Swami Punam (Heinz Schafer), originally from Germany, had been living in Sligo, Ireland for the last thirty years. He never lived in a commune. He always questioned life and theories with a great sense of mischief and humour. Punam died of a heart attack.
There will be a celebration of his life in Feehily’s Funeral Home, Cartron Cross, Sligo, Ireland on Monday, 26th October at 6.30pm.
Info thanks to Amy
Prem Sarito (meaning ‘River of Love’, aka Andrew Young) was an architect, writer, painter and musician. He was born in 1927 in Northumberland, UK. His father was a mining engineer and lived for many years in India; there Sarito went to Bishop Cotton School, a boarding school in Shimla. At age 18 he was drafted into WWII and became a British Army Intelligence officer in Austria with the task of finding and arresting war criminals. Back in England he studied architecture in Newcastle and Durham. He met his first wife, Helen, in England where they got married but soon sailed to Australia, while his parents also moved there from India. Sarito and Helen have two daughters, Kate and Jane (both still living in Australia).
In Australia he worked with architect Harry Seidler; the architect office, still a start-up at the time, worked on the design of the Australia Square building in Sydney (1964) and won the comnpetition. He also worked in the USA (several skyscrapers and part of the University in San Diego, CA), the Middle East, Africa, India, Canada, Central America and the UK.
He dropped out of a lucrative career when one of his students asked him what he was doing with his life. In the early 70’s he went on the road as a hippy (for many years still going back to join his family at Christmas), met some sannyasins in California and after travelling through Asia he arrived in Pune in 1977 where he took sannyas. Until 1981 he worked in the kitchen and as a handyman in the boutique.
His expertise as an architect was highly appreciated in Rajneeshpuram where he became part of the architects’ office. He married Shavda, who ran Hotel Rajneesh in Portland for a while. After the Ranch closed they travelled for a bit and settled in Laguna Beach near San Diego, California, amongst friends from the Ranch and Pune. In 1988 Shavda moved to Guatemala, followed by Sarito the following year. There he built a small commune, called La Iguana Perdida, in Santa Cruz above Lake Atitlan, and retired to painting, writing, playing music; he also ran a small tourist hotel in the vicinity.
He died peacefully in his 90th year of life while making a cup of tea; his body was buried the following day in the local cemetery on a hill overlooking the lake, with much laughter, tears, poems and plenty of his beloved red wine…
Text and photos thanks to Bhagawati, Jane Young, Nirguna, Shavda, Mike Tallon, Deedle Ratcliffe, Stephanie Poulhes – artwork by Chris Waddington
Ramapada writes:
What a perfect way for a Zen Englishman to go: making a cup of tea! A little-known fact about Sarito is his Ranch alter ego ‘Stan’. It seems that in the early days Sheela hired an outside architect named Stan to get all the plans OKed by the county. As she was always interested in the latest plans, her usual questioning would revolve around “Hmm, what does Stan think?” Sarito, invariably would answer “Oh, Stan loves it.” Stan, of course, was long gone and out of the picture, unkown to Sheela. So those of us that had to deal with the plans would quiz ‘Stan’ about the details. Stan the Man, he who knows all…
Derek Peck writes on 16th October:
This beautiful soul of a man departed the earth last night. I feel fortunate to have met his spirit this time around and known him as a friend.
I disembarked on the shore of Lake Atitlan in ’94, in Santa Cruz La Laguna, and rented a small house from him in a tiny community he had started on a little piece of land at the lake’s edge. It was a simple structure, made out of plank wood and bamboo and petate, but with all the fine lines and details that a thoughtful architect would give it. It was my first experience of handmade houses, and I fell in love. It had no electricity or running water, but this just added to the charm for me. And for many months I lived there, experiencing a different life than I had ever known.
I arrived seeking a place to write, and, I later realized, to further uncover who I was and how I wanted to live this life. And it couldn’t have been a better spot. He had shelves lined with books by Jung, and Campbell, and Alan Watts, and many others by Bhagavan Shree Rajneesh, his teacher and guru, a curious man I had never heard of, but whose words I liked.
As the days and weeks passed, Sarito would bring books to read, share writings and poetry of his own, we would make tea, and dinner, and share a smoke on the porch at night. We had fires and sweats in the wood-burning sauna he’d made, and late-night swims in the lake. The small community of travelers living there became good friends and family.
Those first months changed my life, so much so that I consider that lake my spiritual home.
Sarito told great stories of his adolescence, and later travels, in India. Of various saints and gurus he encountered, and of course his guru, Osho.
There were also the stories of being drafted into World War Two at eighteen, of later becoming an architect, of discovering nudist colonies in Topanga and ashrams in India, of great loves and fleeting dalliances, spiritual and sexual journeys intertwined. He was a true Zorba the Buddha in the Osho teaching, the best of the West and East….
I went back to La Iguana many times, and watched a diverse community grow there, of artists and seekers, smugglers and merchants, retirees and new families. And Sarito was a kind of unofficial godfather. Over the years, he touched so many lives, from travelers passing through to others he helped get settled, find land, designed houses for, connected friends, mediated conflicts, and so on.
During my two most recent stays, it was through him that I met the man and the woman who would help me connect with Ram Dass to make a short film, which has been another life-changing gift.
Osho gave him his name, which means River, and he identified very much with the concept of flow, of not resisting life and allowing it to carry you, remaining non-attached but fully in the stream of being and experience, until returning to the great sea.
So here’s to you Babaji. What a beautiful incarnation it was. I’m so grateful to have known you for a part of your journey. May your soul continue on to its next adventure. Vaya con Dios.
River of Love – Osho talks to Sarito in darshan and explains his new name
Approaching Death – an essay Sarito wrote in 2009 for Osho World
More articles by Sarito published in Osho World: www.oshoworld.com
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Prem Nayana (aka Emilie Mahler) was born into a large family (in the b/w photo she is the third from the left) in summer 1940. She grew up in Rüti, Zürich Oberland, Switzerland and studied to become a nurse. Because of her good marks she later became a teacher in a nursing school and could go to Hong Kong with the Basler Mission, an Evangelical Missionary Society. For four years she worked in health centres in small villages around Hong Kong.
Being very good at languages she quickly learned to speak Cantonese fluently and there is a beautiful story going around the Basler Mission and her family: In a restaurant in Hong Kong a waiter was so excited to see a foreigner speak his language that he called his boss from the kitchen to show him this foreigner who spoke perfect Cantonese. They also remember that after the four years in Hong Kong the mission had intended to send her to Indonesia but then she met red-clad Bhagwan-people and this changed everything…
She took sannyas in the late seventies and was an active part of the Zurich commune, called Gyandip first and later Kota. Chandrika who was one of the centre-leaders says, “I immediately remember her special, warm laughter. She was a very kind and warmhearted women, always ready to support.”
After her commune time she travelled for many years on her own in the Australian outback. One story goes that once it took her three days to dig her car out of the mud; she had just wanted to park it by a lakeside. Another time, when sitting on the ground she suddenly saw a pair of huge bird’s feet in front of her. Frightened and without knowing what to do next, she just slowly looked up – and the bird flew away. These are the stories she told her family back home but, to some of us who met her in Pune 2, she also shared her deep respect and love for the indigenous people of Australia and her adventures in the Himalayas.
Here sister Lydia says, “Nayana was adventurous and a fearless traveller, but it also felt as if she was escaping from something.”
From the last photos in the slideshow you can see what a talented weaver she was.
Nayana died in the Hildegard Hospice in Basel, Switzerland, surrounded by two siblings, Eduard and Lydia as well as Gabriel and Zita who lived in the communal house where she had stayed over the summer.
Text and photos thanks to Rafia, Lydia and Chandrika
Rafia (aka Denise) writes:
Beginning of last summer I heard from a friend that Nayana, a dear friend of ours from the commune days in Switzerland, had ‘appeared’ on Facebook; we had not heard from her in years. We only knew that she had come back to Switzerland from extensive travelling in India, in particular Dharamsala.
After having found out her whereabouts and speaking to her on the phone I visited her on a Sunday afternoon in the countryside of Switzerland, a place where she had lived for the last seven years.
A big hello and a lot of joy to see each other; many memories and questions where shared as we strolled along a small river from the bus stop to her small flat. She was weak and slow and we sat down on all inviting possibilities. It was obvious that her body was struggling. She did not like to talk about it when I asked her. Among friends in our commune we used to call her way of avoiding questions, “she behaves like a Chinese,” and so she was again. She just mentioned that ‘it’ had come back and that ‘they’ pulled on her.
While drinking tea in her flat I was glad and relieved to hear that she was planning to move the following day to one of her sisters’ who lives in a Catholic communal house in Basel. To me Basel also seemed much more convenient for my next visit. Nayana wanted to give away as much as possible; she insisted I take two of her handwoven cushions (real pieces of art!) and a heavy book she wanted me to read. With warm hearts and a big hug we departed.
After my summer vacation my mail to her never got answered, so I phoned her new number and talked to her sister, Lydia. She told me that Nayana had died in a hospice in Basel.
I heard that after moving into her sister’s house she had preferred to be on her own, as she had done throughout her life. Less and less she came out of her room to make a cup of tea or soup. Her sister made it a point to go and look for her if she did not see her in the morning. Also a big bell was installed in the house so that everybody could hear when Nayana needed help.
On her birthday everybody in the house went to sing for her, as it is customs in the community. Nayana enjoyed it so much that she asked them if they would come again. So they visited and sang for her every morning and evening.
At first Nayana didn’t want to see a doctor but, as weakness and fears grew, she changed her mind. She even agreed to take some pills. She used to be a nurse, a very dedicated one, and all her life she deeply mistrusted doctors.
After her death her brother arranged that the body be kept in state for three days before cremation. When I heard all this from Lydia I felt very grateful because I knew that everything happened the way that suited Nayana perfectly, and I was reassured that life and his people received the care they needed.
You can leave a message / tribute / anecdote using our contact form (please add ‘Nayana’ in the subject field)…
Nayana’s warmth and kindness remains precious to my heart. I met her in the late seventies in Gyandip and Kota, Zurich. As a ‘newbie’ in red dress I was sometimes ‘overwhelmed’. Her presence has been a sunray!
Prem Parimal
Dear Nayana, I remember the last time we saw each other in Pune. You had just come back from travelling in the East and you presented me with a wonderful stone – no idea what it is called – which I treasure and take with me wherever I move. It is dark blue, sparkling and in my chakra stone collection it represents the third eye. Each time I see it, I think of you. I wish you a wonderful journey on, Nayana! With much love,
Punya
I first met Nayana in 1980 in Pune. Soon after I had arrived it was her 40th birthday. We always had a very warm connection, in Pune 1 and in the Commune in Zurich, in Pune 2 we both worked in the Video Departement. I remember she used to smoke beedis. We had so many deep and funny chats. Much later Nayana went to travel again, and we all lost sight of her. I was looking for her, searching her in the internet, I did not know if she was still among us. Then last spring suddenly my phone rang, she had found me! I was so happy to hear from her. She sent me a book and, as always, she used just one word to describe what it was all about for her: ‘suchness’ She very much loved Osho’s discourse series on Ta Hui, the great Zen-Master. Nayana, even in death there is such a sweetness in your face, just like a Chinese Zen-Master. Be home in Suchness, beautiful friend,
Anugraha
Atit Kaviraj (aka Kavi) was born Alex Robert Lagger in St. Gallen, Switzerland in a very traditional family; father a dentist, mother a family woman and a supportive,
sociable lady; both devoted to theatre and opera. Their first son Peter became a pianist and opera singer with a wonderful bass voice. Having a beautiful bass voice himself, Alex was inspired to follow suit, not only for the career possibilities but also for his brother’s success in attracting women! His family now had to deal with two opera singing sons.
He developed his talent for the opera stage, singing internationally with the greatest conductors and directors of the time. Vedi, his ex-wife and friend, says, “He was really made for the roles of kings and aristocrats, but he also did great character parts and was very funny in comic roles. He had that ‘Italian’ type of humour down to perfection!”
However, Alex was never really convinced that the lifestyle of the conservative, well-behaved people of St. Gallen was for him. He was more attracted to the fringe, people who were different, artists who didn’t fit in the system. He was intelligent, creative and needed the stimulating presence of people of a similar wave-length.
When he met Osho (then Bhagwan) in 1985, he found his spiritual family and became Atit Kaviraj. The name he received from Osho took him by surprise because it means ‘Beyond King of Poets’; to go ‘beyond’ made him reflect for quite a while. He lived Osho’s message as he understood it, to the full. He was in Rajneeshpuram and Pune at least once a year, in between singing engagements.
His home, a big historical villa in northern Italy, became a center for workshops and celebrations throughout the 90’s until now. Many sannyasins lived there and created what is known as ‘Villa do Poeta’. Unconventional people moved to the area who were attracted to Kavi; they worked, did workshops and developed their individual vision of Osho. He reconciled the world of being an opera singer in full dress with being an outsider.
