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Latest report from a Visitor to the Resort But the really new thing for me was, that he reported, that now those who run those events have what he called music play-lists. Meaning, they have a printed piece of paper with the titles they are supposed to play. And then he said, that the purpose of the music, that was thus played, for him could only be, to kill any juice. He mentioned Gurdjeff-events, that suddenly were totally different from what they were before. Like no more Gurdjeff music, but Disco music instead. Then I asked him about the hired people from the Sodexho company. And he said, that there were many more hired people than used to be. Like what surprised me was that the new "guesthouse" is completely run by hired people. Even the management! In the Ashram Welcome Centre you would be constantly asked, where you are staying, and then it was suggested, that you should stay in the guest-house. Later he noticed the manager of the guest-house sitting in the Welcome Centre in order to turn people on, to stay in the guest-house.
Main Points from Anupamo’s recent posting on Osho Beyond Bondage. Sannyasnews felt his last two postings of more than passing interest.
I got a phone-call from a good friend of mine, who had just returned from Pune. He stayed about two weeks in the resort, and during that time talked to quite a few people, visitors of the resort and normal Pune people.
A few things he told me, were totally new for me, i.e. half a year ago, the situation was still different. Among these, was the fact, that now hired guards in uniforms are also guarding inside the resort. Means inside the resort they function like policemen, watching the scene. Also new to me was, that he described the people in maroon robes as being much more aggressive than they used to be. I asked for examples and he said, they would be aggressive towards hired people ("you have not been on duty") and towards each other. Like there was a lot of fighting while having your food crossed (i.e. paying for your food with a voucher). Dancing events are now happening during the day.
Anupamo later posted a second contribution...
here is a follow-up to the report of my friend who just came back from Pune. He also heard, that the resort is being sold to a big company like Tata. I am not so sure about this, but I have to say, that many of the recent changes (like no Osho pictures any more, no Inner Circle, but a
management team, running of the Guest House by Sodexho company, editing of Osho's discourses - replacing the word "sannyasin" with "you") look different in such a context.
This inspires me to share a few things about the commercial side. And specifically about the issue of hired labor. I worked from 2000 to 2002 in the Housekeeping Department and here all the cleaning and the maintenance of the commune/resort was organized. So I have quite a bit of insider-information.
Osho had clearly asked the commune to be run without hired labor. He wanted to have a Buddhafield and only people who were there for love.
But it did not seem to be running according to Osho's wishes. Since the beginning of Pune 2 the commune hired labors. In the abundant years at the beginning of the 90's there was a big construction department with lots of hired labors. In other areas it was different. Working in the cleaning department was for many people a way to pour their heart and to go through growth processes as it had been in all of Osho's communes. Same for all the work in the kitchen.
Then hired labour at the commune became organised and had strikes. . Part of trying to cope with the labor-crisis (meaning a strike and quite
a big of agitation) was a sudden decision to have all the dishwashing done by commune-workers. Here I remember both sides, on the one hand the
juice that it created and on the other hand the exhaustion that followed. (It was the time before we had dishwashing machines).
Also for a while all the labors in the commune had Sunday off. So on
Sundays all jobs including all manual jobs were done by commune-workers. I remember both sides of this, how qualified people like computer
people were ridiculing that they had to do the garbage on Sundays and also how everybody really enjoyed the change of energy on Sundays, how suddenly the commune was immersed in a very, very relaxed energy without hired labour.
Then you could feel a change of politics. The aim was to give all manual work to hired labour, and have maroon robes do only "front-end" work. This meant the creation of a real two-class society with paying visitors, who were there for their "spiritual growth" and a class of right-less labors. And the maroon robes had the licence to treat this class of Indian labour in any way they wanted, "because they are not here for meditation". So, they served as punching-balls for many. Great spiritual growth! Isaw things, that made my heart freeze. And any attempt from my side to do something would usually go against the people whom I tried to help, meaning they faced the thread of loosing their job.
In this later period, all labour-business was strictly monitored by Mukesh himself. Paid Workers were hired for 6 months only to prevent them from getting a status where they had any rights.
I opposed this a few times. But I had Mukesh scream in my face. I tried to
go to the inner circle and Amrito promised to do something. I waited and
found out, that this was a lie. Just more screaming from Mukesh.
Then they decided this was too dirty. So during the past years we heard
rumors about a big company coming in. This has now happened. The name of the company is Sodexho, a multi-national company, that makes huge amounts of money. In 2001 Sodexho was on the list for the Big-Brother-Award. The background of this nomination included is the fact, that Sodexho is very much involved into the business of privatized jails in America, meaning a modern form of slavery, making money from prisoners.
The new hotel, which Osho wanted to be named "Dharamsala, a resting place for seekers on the path" and that the management called Osho guest-house, is not run by "maroon robes", it is run completely by Sodexho. Why not do an internet search on Sodexho?