This gentle vegetarian” wrote the American novelist Tom Robbins, in a phrase the ashram loves to quote. There, so far as I am concerned, speaks someone who never sat in front of Osho. Gentle vegetarian, my eye. He was scary, Osho; he was really scary… What was it he said? “You open an abyss before them, and you tempt them to jump.” Well, that’s what it felt like – just like that. If I had to put it in very few words I’d say what Osho did was show me the possibility of total freedom… and what I did was to panic.

thWhat’s most in the way of approaching Osho is the model of the saint. Centuries of Christian conditioning have drilled it into everyone this is the way a ‘spiritual’ person behaves – when they are not going off into their precious alternative reality, they creep around like Goody Two Shoes. For Osho, just as much as for Nietzsche, this is a complete perversion of the religious impulse. The Christian saint is a product of class society: the Christian saint is an advert for slavery. Destruction of this whole, ultimately political, account of spiritual life is the sine qua non of any new sense of the sacred appearing today.

At the beginning of his teaching work, Osho’s great American contemporary, Da Free John tried to convey the nature of enlightenment from the inside:

“The man of understanding is not entranced. He is not elsewhere. He is not having an experience. He is not pas- sionless and inoffensive. He is awake. He is present. He knows no obstruction in the form of mind, identity, differentiation and desire. He is passionate. His quality is an offense to those who are entranced, elsewhere, contained in the mechanics of experience, asleep…”

That’s much more like it. That’s what it was like up there in the hot seat (in front of Osho) .. Intense to the point of being almost painful.

Free John continues:

“… He is not spiritual. He is not religious. He is not – philosophical. He is not moral. He is not fastidious, lean and lawful. He always appears to be the opposite of what you are.

He always seems to sympathise with what you deny… He is a seducer, a madman, a hoax, a libertine, a fool, a moralist, a sayer of truths, a bearer of all experience, a righteous knave, a prince, a child, an old one, an ascetic, a god.”

That’s what Osho was like, he didn’t have a proper shape. “Bhagwan’s a bearded lady” announced one of the young kids careering round the ashram. In fact if Osho was like anything, he was like a young child;- but a child who had somehow escaped the adults, and grown up to equip himself with a massive intellect… I remember one darshan when he was going on to me at length about the group (I was running) , how we should do something or other; I forget what, but it was all run-of-the-mill, practical stuff. He finished, and I started to get to my feet. At the exact moment I was physically most off- balance, he hissed at me, apropos of nothing, ”Life is ABSOLUTELY meaningless!” It was a perfect shot. I straightened up and looked at him. There he was, beaming up at me, with this horrible expression of happiness on his face, as though he had informed me I had just won the Lottery.

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26 Responses to But what was it like, talking to Osho at darshan? What was he really like, face to face?

  1. Arpana says:

    No two individuals would describe the event of being in Osho’s presence in a way that gave the impression we shared a common experience.

    Sam knows how being in his physical presence is, but that description doesn’t depict my experiencing.

  2. Arpana says:

    I was more in the present than I had ever been in my life up until then, which included an awareness of being surrounded by profound silence, my own inner gabbling, light and movement and stillness and sound.

    Then the next time I experienced being in the moment as profoundly as that happened possibly a year later, and this time with no inner gabbling; when a neighbour’s cockerel got through a hole in the fence and was racing towards two year-old Deva Dutta, who I managed to get to first, lift out of harm’s way, while backing away from the enraged bird, using strategic kicks to stop it pecking holes in my legs.

  3. madhu dagmar frantzen says:

    There are moments, Parmartha, where I am especially grateful to see a ´new´ thread topic on the screen here, and this moment now is one of them.

    The sub-title, ´Shapeshifter´ comes close to it, but doesn´t grasp it.

    It´s quite an organic follow-up (flow?), in the midst of pointing to the Matrix work (and the special donation of Prem Martyn) we have been responding to, one way or the other.

    In a way, one, being caught in a kind of yo-yo bouncing in the Matrix, which Prem Martyn gave some words to, and the Taste of Freedom (beyond a or THE Matrix) Paritosh gave words to (and also Da Free John found words for), belong together in a most mysterious, most miraculous way.

    To add something personal: I have not been so often sitting alone face-to-face on the ´hot chair’, as Paritosh named it. Just once. And the ´me´ was gone. And got a taste of THIS.

    And that kind of Disappearance has to be integrated as long as I am in the body, it seems. And in this kind of Disappearance the disciple as well as the Master is gone.

    And for the bunch of humorous fellow-travellers here, I´d like to share what was a special gift I got – to be still deserved and accomplished – when He said in a stern voice: “And when you are entering that space, then don´t freak out like a hippie!”

    And I remember that, as if it were NOW, the strong stroke of a ZEN MASTER, moving through my body. And I sat straight receiving it.

    And tell you what: it´s still working to this very moment! Everlasting, so to say.

    Thanks for SN possibilities, sometimes to recall such gifts, in real time, facing ´Life Issues.

    With love and gratitude,

    Madhu

  4. shantam prem says:

    But what was it like, talking to Osho at darshan? What was he really like, face to face?

    HE MUST BE LIKE BHAGWAN SHREE RAJNEESH.

    • Lokesh says:

      Shantam, how would you know Osho was like Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, when you never actually met either of them? I never actually met Osho…I was put off by all those Rolls Royces and guns.

      I met Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh on numerous occasions, and therefore, speaking from experience, I can honestly say that, if a comparison needs to be drawn, he was’t like Osho at all but a bit like a mix of Mister Nobody, The Invisible Man and Obi-Wan Kenobi. So there!

  5. Kavita says:

    For me, it’s kind of relating more to His non-being, since I have not been in the presence of His being.