Kaviraj was a very generous person; he didn’t want to become rich. In fact, he had to live on very little when he became a pensioner. But as soon as he had some cash, he’s spend it on a rich life, rich in experience and rich in humanity. We remember him as a vital, witty and original man, a king in his own house, with that rich velvety speaking voice that made everyone look round to see where the voice came from.
This last summer, before he left his body, Kaviraj hosted groups in the Villa do Poeta. He was happy to spend some time in the Villa away from the hospital, having missed two summers at home. Vedi (aka Janet), who was Kavi’s caregiver in her home in his last year of life, adds, “I went through the whole Villa after his passing. I found so many Osho books, tapes, videos; also notebooks and diaries with Kaviraj’s thoughts about Osho’s lectures and his own spiritual search. He really was a poet. I don’t think anyone ever saw these diaries until I opened them just now.”
Photos and text thanks to Vedi
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Anurag (Marianne Gala) fled from the former Czechoslovakia to Germany, in 1981, with her husband and her little daughter. After the birth of her second daughter and the separation from her husband she took sannyasin in Zurich in 1987, together with her daughters Daniela (Kalba) and Carin. With her new partner, Sumaran, she held for numerous years Osho discourse evenings in Konstanz at Lake Bodensee. Later they moved to Freiburg.
In recent years she offered Tarot Readings – her great passion since she was a young woman. She loved to illuminate and clarify the intricacies of life with people. Many were touched and inspired by her friendly and open nature, her fine energy and confidence. She was always there for anyone and everyone when they needed her, flourishing in the love for community.
In October 2015 she was diagnosed with liver cancer. She did a whole lot of naturopathic, nutritional and supplementation therapy and, importantly, she took care of her soul medicine and got divorced. Her daughters, as well as her friends cared for her lovingly. Her circle of friends were a very important aspect during her illness; she was held by them and continues to be connected in their hearts. The staff at the palliative ward were impressed by her open dying process that she willingly shared with everyone.
Anurag left her body on a full moon evening in Freiburg, Germany. She wished to be held when she took her last breaths. Her face changed to a fairy-like smile and contentment in a matter of hours. The room was filled with intense love and light and we like to think she continues to exude just that. Going for life, not postponing, right here, right now! She fought with fierce determination emanating tiny particles of love into every atom.
Thanks for text and photos go to Carin
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Anand Nirvanam took sannyas in 1977 in Pune. Osho spoke to him during darshan:
Anand means bliss, and nirvanam means the ultimate dissolution. One is completely lost, just like a river loses itself into the ocean.
In English there is only one word which can become close to it in its root sense; that is the word ‘absolute’. It comes from a Latin root which means dissolution, utter dissolution… when one is not separate, when one has become one with the whole. The latin word ‘absolutum’ (absolute) is the past participle of ‘absolvere’ which means to loosen, dissolve. That is the meaning of nirvanam: a blissful dissolution. And bliss is only when you are not; misery is there if you are there. Misery is another name for the ego; bliss is another name for egolessness.
So one can never say, “I am blissful,” no. Linguistically it is possible, existentially it is not. One cannot say existentially “I am blissful!” ‘I am’ is always miserable; ‘I’ is misery. When one is blissful one feels “Blissfulness is. Where am I?” Then blissfulness is found and the ‘I’ is not found at all. You can go on searching for it but you will not find a trace of it. That dissolution is nirvanam. So get lost in bliss… Or get lost and you will be blissful!
The Open Secret, Ch 25
Nirvanam worked for Audi automobiles for the last 20 years and lived in the countryside near Munich. He left his body in hospital where he was brought after a stroke. His wife Kavita and his best-loved friends where with him. As Osho had told him that to melt and merge with the ocean and be lost in it, was the final goal – he finally did. He left so peacefully.
Text and photos thanks to Kavita
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Nishigandha writes from London:
Our beloved friend, Dharmesh (Francisco Martinez Negrete) from Mexico left us last week. Swami Vichara, his loyal friend, was with him when he took his last breath in hospital in Mexico City. Many of us will remember his generous spirit and wholehearted love for sannyas and our international community.
I first met him in London in the 70s when he arrived with his lifetime buddies Vichara and Rupesh. We had some wild times here and in Poona.
Dharmesh was also a renowned poet in Mexico, usually writing in Spanish, but he was very articulate and well-read in English, too.
Over the years we have all kept in touch. He was always ‘Uncle Dharmy’ to Premda, my son with Vichara. They visited here only this past summer.
Dear Dharmy, we love you. You will be sadly missed.
Ma Anand Nishigandha
The celebration of his life was held at the Samasati House in Mexico City.
Obituary (in Spanish) in Informador: informador.com.mx
Photos thanks to Sandra Barba, Teerth, Oskar Santoscoy, Lourdes Epstein, Paco Barbachano, Juan Palomar, all via FB
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Dharmesh, you were such a light to me in Pune, in the old days. Whenever times were rough and even if they weren´t you made me laugh in such a soothing way. Now having met you on Facebook again I could still feel the same spirit in you. Maybe just a bit more tired… Have a good, deep rest now and see you again sometime somewhere. Love,
Ma Deva Parinit
Dharmesh was a light to many, a hidden Buddha. Always away from the political correction and the boring sanctity and moral rules, always close to the totality of being. A brother and a friend. Love,
Anando Purutana
Last May Mutribo wrote about the life of Premda Lowson (Dead Man Carries On Laughing) which we re-publish here in his tribute page. And what better way as a send-off to hear Premda himself tell stories and anecdotes of his own life (see video below)!
Born in London in 1952, Premda spent his early childhood years on a tough, West London council estate before moving to the more rarefied and liberating atmosphere of a 16th century pub near Oxford that his parents took over when he was thirteen years old. At the unlikely age of fifteen, he joined The Royal Navy as a stoker to see the world and did five years of service before returning to the UK and completing his training as a psychiatric nurse.
Frustrated by what he saw as antiquated and dangerous methods of treating mental illness, Premda was attracted to the counter-culture of the late 1960’s which was by then in full swing. An exposure to the ideas of R.D.Laing and his revolutionary approach to psychiatry made Premda realise that to be of any help to others he would first have to work on himself.
In the early 1970’s, he started to train in alternative, therapeutic methods offered in London and became deeply involved with the work of Veeresh and his pioneering experiments in treating addicts from a perspective of mental health rather than mental illness. Premda moved to Holland for five years to continue this work with Veeresh at his centre, the Humaniversity, developing new approaches to treating addiction and deepening self-inquiry.
By 1975, his interests in personal growth and development naturally led him to India and the burgeoning commune of young people from all over the world who had started to gather around Osho. The next ten years were spent totally engaged with the life of the commune in India and the USA, learning dynamic forms of meditation and working in a wide variety of jobs from chai wallah to electrician to heavy equipment operator. It was a period of dedicated and hard physical work, seven days a week that culminated in building a new city in the Oregon desert.
When the American commune disbanded, Premda found himself following his heart to Australia. His long experience in therapeutic work quickly brought him into close contact with the diverse acting community in Sydney. His formal training as an actor continued there for the next few years before he left the city and moved to the idyllic, far south east coast of NSW.
In this new life, he started to collaborate with the Melbourne theatre director Howard Stanley. They devised various regional performances and Premda took his popular, stand-up entertainment to Melbourne. Two of the most successful plays they worked on together were Dylan Thomas’s ‘Under Milk Wood’ and Peter Shaffer’s ‘Equus’ in which Premda played the lead role of Doctor David Dysart, a consultant psychiatrist in an old-style mental hospital. ‘Equus’ set new standards in ambitious production that had always been the hallmark of Howard Stanley’s work. The Murrah Hall on the south coast is now the home of Turning Circle that has become well-known for its excellence in producing a full programme of concerts, drama and shows.
Following the success of ‘Equus’, Premda developed a series of one-man shows that centred around the feisty scripts of Steven Berkoff. This material suited Premda’s energetic style and, as his confidence grew, he gradually started to include his own original material. The enthusiastic response from his fans demanded more of his own contemporary storytelling and led him to create the style of show that he performs today.
In early 2012, Premda was diagnosed with prostate cancer for which he received a course of radiation therapy. However, one year later, he was informed that the cancer had spread to his bones and was now inoperable. The diagnosis gave him about 18 months to live but he started to work again as a psychiatric nurse in the Bega Valley Regional Hospital, experiencing great satisfaction observing at close quarters the change that has now happened in the way that mental illness is treated.
It is now over two years since Premda received that initial diagnosis. His unique life experience has always formed the basis of the material he uses for his shows and this new situation with his health has infused his latest performance, ‘Dead Man Laughing’, with an added immediacy, authenticity and poignancy. He brings a sincerity and honesty to his storytelling that does not flinch from dealing with our last taboos around sex and death, while always insisting with great humour that it is OK to be human. He takes us with him on a roller-coaster ride through a life well-lived along a path less-travelled.
Article by Mutribo
From his wife Jan we hear that Premda passed peacefully on his great journey on 15th December at 8.24am. He was surrounded by his many devoted friends. “On Saturday 17th at 12pm we will celebrate his life at his home ‘Rainbows’ in Bermagui (arrive from 11am in colourful clothes with a plate to share). After we all bid him farewell at 2pm, please feel free to stay on. Dance til you drop for Premda who challenged every taboo on his irreverent rollercoaster through life. We hope to have a bigger Tribute Concert at the Murrah Hall sometime in February. We can then incorporate his ashes in the foundations of the new Green Room.”
Article and review of the play in Echo: Dead Man Laughing talks about life
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Subodhi was born in 1949 in Amsterdam and as a young woman enjoyed the ‘provo-time’ in her home city while working in a knitting shop. She met Veeresh at Emiliehoeve, a therapeutic community for people with addiction problems in The Hague, and later worked, for about 7 years, for the De Appel theater travelling around the country as part of the production crew. In 1984 she visited the Humaniversity for a couple of months; there she received her mala from Samadhi and Veeresh.
After visiting Rajneeshpuram for one of the Festivals she moved to Santa Fe for some time and in 1985 she came to live in the Amsterdam area where many sannyasins had gathered after the commune in Oregon ended. She always joined the summer bonfires at the lake and also worked at the TransBuddha disco.
When Osho had again settled in Pune she visited the commune every year. She had a house in Pune and many remember her driving back and forth on her scooter. She did theatre performances, participated in Meera’s painting workshops and Gurdjieff dances. When Osho left his body she was in Goa. As soon as she heard the news she immediately took the bus back to Pune for the celebrations. On her last night in hospital she was as quiet and peaceful as she had described how she had felt in 1990 when sitting and meditating in Lao Tzu.
Subodhi was a very good photographer. In 2011, on the occasion of Osho Day (19th January) and in memory of the bombing at the German Bakery, she had an exhibition at Unmani’s studio, Il Cielo, showing the photos she had taken at Rajneeshpuram. In 2013 she exhibited them also at the Wajid Osho Meditation Centre in The Hague.
These last three years Subodhi did many Queensday Markets together with Urja, as well as festivals and events to promote silence. She read Tarot and Rune cards and sold things from India. In summer 2016 she participated in a workshop with Vedanta in Greece but soon became weak.
Subodhi died in hospital after a stroke surrounded by friends.
Unmani writes:
We love Subodhi; she was a great, straight, strong woman with all the juice and craziness imaginable. She was deeply connected with Osho and very creative; she was a great storyteller; she loved acting and was particularly good in making funny and meaningful presents. On every birthday we would laugh when we tried to imagine what present Subodhi would make us that year. They were always funny and full of love.
And Urja writes:
Anita and I were with her during her illness. On 17th November she had a stroke and was unconscious after that. Together with Unmani I was at the hospital on Saturday evening and we came to hear that there was nothing more that could be done for her. On Sunday, 20th November, we sensed she was leaving her body. Those last moments with her were a delight for Anita, the two of us and others present; sitting in silence and meditating, in deep stillness. It was very intense. It was very blissful to be with her; when dawn came with a thin sun sparkle I saw delight on her face as if healing had happened.
In the following days we experienced a very strong energy; we became aware that her energy was melting into everyone’s energy field. We can’t say that she became enlightened during her death process, but the blast of energy which overwhelmed us made us all think so.
On Monday was her cremation. The room was full, all her friends where there, those we had expected to see but also those we had not expected. One of them said, “For Subodhi I would go through all my fears of showing up.” Everything came full circle, no unclarities left open. It was beautiful to be there and see everybody listen to Osho talk about death and tell a joke. One by one we sprinkled white rose petals over her body in the coffin. The energy was very high, but also soft and sweet when we carried her away.
On 3rd December I participated in her Death Celebration at Wajid Meditation Centre in The Hague. It had been organised by Vedanta. Last year Subodhi had been participating in workshops with Vedanta, some in Greece and some at Wajid. When Vedanta arrived and rang the bell at Wajid’s front door, I went to meet her, we hugged and Vedanta said to me, “Where Subodhi is right now, she is in a good space.”
