On Celebration
Veena: One of Osho’s favourite transformation devices was to create as much chaos as possible, throw his sannyasins into it and chuckle while we tried to centre ourselves in the cyclone. A celebration was his BIG chance! Before each one there was so much to do – sometime on just a few hours of sleep for nights on end – that when I finally sat down for the evening celebration I felt like I had been doing days and days of the chaotic stages of Dynamic Meditation! After collapsing into my seat – usually with only minutes to spare before he arrived – and taking a deep breath, I found myself falling instantly into a state of total let-go. Which was, of course, exactly where he wanted me and everyone else to be so that he could then work his magic and transport us all blissfully, ecstatically, upwards into transparent nothingness.
What a gift to receive! How incredible!
Yoga Christopher: My biggest celebration must be arriving in Poona on 19 December 1990 and being present at the burning ghats with Osho on his Parinirvana – leaving-the-body celebration.
On what has now become a family tradition my eldest daughter, Zoe, then 18, was with me on her first trip to the Osho Resort. Thomas Cooke had arranged our itinerary many weeks before and we had left London on 13 January 1990 and flown to Nairobi for me to run an IBM course for UNEP. Back then there were only a couple of flights each week from Nairobi to Bombay and ours left Nairobi at 6:30 pm on 18 January 1990 arriving in Bombay at 2:50 am on the 19th. Our connecting flight at 6:20 am to Poona was part of the itinerary – it arrived at 6:50 – and the rest, as they say, is history...
Punya: Sitting down on my cushion in Buddha Hall, bones tired from baking cookies all day for the guests – I am glad to finally just sit. The mind is too tired even to think. Ahhh – slowly the festive atmosphere penetrates the skin like warm light. My friends are all around in their best robes, the musicians have started playing and in the back some people have got up to dance. My body starts to sway and my voice to sing – and then, suddenly, though tears, I can see the Master come in with folded hands... What a gift.
Thank you!
11 December 2006