    • shantam prem says:

      This is one cute reply, related with Osho´s non-being. Religions are created with this stuff; relating with not present but everywhere present Jesus, Buddha, Mohammad and, and, and…

      I love religions. Those who think world will become free from religion are such idiots who think everybody can land on the earth from the sky without any parachute. If one can do, all can do.

      Religions are like gravitation. Unavoidable.

      There is a religion around Osho.

    • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

      Well, you know, don´t you, Kavita, that these kind of sharing moments should not in any case be used or misused for an open (or covert) kind of ´pecking order’; and at any time this border line needs to be handled with as much delicate awareness as possible.

      At any time, also in Sannyas history, this has been or may be or will be an issue to be aware of.

      I met some people in the course of time who showed me by their very being and acting or sharing, that there is a ´family beyond any small family (I mean ´any´ – also beyond special ashram-family politics or special relating to a Master): just a family of mankind.

      And those taught me, or are teaching me, that any pride or imagination to be ´special´ is the shortest way to lose the ´inner telephone connection’ to the Soul or essence of the ´matter.
      And that is and will always be very intimate. As yours is intimate as well. And thank you for this.

      What it does mean to relate and what it does mean to share about relating, and to share about that here (in a virtual SN plane) is quite a delicate piece of art, isn´t it?

      Madhu

      P.S:
      Nowadays, I often use the/a ‘door’ via classical music of different cultures of the world…and for example, discovering anew J.S.Bach and Indian Ragas and that those musicians are friends in my ears and time doesn´t play a role in this – just one example.

      • Kavita says:

        Madhu, I don’t know what to say to your post; sometimes when I don’t get what you need/want to convey I do wish I could be on the same page as you are, and this is one of them.

        • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

          Sorry, Kavita, maybe I´d wanted to bridge something. I missed.

          And what I missed above all is that no bridging is needed.

          Madhu

          • Kavita says:

            Sorry too, Madhu, sometimes perhaps I/we just go off the tangent by the unperceived/unperceivable first expressions, so that the ones that follow just don’t make any sense.

  6. simond says:

    I never met him in person, but was one of many in darshans. I was disappointed but that was no bad thing, I had lots to learn.

    I love the final paragraph in Sam’s story:

    At the exact moment I was physically most off-balance, he hissed at me, apropos of nothing, ”Life is ABSOLUTELY meaningless!” It was a perfect shot. I straightened up and looked at him. There he was, beaming up at me, with this horrible expression of happiness on his face, as though he had informed me I had just won the Lottery.”

    This expresses something so real and beautiful about the Master, and about our relationship with the truth. It can be utterly frightening and dangerous, and liberating; when the time is right.

  7. Parmartha says:

    Sam was the writing pseudonym of Prem Paritosh. He was the first Vipassana group leader in Poona 1 (circa 1975). Osho did talk to individuals (74/77?) in darshan, people used to come forward as Paritosh describes and be on the hot seat, as I myself experienced.

    Then there was the Energy Darshan period (78/79?). No words, but a blast of energy. For workers in the ashram, once a month.

    For me, the latter was a surprise, there was a major movement of energy which sometimes seemed to be sustained for days on end after such things. I think the latter depended on how relaxed and receptive the disciple was. Some people felt nothing.

    • kusum says:

      Osho is Zorba the Buddha.He is enlightened & he also enjoyed worldly comforts.Very simple really.

    • shantam prem says:

      This kind of Darshan style of touching in the middle of forehead is becoming quite famous in India and ex-Soviet block countries.

      It is another fact boyish-looking nerds who created airbnb, paypal, facebook, google etc. did not get some rub on metaphorical third eyes.

      • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

        What to say, Shantam Prem? Please note, if, when Steve Jobs, when visiting your homeland in 1975/76, had visited the commune in Pune, maybe he would have worked in Deeksha´s kitchen or as a cleaner (?), whilst also attending discourses morning and evenings, having Darshans, and could have talked to the Master or put his questions out, waiting for some response (?).

        And that might have been a better choice than the places he chose to approach in India at that time.

        “India both traumatised Steve Jobs and changed his life. He returned to Atari a Buddhist, and a more focused and hardened individual. Did he find in India the steel that was to allow him to survive an ouster from the company he founded and then to return and rise to unexpected heights?

        After returning to Atari, Jobs rekindled his friendship with high school mate Steve Wozniak who was working at Hewlett-Packard then. Together, the two Steves launched a startup called Apple Computer from Jobs’s garage in Palo Alto, California.

        It’s hard to say if India’s less than favoured status with Apple can be attributed to Steve Jobs’s early experience with the country. But it is definitely true that it was then that the foundations were laid for the titanic, perfection-obsessed, often ruthless personality he was to become later.”

        (Source: ‘Gadgets 360′)

      • swamishanti says:

        Yahoo was created by some sannyasin computer nerd from Bangalore?

      • satyadeva says:

        “It is another fact boyish-looking nerds who created airbnb, paypal, facebook, google etc. did not get some rub on metaphorical third eyes.”

        And what point do you think you’re making here, Shantam?

        • shantam prem says:

          People who cannot even understand irony claim to understand spirituality.
          No way, Sir Ji.

          • satyadeva says:

            Problem you have, Shantam, is that your output tends largely to err on the side of the rather naive and over-simplistic (not to mention the vast majority being on a single track), almost totally lacking any genuine psycho-spiritual insight and very often revealing far more about your own – hidden to you – neuroses than what you’re ostensibly discussing, so that in order to grasp when you think you’re attempting irony it has to be clearly spelt out to the readers!

            I suggest you either provide a heading or an ‘afterward’ to indicate such attempts, eg ‘THIS POST IS IRONIC’, or inform the SN team so that they can find a way to do likewise.

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