The celebration was very touching and beautiful, beyond body-mind, beyond personalities, identifications and personal agendas. Dhyano and Desiree said some words about her last hours in hospital. Then the music started with ‘From the fire of stars…’ and we all sang along. At the same time a sequence of photos was shown on a big screen, all of Subodhi from last summer in Greece in the funny poses we all know of her. Vedanta spoke about Subodhi and ended with remembering how crazy we would dance in Buddha Hall and on the roads to the burning ghats after the death of a fellow traveller. She ended her speech with, “We could dance too, like in Buddha Hall.” So we did, like crazy. It was mind-blowing. Funny enough, we had expected to hear Osho songs or Miten and Premal’s but it was loud rock and roll, Metallica, Nina Hagen.
The celebration was followed by a sannyas initiation – bliss was felt all around. My arms went up in the air and then I bowed to the ground to give the energy back to the earth. After this all doubts, fears, uncertainties and insecurities about ‘did I do it right’ concerning Subodhi’s life and death was washed away. As if she had shown me the way, given me her signal to fly high. It was not me or anybody doing anything, it was a non-doing. We all felt grateful for this great event at Wajid. It was like a shower of love; there was space to be totally ourselves without any holding back.
This same way I had felt that Sunday morning when I opened the curtains at the hospital and saw Subodhi’s pale face and white nose. The doctor had walked in to see her but I knew already that she was gone. ‘In her absence the presence’ – a delight… The beauty of all this is the gift of being in the process of death. The energy is high and available to experience this great gift of life. Everybody experienced it in their own way, in truth. Thanks Subodhi!
Text and photos thanks to Urja and Unmani
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Yoga Mukta (aka Greek Mukta, Catherine Mathilda Gregos) was born to a wealthy Greek oil shipping magnate. She married the grandson of the great statesman Elefthérios Venizélos, the maker of modern Greece. She had three daughters, Arietta, Seema and Neeta.
She met Osho in 1971 and remained close to him for many many years. She donated a massive fortune to the commune when Osho established himself in Pune in 1974. Everybody who was in Pune in those early years remember her sitting on the steps of Krishna House in the afternoons with a little note pad to take appointments for the darshans. She was then always sitting on Osho’s right informing him who was next, their names and why they came to see him.
In the commune her work was to take care of Lao Tzu garden around Osho’s house which she had to let go wild like a tropical jungle, according to his instructions. She was often seen at Lao Tzu gate during her breaks.
Mukta was part of the 21, the Inner Circle, for many years. After Osho had left his body she spent time in Pune but also loved travelling, in India and abroad. She then moved to Innsbruck, Austria to be with Antaro. She was diagnosed with dementia and spent a year in a home. Mukta died just a few days after her 89th birthday.
Article updated 5.1.17: correction of age and length of stay in the home.
Article updated 6.1.17: corrected position of Antaro, deleted sentence of connection between friends and Mukta when she was in Austria.
You can leave a message / tribute / anecdote using our contact form (please add ‘Mukta’ in the subject field)…
I got to know and enjoy Mukta when I spent a few years guarding in Osho’s–and Mukta’s–garden from 1988 through 1990. My impersonations of her at afternoon tea time used to crack her up to no end. “Vat are yoo do-ink with da’plants?! Don watur da Peek-cocks!”
There’s one story I’m not sure many people knew. The story of Mukta’s vision about 20 years before she was a sannyasin. I took her out to dinner in Poona in spring 1990 and she told me over mutter paneer and buttered nan about being visited as a young woman by the spirit of a young Indian appearing at her bedside at night when she was falling off to sleep. The beautiful Indian man with curly black hair and curly little black beard looked around 21 years old, dressed in a simple white robe. He told her they would be together in the future. She felt tremendous love from him, like he was her soul mate.
Mukta eventually came to Osho and when she saw that photo of him at age 21, taken after his enlightenment, she immediately recognized that her spectral visitor had been Osho. She added that the visions at her bedside started in 1953, around the time he was enlightened.
Farewell Mukta and hello Mukta formlessly here and EverNow!
Arjuna
Mukta, you left us. Fare well and RIP. You have been a jewel in the crown of Osho’s work. Fly high and come back to the garden with your loving care! Love and light, Prem Jayadip
I had the pleasure to work as a gardener under her guidance for 16 years in the Commune International in Poona. I took care of the area around Buddha Hall and in Lao Tzu Garden. Mukta taught me how to love all the plants and how to make the garden more beautiful, by planting and watering and supporting the growth of all those exotic creatures. I always felt her trust in my work, so I could really develop my love for nature and work on my own. I remember when she one day came to me and handed to me a long thing wrapped in paper. She smiled at me when I unwrapped it like a curious little boy at Christmas time. It was a piece of marble from Osho’s bedroom and with tears of gratitude in my eyes I hugged her, constantly whispering, “Thank you, Mukta.” This gesture was the highlight of my time with Mukta. I am so blessed to be her gardener and so I can only whisper: “Thank you, beloved Mukta.”
Bodhi Makarand
During August 2006 I used to meet Mikta walking around Buddha Groove, while, both of us, were listening to the bamboos’ sounds. One night I was having an ice cream at the Plaza and was sitting at her table. She looked at me with her deep and childlike eyes and exclaimed: “You better get rid of that ice cream soon! For a short period Osho was eating ice cream everyday. That was the only moment in his bodylife that I’ve seen him becoming chubby! Then he dropped ice cream and returned to his natural shape!” In each of her words there was always an anecdote, a memory, a suchness of great value. Proud that I had that chance to spend few moments with her! Thank you Mukta!
Sw Atmo Heera
Meeting Ma Yoga Mukta in 1976 was an experience of meeting a female Osho Sufi mystic for me – part dragon and part buddha, but my o my what a devotee to Osho and his vision!
We had many many wonderful moments together, and I could always count on her for humorous, slightly sarcastic comments on the topics of the most “current events or dramas” of those days.
I marveled how Mukta could be friends with you, but at the same time, if she didn’t like something you did or said, she would be in your face with that unmistakable Greek accent… then if you got it, she would just be as mellow and loving as can be. She was impossible for me to predict, so around her, for me anyway, spontaneity and being present was a must.
In Poona 1, from 1974-81, when Osho gave Discourse every morning and shared Darshan every evening “Yoga” Mukta was there EACH time! We are talking 7 years straight! In those days, we sat straight down on the marble floor – no one was bringing in “lecture cushions”. You could improvise with your lungi or shawl, but that was it. I once asked her how she managed – she just smiled her ironical smile and said something like: “I tell the body it’s not going anywhere… and I then tune into Osho, go inside, and the body disappears.” But she would not “space out” in Darshan, as she was the one calling our names to come in front of Osho. I find that an example of “authentic yoga”.
On the Ranch in Oregon, for 3 years, Mukta and I were alternating leading the Dynamic Meditation each morning at 6am in Rajneesh Mandir. We had many intimate times sharing (with gentle back and forths) about his methods, and I know we both enjoyed our dance together. I just loved hearing the stories from her about the early Meditation Camp days, before Poona, when Osho was refining and experimenting with this and his other incomparable and priceless gifts to sannyasins and humanity.
In early Pune 3, after Osho had left his body, Anasha and I would have a special dinner with Mukta about every 2 or 3 weeks. She would often have a special flask hidden in her clothes and then pour herself a drink! We would talk, joke, speculate, and gossip about all and everything as all of us were adjusting to life in Poona without Osho in his body. She was one crazy, fun, and unique woman…
I knew she was not well in her body for many years, so Anasha and I were not surprised with this news. I know Mukta directly experienced a place beyond the body/mind, and she was always an inspiration and source of Osho Love for me. I have an intuition that she left her body while in Samadhi. My only regret is that I could not help burn her body and give her a good send-off! But we will do something for her in our way…
She was in my heart already, and she is in my heart more now. When I close my eyes and tune into her essence, I can feel her love and meditative being inside.
Yoga Mukta, you are Blessed! Thank you so much for your gardening and your wit and your totality, not to mention for funding the original Korean Park Ashram! You gave so much depth, beauty, and love to the Commune of Osho. I know he was/is grateful to you also.
Prem Anubuddha
Dear One, You have been an Alpha in his tribe for what seems to be forever! Now you are the Omega as well. We honour you, your great heart, your fierce love. May your joy be unbounded. Love upon love.
Deva Padma
I still walk the gardens you so lovingly planted. Fly high Mukta. Blessed are you indeed to have walked the path with Osho. I still remember the time when we had gone to a party and walking back you kept forgetting my name and how we laughed about it. Much love,
Shruti
Good bye in the world of beloved Master Osho.
Swami Kalpesh Bharti
I had the honor and gift in this life to work in Osho’s garden in Lao Tzu with Mukta for many years, sometime from 1986 till 2000 when I finally left the commune to live in the world. I will never forget her and the magical garden she created together with the master. She was a really unwavering Osho lover, total, single-pointed, Zen and Zorba. Her love for Osho was something from the beyond and still touches me deep in my heart. Tears of gratefulness in this moment are there. She will be forever and ever in my heart.
Atit
I loved her. She was my boss and my friend. She taught me so much of devotion and non-seriousness and spontaneity. I love her and wave her goodbye with great gratitude. PS Just on New Year’s Day this photo of her came to me.
sw deva rashid
Beloveds, during the last years I have been seeing Mukta just on photos that were provided on FB. I am glad that Mukta made it now! I met Mukta when working in Osho’s garden in springtime in 1997; she instructed me just to pick up the big leaves of the giant trees. I loved it, being there, the swans and Dolano and Mukta silently showering love. Once I went so coockoo and blissed out that I raised my hands, palms outwards, to everyone and Mukta advised me not to do that for my own sake. What a beautiful intervention. Mukta, I loved you right away. Fly high! To your family and friends my deepest sympathy.
Raji
Gecondoleerd met het verlies van Mukta,
Janny Zijlstra
It was always a great pleasure to see graceful Ma Mukta in the garden, always smiling, picking dry leaves or watering plants. May her soul rest in Peace.
Swami Subhash Saraswati
Sitting in Pune one afternoon in Osho´s garden in the 90’s, there popped up one sentence from my belly: “Europe is over for you.” In the evening on the same day Mukta, Antaro and I went out for dinner and I shared what I had heard. Mukta laughed and invited me to choose and donate a space in the pyramids to stay there from now on. The next day Mukta guided me through the pyramids, a space in Rinzai chose me and it took me one month to come back from Europe and to stay in Rinzai for the next 7 years. This incident and the simple way it unfolded is still one of the most awesome miracles in my life. There is a deep gratitude for all involved, and specially Mukta taught me, that it is possible to be simple and ordinary with and around a master. In that she is extraordinary to me. Wonderful gardener woman, goodbye.
Devarupa
RIP love,
Jivan Sahaj
Beloved Mukta, I remember your big smile when, as you sat on the steps of Krishna House that morning, I told you, in some trepidation, wondering if he would accept me, that I wanted to take sannyas. You were the ultimate devotee. I learned so much from you about love and trust working in the garden with you in Lao Tzu House, and smuggling in the occasional rum bottle that you would send us out for, not that you were a big drinker – you were so filled up with Osho. We all loved the little garden parties you created for those working with you and anyone else around. I will never forget you. Love,
Sw. Prem Christo
First time I saw Mukta I felt kind of delicately being connected to her through a thread of love, of subtle devotion to Osho – at a darshan in Pune. When we later met face to face, no words were needed: in silence and with tears of joy we hugged each other! Later we spoke in Greek, but our first contact was an experience of heart’s beauty by itself, love at first sight! Farewell, beloved Mukta!
Μa Prem Amodini
We are all connected in an intricate web, like a root system of a vast tree. Mukta was blessed to be so close to the source of infinite love and bliss – our beloved master. Probably all of us we who were fortunate enough to be present when Osho was in the body, will have some personal affinity to Ma Yoga Mukta. Whether it was in sannyas darshan sitting silently – with a huge grin – next to the master. Or in the gardens around the Ashram, or having her lead Dynamic in the Mandir in Rajneeshpuram. Mukta was the most devoted of devotees. In the last few days I was wondering how she is doing, so I looked at her facebook page and saw the latest photo of her looking so frail. I thought to write her an encouraging message but I did not know she’d already gone to meet her master in the Garden of the Beloved beyond this earthly plane. Bye bye, Mukta – now you really are in Union and Free (Yoga / Mukta).
Samudroprem
Bon voyage, Mukta! You were the very embodiment of a spontaneous female version of Zorba the Buddha. Your presence by his side and in his garden simply felt like “home.” Fly high, goddess that you are!
Ma Prem Sunshine
In the last years when she was in Pune, every time I came back from the West she greeted me with a great smile and a “Welcome”. Then few days later when she met me again she forgot and did the same – and the love was immense.
Ma Prem Rajya
When I see all these tributes I’m not surprised! You were really the only remaining living thing (apart from the trees) in the Poona commune after Osho himself left there; and it didn’t matter a bit if you were one of the 21 or other “chosen ones”.
