Amiten
Amiten – energy painter
A council estate in Newcastle seems an unlikely setting for sannyas but no, even the Geordies are not immune to Osho’s magic! Born and brought up on one such rather uninspiring estate, Amiten had nevertheless become interested in comparative religions, alternative psychologies and the occult in his early teens. Until he wandered into a university bookshop...
It was ’the supreme understanding’ part of the title of a book that made him take it off the shelf and open it at random. The first paragraph on this first page told him ’where I was, where I was coming from, what was happening now and what I needed to do‘. Somewhat comprehensive!
And the next step was clarified immediately because inserted in the book was a kind of ’bookmark‘ giving the name and address of a meditation centre which was, amazingly, situated in a house on the corner of the street entering the council estate! Amiten had passed it everyday without knowing what it was.
At the Centre he started doing Osho’s meditations, listening to tapes and watching videos. Everything he had experienced until now in his life dropped away, became irrelevant. He had instinctively felt that the ’religions‘ he had been interested in didn‘t really relate to real life but Osho made everything so obvious, so clear – exactly what he had felt but couldn‘t put into words. He took sannyas in 1981 and moved into the Centre and after the March Event in London moved first to the Sangeet Centre in Leeds and then to Medina.
Amiten‘s new cool look
As many Centre people did during that period, he went to the Ranch in Oregon for the summer festivals. He stayed on for a few months after the last one and had a fantastic time working on the truck farm.
As soon as Osho arrived back in Poona after the ’World Tour‘, Amiten moved there to visit, possibly saving many of us from serious illnesses by setting up the water-testing facilities which meant we had uncontaminated drinking water within the commune. A vital necessity in India. He also ran the Research Library for awhile and was part of the Meditation Academy.
He was working in Gloucestershire to earn money to return to Poona when Osho died. He got the message in the evening and the next morning woke himself up because he was laughing loudly! When he opened his eyes the room was filled with intense yellow light.
Three years later, back in Poona, he connected with Punya, fell in love, and has been with her ever since.
In 1999 they went on a journey around England and Scotland and found themselves in a little town in the Scottish Borders called Yetholm. This felt like home and there they stayed. They both went deeper into Reiki and meditation and travelled often to Edinburgh to run meditations and Reiki groups.
One day a sannyasin called Purnam arrived to do some ’attunement‘ sessions with Punya. It was because of Purnam‘s comment: ’You should be doing healing paintings‘ that Amiten started on a very new and different path. Using Reiki techniques initially he started painting for individual people and then for spaces, houses, areas. Later he began what he calls ’energy paintings‘ – working from a space of meditation and music.
Blowdrying one of his first personal meditation paintings - this one for a guest from Japan visiting Edinburgh during Millennium Holidays 1999/2000
With the famous Edinburgh Festival coming up our couple decided to move to Edinburgh to be "in the thick of things", so to speak. Here they opened a meditation centre where they not only taught meditation but arranged art events and art exhibitions of Amiten’s work and that of other artists including Samvado. Many people were inspired to come and meditate at the Centre and many took sannyas – including Jivan who then took over the running of the meditations while Amiten and Punya went back to Poona for 2 years.
They now live, work and meditate in Glasgow where, a few months ago, they found a beautiful shop nearby featuring hand-made furniture. There were also some interesting paintings hanging on the walls and in discussing these with the owner/carpenter Amiten‘s paintings were mentioned. On seeing some of them, the owner asked if he could exhibit a few permanently as well as in his monthly exhibition event. It is this event which takes place next week (Fri 3rd November, 6-9pm) at the Andre and Ossie Gallery, 37 Ruthven Lane (off Byres Road). Although Glasgow is a bit out of the way for most of us, luckily we can enjoy some of Amiten‘s beautiful paintings in our virtual Art Gallery as well as slideshow 1 and slideshow 2, even more to be found on his website
Amiten can be contacted on 07817 76 76 90
email: amiten_punya@hotmail.com
www.amiten.com or at
www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk
Text by Veena - October 2006