After all we were all “chosen” by Osho to become his sannyasins (not vice versa), as he explained to us.
You welcomed me then and there (in 1999) as a new hostess into your commune. And you ALWAYS enjoyed my poetry (and men) and so our friendship unfolded, and I’m sure you would have liked this latest one:
When I think of what it means
to love you… it delights, it screams
in your face, in your body
it tampers with your patience it seems
it makes you restless, resist
it dances, whirls, it will insist
to play with your eyes, your body.
You also once told me you were there with Gautama the Buddha also, in a past life, standing next to him. And then you asked me to forget about that. You always loved and preferred talking to men… You are the great Woman. You supported and loved the Great Osho as you reminded him of his own grandmother… the same face, he said. How he must have loved you!
And I feel you will come around one more, and last, time to support another Buddha in the future who will need you. Just a feeling I have always had about you, my Beloved and Crazy (I return the compliment :)!) Mukta!
But forget about that for now, and enjoy this rest. Love,
Vedant Sajjad
Beloved Mukta, I last saw you in Byron Bay in 1995. We had a beautiful and precious time together. The years working with you in Poona 1 as a gardener are some of my most treasured memories. I have always loved you, in spite of time and distance. Thank you for the blessing of knowing you. Farewell with all my love.
Anne Sweet (Ma Prem Amrit)
Mukta beloved, the Dynamic meditation that you led with your deep powerful voice, back in 1985, while I was doing the Therapist training in Oregon, got me to really enjoy and touch ecstatic moments. Your deep voice with your Greek accent held me up during the Hoo Hoo segment. Oh! Mukta you are going back to the Source! Please save me a front seat. I will be coming soon. How blessed are we to have been invited by Osho to be with Him!
Rakasa Lucero
Beloved Mukta, I wish you a beautiful journey on your path without your body now, with a lot of love and light guiding you. I remember – as it was yesterday – when you and I met in the bookshop in Pune in 1996 – it must have been April or May. I was working in the bookshop at this time being responsible for the books department there (the other department was for Videos and MCs). The temperature was getting higher (in Pune this starts happening from the beginning of March) and in the bookshop we were lucky to have air-conditioning. So it happened that one day you appeared working with me, for some weeks for half-day, to get some cool air from the air-conditioning. Anyway, I loved to work with you. I felt so much love coming from you. You asked me what to do because I was in charge of the department, yes, but you were 38 years older than me (which means you had more the age of my mother) and you did everything I told you to do in such an easy, loving way – which left me in wonder. Thank you so much for your love in those days, Mukta. Thank you so much for caring for Osho’s garden which I could admire while doing Za Zen in his walkway. Thank you so much for your loving presence. Lots of love to you from
Ma Dhyan Rohini from Germany
Mukta, a love letter…
Doing nothing in particular is your splendid art. Your genius of aesthetic perfection is steeped in the secret of absence. This is your action, your playful skill: you resonate with what is placed in front of you.
Sometimes you show me what I want to see. My dreams and aspirations are grasping for emptiness with hands so full of longing. Most secret fantasies circle around how I want to be. Imagination in the distant future, a mirage of light.
You encourage me to face what I fear the most. Trembling, I turn to look as far away as possible. But you never let me get away with straying in delusion and remind me of the present moment. It is here and now that we find – love.
Still young, I try to mimic your behavior: I stand and walk as you do. Then, I hear you laugh about the absurdity of one trying to be, another. Okay you say, let’s dance, but invent your own choreography.
At times you kindly point me towards the other side of things. The ultimate reality plays hide and seek in a spoke frozen in the wheel of time. A tiny grain of sand becomes aware of this celestial body, a part rejoicing with the whole.
Grateful to be here we celebrate a moment of ecstasy. Catching us by surprise we ride a delightful wave of bliss from this moment into the next. A flicker of enlightenment erases the darkness that still lurks behind.
From the hidden side you acquaint me with a beautiful detail of an ancient statue. Marble cliffs polished by the gentleness of the sea for Millennia. The classical nose gives away the strength of perfect confidence, mixed with childlike innocence.
Sunlight, integrity and honesty dazzle my eyes in the morning. Still not quite awakened yet, I mumble: let me sleep – a little longer. Your compassion, so delicious, pierces the veil of yet the sweetest dream.
You introduce me to nothing special: appreciation of the simple things. As a step forward enters new territory the gravel leaves an imprint on the sole of the foot for a little while. The deep blue sky reflects itself in you without effort.
This empty moment overwhelms my soul. In spaciousness, my laughter, my tears and my silence find themselves at home so joyfully. Contagiously, you smile…you whisper, “My friend, awaken, wake up now. You still have some more loving to do, today.”
Arjava aka Frank Arjava Petter
Ma Darshan (Walia) took sannyas in the early seventies and was always part of the Pune commune; whenever we visited, she was there. She contributed generously, and several times, to the publication of Osho’s books.
In one of the Hindi discourses Osho says: “Darshan is Bhairavi.* Her love for me is eternal. She will never ever leave me. Whenever I would look back I will always find her standing behind me.” She was often invited to sit with Osho when he had his meals.
In recent years, due to ill health, she moved back to Mumbai to stay with her husband. She was 86 years old when she died.
Friends say about her:
“She was always fun to be with and often invited friends for lunch or dinner; she was of a very sharing nature.”
“She lived her life fully. A very nice person with a good understanding, loving, laughing, enjoying.”
* “‘Bhairava’ is a specific term, a tantra term for one who has gone beyond. That is why Shiva is known as Bhairava and Devi is known as Bhairavi — those who have gone beyond the dualities.”
Text and photos thanks to Keerti, Jagdish, Priti, Chetna, Pragya, Hansa, Mega, Bhagawati
15.1.17: Notes completed and date of death corrected
You can leave a message / tribute / anecdote using our contact form (please add ‘Darshan’ in the subject field)…
Dear Darshan, I remember your elegance, your grace. Fly high, beloved. You are loved by so many.
Punya
Oh Beloved, even Alzheimer’s can’t take the glow of love from your eyes. I have felt a special bond with you all those Pune years. You always had a kind word or a hug or a pat on the back whenever we passed each other. I see you dancing on the hood of the Rolls with all his beloveds in Hell! Fly High, Darshan!
Abhiyana
Photo credits: Satyam’s FB account, Satyam (Bidinotto), Sheelu, Navyo, Sumano
Sw Anand Satyam (aka Attilio Piazza) was born in 1952 and grew up in Treviso (Northern Italy). He studied Philosophy at the University of Venice and later worked with an IT company. In 1978 he suddenly left his job for a longer period and started travelling to Nepal and India. He eventually arrived in Pune hardly speaking any English, following his girlfriend Mita who had gone there before. He took sannyas from Osho in May 1979.
He was finally able to come to the Ranch ‘forever’ in Sept 1985 – shortly before it ended. He was so happy to be there, that he stayed on till May 1986, helping out with the dismantling of the commune.
In December 86 he arrived in Mumbai to be with Osho and was part of Pune Two from the very beginning. In the early days he worked mostly as a photographer and bodyworker (psychic massage). Later he became involved in the Mystery School, eventually moving to Sedona, Arizona, to continue his work there.
After some years in the US he moved back to Italy, started afresh, got all the certifications needed to open his own institute, based in Rimini, from where he could give workshops and trainings in various methods, in particular based on Family Constellation. His younger sister, Shanti, was also working at the school.
Among others, he had studied NLP with Richard Bandler and Systemic Solutions with Bert Hellinger (from 2001 till 2007). He became a leading light in the Family Constellation field, expanding the modality and bringing in his own insights. He was particularly interested that we find solutions in the present and dwell less on the events of the past.
His positivity and playfulness were appreciated by his friends, students and clients; he was always looking at the positive side of any situation. A few years ago he was diagnosed with a serious auto-immune disorder, still, just a few days before leaving he wrote to a friend, “My health is slowly improving and I feel lucky to have all the help I need.”
Satyam is the author of Per una mente amica (For a mind who is a friend) which came out in 2012 and was received with great success. A year later came, co-authored with Monica Colosimo, La saggezza viena dal cuore (Wisdom comes from the heart) and last year Mindfulness per le relazioni affettive (Mindfulness in love relationships) – all books published by TEA.
Satyam died in Monteortone, Italy, where he was giving a workshop. He was surrounded by friends who loved him and whom he loved.
Text credit to Sheelu, Satyam (Umberto Bidinotto), Shola, Upchara, Upadhi and his website attiliopiazza.it
Virag writes: Farewell to Satyam. Let’s sit in synchronicity on Tuesday, 17th January, 7pm (German time), whoever wishes can come to my house in Starnberg.
Osho answers Satyam’s question: Osho, your jokes make me afraid and confused. Please tell me one of Buddha’s sutras about God. P.S. I’m leaving for Italy tomorrow. Thank you – in Jokes are dangerous
Anand means blissful, Satyam means truth. Truth is always blissful. And untruth always brings misery, although it promises to bring bliss. But it never delivers the goods, it cannot. Untruth pretends, poses, has beautiful masks. Hence the majority of people follow it.
Truth is naked, with no masks, with no garments. And truth never promises. It delivers but it never promises. To follow truth means to follow something without any expectation; to follow truth means to go into the unknown, the uncharted. One never knows what is going to turn up. One never knows where one is going to land.
To follow truth is to go into insecurity. But insecurity is freedom, insecurity is life; and insecurity is another name for God.
Osho, Just Around the Corner, Ch 25, 25 May 1979
from Satyam (Umberto Bidinotto)
I knew Satyam well before we became sannyasins. We grew up in the same town, both studied Philosophy at the same University and later worked in the same IT company. When he left his job and started travelling I was jealous, but also admired his courage. When he came back and I heard all his engaging stories, I could not resist but to follow his tracks. After visiting Nepal and travelling around India I eventually arrived in Pune, where I met him. Our relationship was very very close. I saw him as a friend but also as the bigger brother. Maybe that was the reason why we received the same name from Osho: Swami Anand Satyam.
When I heard Osho give me the name I was quite stunned, but also understood that I was sitting in front of a Master. I immediately thought of the complications this would create when we would be back in Treviso, which is a small town.
When Satyam heard that I had received the same name as him, he told me (he still had a charismatic influence over me) to go to the office and ask Arup if it was possible to change the name. Upchara remembers that Arup had said to me: “Who are you to tell your master what to do?” I felt real stupid!
For a while Satyam ran events in the meditation centre I had opened in Treviso, so things became really complicated; sometimes there were letters from mutual friends and I had no idea if the letter was for me or for him.
We had often found ourselves on parallel ways, but at one point our ways parted. What is left behind is a sense of gratitude because he has brought me to Osho, and the memory of his qualities which have deeply touched me: his intelligence, intuition and humour. He loved life and adventures and now, once more, he has come first to tackle the last adventure towards the unknown that, I know well, will be in front of me sometime, too.
from Upchara
The first group I was asked to lead in the Mystery School in Pune 2 was called ‘Osho Island Experience’. It was based on Santosh’s hypnosis work. It entailed three days of sensory isolation in an extraordinary atmosphere: blue light, many assistants sitting in meditation to ‘hold the space’. Kaveesha gave me Satyam as the main assistant. All was fine until the end of the first day when Satyam told me that Garimo had given him this message: “From now on all participants of all the groups need to go every night to the White Robe meeting in Buddha Hall.” This of course would have destroyed our experiment. My usual sense of obedience would have immediately accepted the rule, until Satyam looked straight into my eyes and said: “Think carefully. Listen. Why follow orders?” Without hesitation I took on the risk NOT to accept the order and with a big smile, I said to Satyam, “We will not go to the White Robe, but say to Garimo only this, ‘Upchara has received your message.’ That’s all you say.” Of course that was the end of this kind of groups and all others were cancelled.
In the Mystery School Kaveesha always said to me, “Be patient, no rush. Trust that when the time is ripe the stage will appear and you will be asked to run groups.” As I did not have much self-esteem that was fine with me. Satyam on the other hand was much more ambitious and sure of himself. A few times we were asked to run the group ‘Beyond Fear’ together. His style was more of a Veeresh-ian (kind of: let’s have a beer together) while mine was more of an elegant, esoteric Mystery School-ish style. It was very difficult for me because he kept stealing the show!
from Mita
When I think of Satyam my memory goes back to February 1979. I was living in Poona at the time but took a quick trip to Italy, just for a month and a half. While I was in Milan I helped a friend sell antique Tibetan Thankas. We had heard of a small shop in the centre of the city specialized in oriental art. We were given the name of the owner and we set off for our adventure with the typical attitude of those magic days with Osho, full of trust, positivity and wonder. We were two beautiful women wearing red and the mala in the middle of a gray winter’s day.
When we finally found the shop we were told that the owner was on holiday but that a friend of his, from Treviso, was substituting him. The friend was a young man with curly dark hair and big blue, transparent, eyes. He had a cheerful attitude and a beautiful smile. I liked him. He liked me too and we started a playful and heartful relationship. My goal was to get back to Poona as quickly as possible, so we decided that he would come too, by himself, after getting the money together for the journey. It took him two months.
Two months in those days (with Osho we were living at the speed of light) was an awful amount of time! When Attilio entered the Gateless Gate it was immediately clear to me that I had been the bait for him to come to Osho. It was quite common that people fell in love with sannyasins only to find out that the love affair was in reality a love affair with the Master. Attilio then took sannyas a few days later and became Swami Anand Satyam.
from Upadhi
In the last few years we were rarely in contact with each other, and yet I felt him like a brother. Once I had to run the End of Year party at Miasto. I was miserable because of a love affair which had ended, I needed room for myself, so I asked him if he would run it for me, and he did. Once he fell ill when he was scheduled to run a workshop. He called me, “Can you please do the workshop for me, I am too ill.” Sometime later he said to me, “I no longer feel like running the Guilt group but it would be sad if nobody offered it in Italy, wouldn’t that be something for you?” This group has now become part of my programme. In all these years we have shared many experiences, many at the same time.
You can leave a message / tribute / anecdote using our contact form (please add ‘Satyam’ in the subject field)…
I met Satyam in 1990, in Pune, and from that time he was my door to reach the master Osho. I have so many memories and anecdotes; football matches, jokes, groups, travels together. Thanks for everything, Satyam, I know that in this moment you are leading something or someone with your voice, with your presence, wherever you are.
Ninad
Beloved Satyam, I’m getting pissed off – another beloved takes off on the flight from the alone to the alone. Gads, where to start, my wild Italian friend? I will miss your sparkle, your humor, your great intelligence. I so enjoyed leading groups with you in Pune, and being your neighbor on rodeo road in Sedona. I was sad when you left for Italy, and now even sadder that we won’t have another hug in this lifetime. Arrivederci, bello,
Abhiyana
Beloved Satyam, I always called you my “little brother of the heart” and that is how I will remember you. I wish you everything wonderful on your voyage into greater and greater consciousness. Fly High, mio fratellino del cuore! Loving you, Leela Waduda
Ma Devadasi, 1917 – 2017
Madhuri writes:
Born in California to a doctor father and nurse/teacher mother, Devadasi had an idyllic childhood among the pines and meadows of rural northern California… until her adored father died suddenly when she was seven, leaving the family shocked and destitute. Her mother worked and the children had to spend summers boarding with strangers. Devadasi has written about this in So Many Summers (not yet published, but on the way.) One of these extended visits was to a preacher’s family. Devadasi was in Human Design terms a Manifestor, a self-starting, independent, ornery breed; and the preacher’s efforts to convert her resulted in a lifelong aversion to Protestant Christianity!
She began college at U C Berkeley at sixteen, majoring in English and minoring in Spanish, and graduated with a BA. She was an innocent, auburn-haired girl who had suffered a typically puritanical upbringing. Glen Akin, a chemistry major, courted her and when she became pregnant they married. (She later said, “I thought that if you kissed someone you had to marry him.”) He dropped out of college to support her and the baby and they moved to southern California for his work. There in the desert heat and dryness, far from the springs and freshets of her youth, they embarked on a difficult, painful thirty years together, producing seven children despite efforts to the contrary. The family lived in poverty and mess, want and defeat and great bouts of Manifestor rage by the trapped and moody Devadasi. But she read to her children every night, with full dramatic effect, and took great joy in nature, tromping through puddles singing when it rained… which was hardly ever! We were all happiest while camping, because Mama and Glen would both be joyful out in the wilds.
She wrote a children’s book review column for the local newspaper, short stories when she could carve out the time, and her agent successfully placed them with women’s magazines. A book of them, The Dream Years, was published around 1966. She believed passionately in human rights and demonstrated for Civil Rights and against the war in Vietnam, right alongside us teenagers. She adored her children and reserved her rage for her kind, clueless and abstracted husband….
She left Glen in 1967 after she had a health crisis, and she then became an itinerant henna-haired poetic-romantic in sandals. Young men courted her… she was a great listener, a joyful and starry-eyed lover. I was sewing her clothes by that time, to make up for the years of terrible sacrifice. (At fifty she still had only the now-raggedy garments she had worn during college, as she had always put the children’s needs first.)
In 1967 part of the family, together with friends, started an Alternative school in an old Victorian house in Riverside. Devadasi vowed that she was nobody’s mother any more, and never again interfered with my life or judged my choices, even when they were obviously awful!
That summer she, with part of the family, moved north to Ferndale, on the Eel River, with my artist boyfriend. And the summer after that she rented a house for $25 a month in Fortuna, California at the edge of the mossy woods and filled it with kids and teens – hers and other people’s. They all remember it as a halcyon time.
The long process of separating from Glen was excruciating for both, but she finally moved alone into a little house in an orange grove. There Sarita and I stayed with her for a few months before, in June of 1970, leaving on our hitchhiking travels. When I left Sarita in Colorado to accept an invitation to travel to England as a dancing extra in a film, Devadasi hitchhiked out to collect her, and the two had an epic adventure hitching together to New York City where Sarita then studied ballet.
I returned from Europe two years later and persuaded my mother to leave the orange grove house and move with my little brother Ian to San Francisco, where the action was. And in December 1973 she and I flew to Bombay and met Osho… who gave her the name Ma Devadasi, which she struggled against as she thought it sounded prostitutey! But she gazed wordlessly into Osho’s eyes and held him in a big space in her mysterious, ardent soul.
Back in San Francisco she met Bob, a retired Coca Cola executive, at a liberal political meeting, and they later married and lived in Baja and in Alaska, then bought, renovated and sold houses in California, Arizona, visited Poona twice, and spent time at the Ranch; then lived near Mt Shasta while she studied photography – always a passion – at the local college. Then they finally settled in Gold Beach, Oregon. There, after some happy years, Bob died of a heart attack, and after a while she married again, a native Oregonian named Al, whom she introduced to meditation. For her 90th birthday he took her hang-gliding. They loved to roam the countryside together taking photographs; he was a prize-winning amateur. (She never sought recognition for her photographs or for her poetry, but both were beautiful.) He died in 2009.
Her short-term memory was by this time deserting her more and more, making daily life more challenging – but her particular, mordant, sharp and original sense of humour, a great light in my childhood, shone through often, reducing us to howls of laughter at funny things she would suddenly come out with.
Her children moved her to a big house in Lake Arrowhead, California, in the mountains, which she loved. She walked daily and read a lot of books. One son lived there with her and family visited often. During those years she visited Japan with Sarita and me to attend a meditation retreat in a Zen temple with Kohrogi-sensei, the Ito-Thermie healer, whom she adored, and also to Greece and France to see Sarita and me. Further deterioration forced another move, to be cared for by her granddaughter Aleshanee, a Steiner school art teacher, in Ukiah, California, and Aleshanee’s two grown children. Aleshanee, my brother Huck, and the two kids have provided the bulk of her care… often quite heroically as deterioration ensured more difficulty and sleep interruption. (They deserve medals, all of them.)
Finally she was breaking arm, hip, other hip… a mastectomy, was done… but she still walked most days, and always stuck to a vegetarian diet.
A few days before she left her body she was dizzy and ill and could not walk. As soon as she got to hospital she demanded to go home, as always! But she had a blockage internally and was intubated and sedated… and two days later, in the very early morning, she left her body while everyone had gone to snatch some sleep.
That would be like her: independent in the extreme, a fighter… she always wanted to make her own decisions. But her body was by this time like an old, ragged coat, which she could no longer button, so that the drafts got in. I think it slipped off easily, after such a long time of incremental sheddings. She had worn it and worn it and hatched rabbits from it and sweated in it and torn and patched it and it had shrunk most awfully, and was twisted now and scratchy, and bits had fallen off… and it was time for it to leave her, and she it.
What I got from her: a sense of freedom. Poetry and romance as the cornerstones of life. Courage to face the unknown. A rapt joy in nature. Humour. Words. Survival. And so much love, approval, and praise…
Thank you, Devadasi. Fly well, fly high, fly to where your soul is drenched in love of the very best sort, the sort that most suits you. Love enormous and eternal, healing and resurrecting, peace-making in an absolute meadow of natural beyondness. I think your father came to help you in your journey, to welcome you to the ease and breathing without the constrictions of our form. I think others welcomed you too – Osho, who always seemed delighted with you; and your little dog Rags, whom you had loved as a child, and your mother, and your son Rudra, who went before you.
Happy meeting, happy adventure next…
Text by Madhuri
Sarita writes:
On 21st January my mother died. At the time of her passing she was in a hospital in California and I was in Bali, celebrating the birthday of the cinematographer for a new project of mine. We had just enjoyed a scrumptious raw banana cacao cake and, in the moment of her passing, our production team was giving our cinematographer an eight-handed massage. The hostess of the villa we are staying in is nine months pregnant and ready to give birth any day. As birth and death are so intimately intertwined it is a fitting artistic touch to the tapestry of life that as my mother was moving out of life, others are in celebration of new life.
Each mother is a multi-armed goddess. Her intimate relationship to each child of hers is unique and mysterious, a sacred bond which deeply influences the life of each child in a different way. The life experiences I have lived in relation to my mother are a serendipitous journey of profound significance. Many seemingly random events in the flow of our mother-daughter relationship have led to mystical lessons in life and love.
When my mother found out she was accidentally pregnant with her sixth child (me) she gasped, and then, almost immediately felt a powerful intuition that she was throwing herself into the river of life, that life wanted her to simply let go and accept her destiny as a mother to this baby. When I was 17 years old, during my sannyas initiation ceremony with Osho in India, he gave me the name Ma Ananda Sarita, and explained the meaning as, Ma, (Mother of the Universe) Ananda, (Bliss) and Sarita (River). He told me if I continue with meditation I would become a ‘river of bliss’.
During her pregnancy with me, my mother had a dream that she was carrying a butterfly in her womb. She experienced the butterfly being born and almost immediately taking flight far across the world where it discovered paradise and then invited her to come live in this paradise. When I announced at the age of 15 that I was leaving home to go hitchhiking around the world in search of the essence of life, she simply said yes, trusting in her dream. She went to a notary and signed a document that she was allowing her underage daughter to travel and requesting that border authorities in any country allow me to pass with her permission and blessing. This document served me well at many borders I passed through.
As is done in the many mystical fairy tales she read to us as we children lay cuddled in her arms, she baked me a bannock to wish me luck on my travels. She also prayed for a guardian angel to protect me. During my hero’s journey, of course, there were many trials and tribulations, but I always felt I was protected by a being of light, as I made my way overland to India.
In India, I met Osho (symbolic of finding paradise in her dream) and then invited her to come. I sent her a book by Osho so this remarkable enlightened being may inspire her. The title of the book was, Death, the Greatest Fiction. Nine months later she too journeyed to India and was initiated by Osho into his Neo Sannyas, receiving the name Ma Devadasi (mother of the universe, servant of the divine).
When my mother gave birth to me and discovered it was a girl, she was in ecstasy as she really wanted another girl. It is interesting in this respect that an important aspect of my life’s work is to bring greater ecstasy to women all around the world.
When I was two and a half years old I contracted measles and was gravely ill with an ever-escalating fever. I was in a delirium, floating near the ceiling looking down on my body, or floating and flying around the room. At one point, a seductive tunnel opened up in front of me and I was drawn like a moth to a flame into the tunnel. At the end of the tunnel was a great white light and in a state of rapture I yearned to move towards it. From far away, I heard my mother weeping, as she tirelessly put cold damp cloths on my feverish body. She began speaking to me with a solid determination that only a mother in her lioness power can muster. She implored me to come back to my body, saying, “It is not your time to go. You have to come back. You have a great destiny. You will grow up to be renowned all around the world. You will be the most beautiful woman in the world and worshipped by many people for your great beauty and wisdom. You will have men falling at your feet and you will bring grace and healing to this world.” She babbled on and on, and momentarily I turned back from the tunnel to hear her. Finally, I was lured by the intensity of her love, back into my body. The fever broke and she wept tears of gratitude, kissing me all over my body, welcoming me back to life.
Did she form my destiny in that moment, or did she read my destiny? This remains a mystery, but the fact is much of what she babbled to me during that healing crises came to pass in my life. Many years later, in her 97th year, my sister and I took our mother to Delphi in Greece. Giggling, singing and laughing; we helped her up the mountain to the very top where the ruins of the temples are. She said she had to rest and found a place to sit down. As we were sitting there, someone pointed out to us that my mother was sitting directly in front of the sacred oracular stone. This was a basin with a hole in it carved from rock. In ancient times when Delhi was active as a matriarchal temple of the oracle, this stone was placed over the bubbling spring, which emitted a natural gas called ethylene. The high priestesses went through intensive and long training to be able to inhale this gas and through this, to open up their clairvoyant power, becoming a channel for spirit to speak through.
As well as being a housewife for 30 years, my mother was also a writer. I well remember the intense joy which would emanate into the room whenever she was able to snatch an hour or two from her housewife duties, sitting at her desk to write. I would sit nearby and play, simply bathing in her creative ecstasy. From the moment I was able to read and write, I reveled in creating fantastical stories or plays. To this day, whenever I sit down to write anything, whether that be a blog, an article, a poem or a book, I slip into an ecstatic trance, opening the channel for a higher power to write through me. This process is sacred and mysterious and I always sense the power of my mother’s transmission as a writer in these moments.
My mother had an indomitable spirit. She came from American pioneer stock and weathered many storms in her life, always coming through with even more determination and vigor. She outlived three husbands and eventually became the proud matriarch in a family spanning several generations. Always ready for a laugh, she used to tell jokes or write witty poems. One such poem reads:
I’m 95 and still alive
Whoever would have thunk it?
If I was a boat, please take note
They would have hauled it out and sunk it!
When she was in Osho’s community for one of her many visits, she sent Osho a joke, which he read out in discourse.
A crowd was getting ready to stone Mary Magdalene to death.
Jesus showed up and said: “Let he who hath no sin throw the first stone!”
Everyone held back. Then, suddenly from the back of the crowd, a little old lady hurled a big stone at poor Mary Magdalene.
“Mother!” Says Jesus, “You exasperate me!”
Of course, no one is perfect and my mother had her faults and neurotic tendencies arising from challenging early life experiences. I witnessed her suffering and as many children do, wanted to alleviate it in some way. I well remember being six years of age, getting the bright idea to make a cup of tea for her as she was laying down in her room in exhausted depression. It was a big feat for me to think carefully over all the details of how to make a cup of tea and how she would like it to be prepared. Very shyly, I brought her my best efforts in tea making, not knowing if my gesture would be received or I would be reprimanded for disturbing her. The exclamation of surprise, delight and gratitude as she received this offering was so gratifying.
As we all know, what goes around, comes around. Just as I was writing these words about bringing my mother that fateful cup of tea, my beloved appeared by surprise, bringing me a green smoothie! My exclamation of surprised gratitude brought a look of love and joy to his face. I am ever in awe at the synchronicities in life.
When I was twelve years old, I was in a free school my mother and brother had created. Some of the older teenagers and I used to sneak into the fields to smoke dope. One evening we came back with a typical stoned ravenous hunger and my mother cheerfully offered us food. We tried to convince her to smoke some dope with us, and her reply inspired me tremendously. She said, “I don’t need it! I am already naturally high!” She carried on laughing and joking with us in our stoned hilarity. With her wise words I decided then and there I would like to discover how to attain such a ‘natural high.’ My interest in dope smoking vanished in that instant.
When my mother met Osho I was sitting with her and him together in darshan. My mother said to him: “I have prepared my daughter for you and I offer her to you as a blank slate. Now you take over and write what you will. She is ready.” I looked at her in astonishment. Sometimes deep mysticism would simply leap out of her mouth as if she was an experienced high priestess. At other times, she would express herself through the mask of American normalcy.
Over the years, my sister Madhuri and I gifted my mother with many remarkable trips to various exotic locations around the world. We enjoyed hanging out with her as her vibrant energy always lit up the space. I well remember one occasion in France when she was in her 80’s. We were in a beautiful group venue having a wild Tantric Party. Everyone was dancing far into the night. My mother, to the astonishment of everyone present, went into trance and danced wildly for hours. One Frenchman exclaimed to me, “Ooh la la! Your mother is so sexy!”
My mother had always said she wanted to make it to 100 years of age. She also stated emphatically she never wanted to go into a home for the elderly. As her memory began failing her it became a conundrum how to care for her. One of my brothers, (Huck) devoted himself to this task, and after some years, it was time for him to move on from that role. His daughter Aleshanee took over being caretaker and, after a few years of dedicated service, she was burnt out as care for the elderly who have memory loss is actually a 24-hour job. In my mother’s 99th year, my family was in great debate as to what would be the best next step for my mother’s caretaking. No decision was being reached.
My mother, true to her intuitive style of being, expressed that stalemate by getting an impaction in her intestines. Due to the impaction, which doctors said they could not alleviate, her organs began failing and, within a matter of a few days, she was gone. She solved the conundrum over her care by gracefully exiting life.
I sense she died too early, simply because I know how much she wanted to celebrate her 100th birthday with all her near and dear around her. However, her manner of leaving life, the moment she sensed she was in some way burdening others, is a further testament of her love and compassion. I am sure that with her usual determination and power of spirit, she is now moving in the best direction according to her soul calling.
At the time of writing, I am doing a series of 10 Bardo Meditations for my dearly departed mother. I am accompanying her as best I can, as she discovers new levels of consciousness and bliss in her onward going journey beyond the body. I know, many other friends and family are also sending their prayers and blessings and this brings me peace. In contemplating my mother Devadasi and all she has created and blessed with her presence, I am left simply with awe and gratitude.
Text by Sarita
Mother and Daughters – Madhuri and Sarita celebrate their mother’s birthday with poems dedicated to her
The Rishi Told Me – a poem written and read by Devadasi, Madhuri and Sarita’s 93 year old mother
You can leave a message / tribute / anecdote using our contact form (please add ‘Devadasi’ in the subject field)…
Deva Bhavit writes:
Prem Vismay was born in London in 1960 and left his body on 12th January 2017. He collapsed at a bus stop in Hampstead and died in the ambulance as the paramedic team worked to save him. After an initial diagnosis of heart attack the post mortem remains at present inconclusive.
Prem Vismay, whose name means ‘Love, Child of Wonder’, took sannyas in the mid nineties at Osho Leela in the English countryside. He was involved with Humaniversity therapy, completed their nine-month personal growth course and then went on to participate in the first two years of the Humaniversity four-year therapist training programme. After the millennium he briefly visited Pune where he participated in Born Again which he loved. Vismay told me that he felt most at home at the Humaniversity where he loved fixing things. Being fascinated by all things technical and being a very capable electronic and computer engineer he got to display his virtuosity in this arena whilst there. He was full of energy, always buzzing; he delighted in theatrical performances, writing and orating poetry and telling truly awful jokes, for which he was pretty nigh infamous amongst his friends in London.
I was not present as an eyewitness at the Humaniversity; it was in London, during the past six years, that Vismay and I became close, although we had known each other within the sannyas community since the mid nineties. I first visited Vismay at his home in Kentish Town when he asked me to decorate his hallway and tile his kitchen floor.
Vismay was the archetypal dream brother; he always gave me whatever I needed, be it soft love, tough love, a loan, furniture removal, astute psychological insight, a sofa to sleep on when I was shaken up. Vismay was always there for those he cared for, but unfortunately he couldn’t understand or meet his own real needs. For the past two years he was struggling with depression and sensory overload, finding it increasingly difficult to be around people or to go out. But his life-long struggle was with compulsive overeating. It hurts to say, Vismay was killing himself overeating and neither his two sisters, Posey and Iris, his friends who loved him, and they were many, nor myself could effectively touch and hold that part of him. But compulsive overeating was his behaviour and not who he was.
Vismay was incredibly generous with money, time and energy; he certainly had the greatest capacity for forgiveness that I have met with amongst us un-realised buddhas. He was an incredibly sensitive and wonder-full soul and an utterly true friend. I often berated him for his apparently reckless generosity – now faith tells me that it is his love and generosity of spirit that he journeys with.
Fare thee well, my friend, and thank you for enriching my life in a thousand ways both light and dark. Travel with love as your companion.
Text by Bhavit, photos credit to Bhavit and FB, cartoon by Satya Loka (summing up Vismay’s sense of humour)
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Many of us met Vismay sometime in the 90s in Osho Leela, when he was participating in the Humaniversity Therapist Training. Later on he helped regularly with the London Aum meditation, for quite a long time. We did many journeys to a storage place together, where our sound equipment was stored. At that time I would have been stuck without him. Vismay was usually on hand to check the electrical set-up was working properly, fix broken connections and cables, and then he had fun in the Aum! In the Aum he was large and loud! He was always a very humorous and friendly guy, and enjoyed being helpful to people. He was very helpful to me personally too and I thank him. As a small example, he helped me move house one time – he usually had a van of some sort. He was just available to help.
Sometimes he had birthday parties in the small garden behind his flat house during August, and made a large pot of curry.
He liked football and I think he was an Arsenal fan.
I always felt that there was a lot more to Vismay than he was able to show, and he never quite realised his potential. He liked music – particularly artists like Eric Clapton, Hendrix, and Frank Zappa, and had a large collection of vintage vinyl albums. One time I was there and he was playing a Jeff Beck album which I liked hearing and he made me a copy. The last time I saw him was before Christmas sometime at his place and I thought he was more at ease in himself than I had known him for a while. We usually had a cup of tea and a natter on these occasions. He was a bit zany, very human and often very silly!
One thing his friends are universally agreed on is that he told awful corny jokes! Maybe that was his lasting message to us!
Thank you Vismay! I am going to tell some corny ones now, to continue your vision…. Love,
Prabuddho
His daughter Avinasho writes:
Satyananda (Jörg Andrees Elten) was born in Dresden on March 30, 1927. In 1945 he completed an emergency baccalaureate at the Napola (Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalt = National Political Educational Institution) in Naumburg/Saale and had to participate in the war efforts for another four months. In an exhibition in Munich, in 1948, he saw how a newspaper was made and thought this would be a good job while studying. This is how the Münchner Abendzeitung came into being and how he became a journalist.
He married Elisabeth and in 1952 his first daughter Susanne (aka Avinasho) was born. Immediately after she was born he set off for India and wrote his first book, In Allahs Hand; eine abenteuerliche Orientreise im Auto (In Allah’s hand: an adventurous journey by car to the East).
In the mid-fifties he moved to Cairo (where daughter Petra was born) as a Middle East and Africa correspondent for the Süddeutsche Zeitung, and then on to Rome (where Bettina was born). Their mother was Isis, his Egyptian second wife.
At the start of the 1960s, Satyananda was head-hunted by the chief editor of Stern, Henry Nannen. His subsequent move to Hamburg was good for his career as ‘the star writer’ for the magazine. The family, however, fell apart.
In a kind of midlife crisis he made a trip to Poona during a reportage trip in India and discovered Osho (then Bhagwan). After taking time off from Stern to write Ganz entspannt im Hier und Jetzt (Totally relaxed in the Here and Now), a diary about his time at the ashram, he nevertheless quit his job as a journalist in Hamburg and moved to India and later also to Rajneeshpuram in Oregon, USA. Ganz entspannt im Hier und Jetzt became a bestseller and for many of its readers a reason to emigrate to India and become Osho’s disciples.
It could well be that the German bourgeoisie feared a mass exodus of their intelligentsia because the then German Minister of the Interior, Friedrich Zimmermann, declared Osho without reason persona non grata in Germany and thus imposed an entry ban on him. Today, as meditation has become mainstream and is totally ‘in’, it is difficult to imagine how much the German sannyasins were discriminated against in the 1980s.
After the closure of the commune in Oregon, Satyananda remained in California for eight years and wrote Alles ganz easy in Santa Barbara: Leben ohne Sicherheit (Everything totally easy in Santa Barbara: life with no security) and Karma und Karriere (Karma and career).
In the mid-90s he returned to Hamburg, and then on to Stellshagen in West-Mecklenburg, Germany. Together with his wife Gitama (Martina Kaltenbach) he founded the ‘Institute for Meditation and Creativity’ which offers various techniques of meditation, writing and painting.
Satyananda died in his home in Stellshagen; he would have been 90 years old in March this year.
Dhiren writes:
Our beloved friend, Swami Satyananda, passed away quietly at home early on Sunday the 29th March. He had been in hospital earlier in the week because of a lung infection which then became complicated. He gave every ounce of his energy to try to overcome the complications which had made it difficult for him to swallow, but it was his heart, which had been weakened over the last period of time, that simply was no longer able to keep up with him. He still had various projects lined up and was in no hurry to go anywhere, but once he realised that his body was not managing any more to keep pace with his ever-vivid spirit, he seems to have simply let it go. Among his last words were, “Love is the only thing that matters.”
Satyananda has been a very important presence, especially in the German speaking world because of his books and his involvement with the Osho Times. In the late seventies and early eighties, many people took sannyas because of him. His first book Ganz Entspannt im Hier und Jetzt (soon to be published in English translation as The Cosmic Madhouse) became a bestseller and created a sensation at the time. It is a fascinating account in the form of a diary of a successful journalist who leaves it all behind to live in the commune of an Indian spiritual master.
Many people will remember him for his light, friendly warmth, and his heartful presence. He lived for many years on the Ranch and then later in California, followed by his return to Germany. Two more books followed, and a collection of essays. Together with his long-term partner Gitama, he lived for more than twenty years in the quiet, idyllic countryside of Mecklenburg Vorpommern. He and Gitama began the Institute for Creativity and Meditation, which is based in Stellshagen. He led regular seminars on creative writing and meditation, and continued to write and sometimes appear on various TV shows. He is survived by his three daughters, Bettina, Petra and Avinasho.
I was waiting and waiting for you! – Satyananda’s sannyas darshan
You have escaped to reality – Osho answers a question of his
Interview with Satyananda – by Ishu from the German Osho Times
Not everybody is as courageous as Satyananda – excerpts from Punya’s book
You can leave a message / tribute / anecdote using our contact form (please add ‘Satyananda’ in the subject field)…
A final goodbye to a beloved friend. First, as it happened to so many of us, your book opened my heart to my own search and life with our Master, then your so very loving presence on the Ranch and later in Poona, having done your creative writing and spontaneous speaking groups there with you. So much fun, laughter, creativity, depth. I am bowing down in gratitude. Keeping all the memories lovingly in my heart. Bye for now…
Aviram
Deep gratefulness and joy for all that we shared. Love remains always…
Bhagawati
Beloved friend Satyananda, No need to mention again your achievement and the huge influence you had on the European sannyas scene; we all are forever grateful. I remember so fondly our long talks on the Ranch, our shared time with Prasad, our walks in Hamburg, the warm home you and Gitama gave me when I stayed for a while with both of you, when we were digging through pictures, writing stories together, reading, laughing… Although we lost touch the last couple of years I always felt you close and there is a place in my heart with your name written on it. Love always,
Ma Atmo Anasha
Thank you, Satyananda. We will meet again…
Anurag
Creative writing with Satyananda: cut, cut, cut….
I am learning to write creatively with Satyananda and he tells us to cut as many words as possible! Impossible, I say to myself… I hate this man, this German! I am Dutch, so there. He smiles and says cut, cut, cut to the bone this article!! He doesn’t like my writing, I am getting annoyed… WTF is wrong with words?!
Vedant (that which is beyond words) Sajjad (devotee)
Thinking of you my heart smiles. I love your last words: YES, only love matters.
Thank you for all you have given to so many of us.
Sneha
Oh dearest Satyananda, So many memories for so many moons being together in Osho’s Buddhafield! How well I remember you having shared many precious moments with lots of laughter and always heart to heart. With love and precious memories,
Gabriele (Ma Prem Gatha)
your book “ganz entspannt im hier und jetzt” was my bridge to osho in the early 80’s, like is was for so many fellow travellers. thank you, satyananda, for your great courrage and thank you for all. farewell,
yoga ashara kuckuck
Swami Satyananda, Jörg Andrees Elten, journalist, writer, Mensch. With a brilliant sense of humor. If I remember correctly, his second wife, the Egyptian Isis – no relationship to – complained about Northern European weather by saying “In Germany summer happens on a Wednesday afternoon”. Grew up in Germany at the time of Adolf I. Coroner’s verdict: “Death by déjà vu”.
Max Brecher
Photos thanks to Bhagawati, Maneesha, Bettina and Shunyo
Bettina writes:
Samudaya (aka Samu, David Eckstein) was born on 20th February 1929 in Czechoslovakia (now Czechia) and was the youngest of his siblings. As a 14-year-old he was taken by the Nazis, together with his family, and brought to five different concentration camps. From the family only he and a sister survived.
They emigrated to the States in the late 40’s or early 50’s. His sister found a “good Jewish husband” (his words) and had as many kids as they had lost, 11. He, on the other hand, was not interested in family or Jewish religion. He worked for a while on the East Coast and became a graphic designer. He then came to Pune and took sannyas in February 1978 – that was his big love affair. His sister and brother-in-law tried to bribe him with $5000 not to go to India, but to no avail.
When I met him in 1979, he lived in #8 and worked in the ashram as a graphic designer. Because he was a holocaust survivor, the German government paid him a pension, on which he lived pretty much his whole life, and very comfortably in India, of course. He told me last June, when I visited him in Sedona, that he still received it. We had not seen each other for 25 years; not after the Ranch and California.
During the last few years he had lived in Sedona. He seemed quite happy, but was in a lot of pain some of which, he said, was from way back. His little trailer was super clean and immaculate and was full of Osho pictures. He was forever grateful to have found him, and he told me cheekily that he even had a sort of lover, one of his caretakers; it sounded sweet. I went to visit him because I am writing a book where I also want to mention how we met. He remembered the story better then me; he was really sharp and knew many details. This is how we met:
I must have just arrived in Pune because I was not yet wearing red clothes; we met in the bidi temple, he chatted me up and I went home with him. He was for me an ‘unusual guy’ to go with; he was so much older – he must have been 50 and I only 23. After we had spent the night together I saw the number on his arm and asked about it. I think he was the first holocaust survivor I had ever met. When the conversation came to how he made a living to stay in India, that’s when he told me that he was getting money from the German government. I then told him about the family I come from, from top Nazis: the Goerings.
We started laughing hysterically, “Only in Pune!” we said.
During our meeting last summer he told me his life story which I recorded. I knew that it had already been published in the Rajneesh Times but could not lay my hands on a copy, so was very happy that I managed to find him, quite by chance actually, via Facebook.
Before we arrived he knew that some old sannyasin friends were coming by, but he did not know who precisely. When we saw each other, “Oh, my god…” and we both started crying. To hear his story was so healing and heart-opening, it went full circle. Only through Osho such a meeting could have happened.
Note from Sw. Shunyo:
Samudaya’s calligraphy graced many of Osho’s books. He was a resident at the Ranch and worked in publications.
Maneesha writes:
I had known Samudaya since Pune 1. Even though he was part of Osho Academy in Sedona since early on (Kaveesha loved him and honored him especially) and we got to know him better (Anugito and he were both calligraphers), he was not around much because he had a lot of trouble with his body.
Just this last fall we came in contact with him after not seeing him for a couple of years. We visited him in his home where he was under the care of Mayoori, a caretaker who had become a sannyasin through him! We were very happy to spend time with him, and even though he was suffering a lot with his body and mostly had to stay at home, I was especially touched by how deeply he was connected to Osho and the gratefulness he expressed about that. I had seen him rise out of feeling a victim of life – understandable in such horrible circumstances – to laughter and gratefulness and a deep understanding meditation had given him. We visited him a few times, and in December he became sicker, and cancer was diagnosed.
Last Tuesday we visited him in a care facility in Prescott; his health had gone down dramatically. He was happy to see us, and mentioned Abhiyana who had visited recently. He spoke about not knowing when he was going to die, and how it was to be with that – and we still joked. We had the feeling it would be soon, and asked to be notified about changes to his condition, so that a few friends could come and sit with him. His condition remained stable for the next few days.
Then, Saturday morning, we got the call that in the morning he had passed, and that an aide from the facility was with him. The hospice nurse who was called told me that when she walked into the room, she got goosebumps – and she knew he was in peace. We had been sitting meditating at the time of his passing.
That night a bunch of sannyasins in Sedona were meeting for a party, so we gave him a dancing sendoff!
Deepak remembers:
On the Ranch Sheela wanted to show that we were not a group of hippies so asked a few sannyasins to be interviewed by a journalist of the Oregonian. And Samudaya told his story.
At the end of the Ranch, the same journalist meets Samudaya.
“Good,” he said, “now there is no need for double talk any longer, the Ranch was some sort of a camp, a totalitarian place, don’t you think?”
And Samudra, in his very Jewish humour replied, “But there were quite some differences!”
“Differences?”
“Yes, first of all the food was much better, but most importantly, it was a camp where I was always afraid of being kicked out!”
Samudaya’s sannyas darshan: Being is herenow, it is what you are right now
You can leave a message / tribute / anecdote using our contact form (please add ‘Samudaya’ in the subject field)…
Samu and I were hiking buddies in Sedona for years, after having met in Osho Academy. Now he is hiking with Osho on another plane. The dance goes on and on…
Enjoy!
Shunyo Mahom
While living in Sedona I was sometimes present in people’s family constellations. When Samudaya had his constellation, he chose me to stand for his favourite sister, among his 11 relatives who where with him in the concentration camp. This was such a deep experience of pain and love and sorrow I will never, ever forget. Ever since I felt this intimate, loving connection with Samudaya – even from far away after leaving Sedona. Such a gentle, loving spirit…
Sumano
Ah, my Yiddish brother, I am so glad we connected again in your final year on Earth. You taught me many things in the 39 years we’ve known each other – how not to wallow in angry victim mode, how to forgive, and finally how to let go. I still have the precious calligraphy poster of the Rumi poem you so expertly crafted.
The last time I saw him he was fading fast, and his body would not cooperate with his spirit; he was remarkably ok with that. He truly forgave everyone who had done him wrong, and I am proud to say he was my friend and mentor. JAI SAMU!
Abhiyana
Anand Meera (Kasue Hashimoto) was born in Ishikawa, Japan, in 1947. She studied, from 1966–1969, at the Musashino Art University, Tokyo, and from 1970 started visiting European museums and then settled in Toledo, Spain.
Until 1972 she studied drawing at the Circulo de Bellas Artes, Madrid, and Escuela de Arte, Toledo, where she became a co-founder of the Grupo Tolmo and the Galeria Tolmo. In 1974 she became a disciple of Osho and started working also in India and Japan. In 1979, on Osho´s suggestion, she established, together with Geetesh Gibson, the Osho Art School and began leading art workshops all over the world.
Excerpt from the darshan diary, Scriptures in Silence and Sermons in Stones Ch 9 – 9 November 1979
(Japanese artist, Meera, is back. She runs a meditation center and an art gallery and it seems she sent in some samples of her work to Osho.
Hello, Meera! When did you arrive?
Five days ago.
Very good! I looked into your paintings and pictures – really beautiful! You have done a good job. Now you also have to create a group of painters here – just like the theatre group.
Good, Meera. Now start working on it.
She developed new methods of creative expression and started communities in Amsterdam, Sicily and California.
More than 40 books by Osho have full-colour endpapers reproducing Meera’s paintings. She was such a prolific painter that her artwork can be found in many museums, galleries and in hidden nooks and corners of the Osho Meditation Resort in Pune. Because of the popularity of her paintings many were made available as reproductions thanks to the technical skills of Premendra (meera-art.com). Meera also published a beautifully designed boxed book dedicated to Osho, Morning Glories Climbing – Blossoming, featuring her paintings and haikus by Satyanand, a Japanese poet and sannyasin, with texts in Japanese and English (youtu.be).
Apart from Creativity and Art therapy workshops, which she facilitated in Japan, Europe and South America, she also led trainings called Osho Art Therapist Training, in Pune as well as in Europe. Meera also contributed to the book Osho Therapy, a compilation of essays by Osho Therapists edited by Svagito.
She was also an accomplished DJ, as music was ‘part of the course’; dancing was a means to help the body (and mind) to become more fluid so that the colours could flow more easily. Forever-young and with an incredible vital energy she would often get up and dance herself or dance during art performances.
One might have booked a painting course with Meera with the intention of playing with colours and learning how to paint, but that was not all you would get for your money! Aviva’s review of Meera’s workshop at the Tao Centre in Greece describes it beautifully:
This workshop works on two different dimensions. It opens up one’s painting creativity, since Meera brings a totally different and unconventional approach to art and to being creative. The second dimension is that of examining and looking at the emotional elements in our lives. The workshop will provoke both a creative as well as an inner change of awareness.
Meera has played an immensely important role in opening the creative eyes in the lives of many seekers of love and truth. She was an inspiration for so many!
Meera died in South Africa from an accident while scuba diving that caused a lung embolism. Her long-time partner Svagito was with her.
Bio taken in part from her website (meera.de) – for the alert and info credit goes to Subhuti, Ananda, Mega, Yatri, Sharmi, Upchara
Photos thanks to Meera, Ananda, Yuki, Chandra, Madhuro, Tao Centre, Zahira, Kanti, Samvado
Articles by Meera or about her in Osho News:
Cleaning is Creativity
The Sacred Mission of Art
Almost An Original
Intensity in action: explosion of creativity
Paintings of Life – a video of Meera’s paintings
You can leave a message / tribute / anecdote using our contact form (please add ‘Meera’ in the subject field)…
Dear beloved Meera, you will for ever be an inspiration to so many of us, and remain in our hearts. I believe with all my heart that your soul will still be flying, painting and dancing. Sanne
Beloved Meera, you have been and you still are so important in my life. Because of you I discovered a new way of creativity. You challenged my way of expression and showed me new depths in my creativity and my being. The joy and dance that you radiated was so infectious, for me and for many people. You supported me as an artist and also as an arts teacher. Without you I would not be the way I am now. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for being just the way you were. A true light in this word. You will always be with me for the rest of my life.
Shivananda
Beloved Meera, diving deep and now flying high. I loved the way you showed me how to be total, how much fun it is to paint with this totality and playfulness. I remember you invited me one evening when I was wandering through the ashram, to come and join and paint with an evening group at the old Buddha Hall, all lit with candles, your beautiful smile. Thank you for your inspiration! Just the other day I was painting in the “Meera-way” and I thought of you. Love,
Devabodhi
I wish Svagito strength and I am sure he will be surrounded by love.
Life is very strange and has taken away beloved Meera, one of the most lively, playful, powerfully vibrant people I’ve ever met. I will always remember an episode that I feel is very significant to describe Meera’s nature and the way she always saw the world.
I had returned to the “resort” after a very long absence and was feeling very self-conscious because I had gained a lot of weight… I was almost dreading meeting old friends. A few people pretended they did not recognize me; others commented on my figure in ways that made me feel even more self-conscious. Then, as I walked out of the back gate, I met Meera… she saw me from a distance, she stopped in her tracks and said, “WOW! That is A BODY!!! I wish I had met you earlier this morning, I would have liked you to be in my painting class as a model! Gorgeous, full body! Full of energy! Full of life!” She was hugging me and giggling and bubbling with her shiny smile and twinkly eyes. I cried and laughed and told her, “Meera, you made my day!”
That feeling still holds on – every time I feel insecure and negative about my body I remember her shiny face and joyous laughter and that’s all I see in the mirror.
Premo
Ma Meera speaks what we all feel, and I know that the soul and energy that leaves the physical body just adds to existence and showers on all of us. I am in deep gratitude with all that life offers 
Prem Apoorva
Oh Meera, I have been crying a lot today. I haven’t seen you in person for years but you are a deep part of my Poona life. Someone so plugged in to a source of vitality like you is so rare and so unique. Though I feel you must be in a gorgeous space now I just feel sad that that body is not zooming around the planet anymore. I remember how you got my mum dancing wildly to drums in her knickers in your painting group, and so many memories of your voice, your presence and your amazing Japanese-food birthday parties for Svagito.
Moumina
Beloved Meera, I first met you and Geetesh in Amsterdam, then Poona and the Ranch, so long ago now! Our artist souls recognized each other immediately, although we never spent much time together; we each followed our separate paths and I always hoped that someday we could cross paths again wishing to enjoy your lovely presence again… Alas, existence has its own plans! l have shed my tears for your life cut short, but now l will sit and send my energy to you as you return to Source, and to Svagito for his and all of our loss, this beauty of beauties who has left her love paintings to us all. Namaste from
Tarpana in Quebec xxx
I remember an exhibition of Meera’s paintings in Meera Barn, when it still existed in the ashram. These were nude paintings of men and women in sexual poses – so powerful and also so alive – and Meera was sitting there laughing….
Sharmi Agnidipta
Goodbye, crazy Meera, you were always a challenge to my lazy soul, poking me with “Wake up! Come on!”, especially during your visits at Osho RISK. Thank you!
Madhupran
Beloved Meeraji, disbelief… No not you… The first shock of your leaving passed… You would always invite me to come and sing in your group or your training, always a big smile and a hug in passing… And I remember dinner at your home by the river. Every day in my home I enjoy the beauty of your work, the big poster in my living room; Hortense with beautiful purple flowers. I see it every day right in front of me and a small original in my bedroom which you gave me for my birthday. From now on I will embrace and cherish with a more tangible sense of love. Your expression in colour, always an expression of nature at its most vibrant. Such an expression of you. So much love to you and so much love to beloved Svagito – wishing you strength. There are no words to say, your gifts to us each day – all around your creation, all around our gratefulness…
Narayani
Our beloved cherry blossom has been blown away by the winds – and just like those cherry blossoms, her beauty will never die. Fly High dear crazy heart Meera. Thank you beloved for your pure, deep, loving heart and your ever-present cheerful encouragement… always inspiring Deva and me to step beyond our comfort zone, out into the magical light of the full moon where the cherry blossoms dance and sing in the Master’s love. We love you.
Miten
Today during satsang, Sri Prem Baba paid a tribute to Meera with an improvised musical creation posted on soundcloud (from 1h04’44”)
Prem Soham
I am reporting that Meera Hashimoto left her body in a diving accident in South Africa.
I attended many times her painting groups meeting people who today are among my dearest friends. I feel now the need to share with you and all those who have known or have participated in those groups my regret and sorrow over the loss of an exceptional person, an artist whose greatest work of art was her own life. How many times did I find myself seeing how lucky I was to live an experience with her! My memories of groups at Miasto and Ibiza between 2003 and 2013 are among the most beautiful of my life. Meera has given me a lot and helped me in a difficult walk of life with her unbounded love of life and experience; and with her constant invitation to “doing” in meditation. Her unconventional soul willingly let reveal all the vitality of her “inner child”. It drove her exceptional performances by which she gave an example to her group participants how to play with colors by sharing them with others on the sheet of rice paper, to recognize the dance of tree limbs and to dance with them on the sheet and not to be afraid to “see” its deeper image emerge from the mirror, in meditation. Meera could recognize the beauty that lies hidden in each person and in the things that surround us. “Go and bring your beauty into the world!”
I hope they will organize sooner or later some kind of celebration of her life which I would like to be informed of so that I can eventually participate. And I hope that the knowledge of her work may exceed the confines of the world of Osho.
An affectionate thought even to dear Svagito, her most loving and tender companion, of which I was able to appreciate the deep sensitivity and humanity in a group in Ibiza.
Dear Meera, I now like to imagine that your soul is hovering here and there over the world, caressing one last time the hundreds of men and women you cared about and that you loved in your life. It will be a long journey before you leave us and definitely connected to the energy of the Whole.
A fond memory and a huge hug to all!
Mario from Genoa, Italy
Very touched by her presence again! It is like she is flying around and reconnect with all who worked with her. Such love, such presence, such joy, such harmony, such creativity! Meera Keejai!
Deva Satranga
Rajan Goyal
Beloved one,
You were always diving deep into life, into anything that you were doing. You and Geetesh showed me the way to express myself through painting and made me immensely happy. With you I could suddenly paint and dance and laugh from all my heart. For the first time in those years in the Art Group I became really alive. You were my sister, friend, teacher and somehow also my spiritual guide. We shared those beginning years in the Art Group, in Pune, Amsterdam and Sicily. Later we moved on different paths. Now that you would have become 70 (incredible, because you are so timeless) I intended to come and see you some day. Now I only see you in my heart and there is immense love and gratitude, also the pang and tears of a final goodbye – I know you can’t do other than fly high. Thank you for all your love and reaching out for me. Your sister
Sneh
Beloved Meera, Osho came through your eyes into my heart. Thank you, beloved amazing sweet strong Meera. Dear Svagito, I shall keep you and your beloved Meera in my thoughts and my heart.
Ma Marga Suravi (Italy)
Chandana (aka Kalpana) writes:
Prem Wilfried (Wilfried Maier) was born in a small village in the Allgäu region, Germany, as a farmer’s son.
I met him in 1977 in a shared house at the Groschenweg in Munich when he was not yet a sannyasin. Although he had studied to become a surveyor and worked for a couple of years in the profession, at that time he was already a taxi driver – a job he had for the rest of his life. He always drove at night and slept in a darkened room during the day.
When I met him again, in 1980, he already wore a mala.
In 1983 he became father to a daughter with whom, to his great chagrin, he could never live together.
For many years, Wilfried enjoyed visiting the sannyas centres at the Amalienstrasse and Klenzestraße as well as the sannyas disco near the “Platzl” in Munich.
He started to smoke only at the age of 30, but from then on intensively; he also liked to drink beer or red wine and loved to listen to music by candlelight. He loved women, dancing, the sea and the island of La Gomera. He was a romantic, although he did not look like one at first. He lived for many years in a shared house at the Ganghoferstrasse. Since 2000 he lived alone in a 2-room apartment in the Munich city district of Berg am Laim.
We became a couple only in 1994 – for eight years. Then we parted ways until we met again in November 2015.
Wilfried suffered from pancreatic cancer with liver metastases and left his body in a Munich hospital. I cared for him constantly during the 3 ½ months since his diagnosis, and spent the night before his last night, when he was already in a coma, in his hospital room.
He was a very meditative person.
Fly high, Wilfried, fly high!
Mega writes:
I knew him in the 80’s when I was a door keeper at the Far Out Disco. He was a taxi driver and would often come. I last met him a few years ago at our Osho Tribe Reunion in Munich. So sorry to hear this.
Rashida writes:
I lived together with him in the early 80’s. I remember when he was cooking his morning eggs; I could hear them dancing in the boiling water. I had an easy time with him; there were two more people living in the same flat. Yes, Willi now, wish you a peaceful travel to a higher space.
Ramabhajan writes:
Prem Wilfried enjoyed a sauna almost every week, visiting friends, meditating at home and going out. He was very correct with his relationships. He loved his old sannyasin friends with whom he took trips to water sources and to various events. Always enjoying life pure. Wilfried was a great cook; he loved to serve his delicious food which he prepared full of heart. He was never aggressive; he was always cool, calm and conscious – a good man. He loved nature and he always had a helping hand. We had so much laughter together. He could really be funny. He was so alive and natural – his soul can fly easily.
Photos credit to Ramabhajan and Chandana – thanks for the alert go to Rashida, Ramabhajan and Mega
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Sarvam was born Pieter Cornelius Loopy in 1955 in Leerdam, Netherlands. He became a sannyasin at the end of 1980. He passed away suddenly; he had the flu for a couple of days, and then a massive heart attack brought his life in rural Spain to a standstill.
Deva Nivedita writes:
For twenty years Sarvam had been living in the south of Spain with his wife Maaike, a life he always had in mind; in the countryside, in his own house, with a loving partner at his side, with his dogs and the possibility of work.
Sarvam loved to work; he loved to create, get up early in the morning, have a good breakfast and get going. He made wonderful cabinets, tables, bathrooms, kitchens. You name it, he made it for you – the carpenter of heaven – with love and dedication, in his own time, in his own style. Work was his meditation. Lately he made very beautiful lamps, artworks made of materials from the land surrounding him. They mirrored the love he felt for this place.
I met Sarvam for the first time in 1977 and there was an instant connection between us. I loved his innocence and purity. He was not a great talker, but if he had his mind set on a project he went for it. We became friends and then went our own way to get going with (in) the world; me exploring my inner world in Poona, Sarvam exploring South America.
About four years later we met again on a sunny day in the streets of Berkeley, California. I was waiting for a bus and there passes this car with some orange-clad folks inside. Car stops, reverses and Sarvam beams at me with a big smile.
Surprise!
A very big surprise it was to meet him there, one because I did not know where he had been hanging out and a big surprise to see him as a sannyasin, which was no surprise at all – I knew it all along somehow. Apparently he had become a sannyasin at the end of 1980 after travelling to India and visiting friends in Poona.
We stayed connected while in the Berkeley community but once I left the States our contact was on hold. To make a long story a little shorter, I will jump to the time that we became lovers, a couple of years later, thousands of miles away, in Berlin, Germany. He came to visit his former lover Udgita in the commune but ended up with me instead. How amazing to fall in love with a friend! How relaxing and exciting at the same time.
But huge Berlin became too small for us and we went to live in Italy. Sun, wine and the beautiful countryside became part of our life. We visited sannyas centers and started working as rebuilders in different locations in that wonderful country. A gnawing feeling of not being in the right place, geographically and in the relationship, brought an end to our stay in Italy and we moved to the Netherlands.
And there, after being lovers for almost thirteen years, making wonderful friends, working, playing, travelling to Portugal, Mexico and through the grand desert in Africa, allowing dogs in our life and our beds, we moved out of our relationship back to being just friendship.
And “just friendship’ was the diamond in the crown.
Sarvam went for his own dream and so did I. We finally enjoyed and respected each other for what we were worth. But both shared the same essential fragrance from Osho of freedom and independence.
Sarvam met Maaike and this new love gave wings to his dream of having a place in another country. The Netherlands became increasingly stressful for him. Spain wasn’t just around the corner but definitely the place to be for them.
I had the chance to visit them in 2004 and shared and enjoyed their life for a while. It was a wonderful experience and we stayed in touch ever since. We will stay in touch.
love, where the stars are gone
you will go
where the moon has gone
you will go
where the sun is shining
you will shine
Dharmen Sengers writes:
Our friend Sarvam will be missed by many. He was always an independent man. He always followed his own heart and insight. He loved being in Pune. He often came out of discourse with the remark, “sometimes Osho talks a lot nonsense”, made us all laugh. In the communes he was put in charge of building and construction because he was a great craftsman but he also dropped it because he didn’t like structure; he took days off or even weeks when he wanted to. Yes, I will miss him. He was a great guy for a party and with him you ended up in the strangest of places.
Anand Natyam writes:
I’ve known Sarvam since we were teenagers and he has been in and out of my life ever since. So many memories, so many adventures. Hippie days in Amsterdam, India meeting Osho, taking sannyas and the Ranch.
Everyone you come close to somehow becomes a part of you and adds something to your life. With Sarvam it would be his ‘no bullshit’ approach to life, his humour and common sense.
So grateful, Sarvam, that you entered my life and added so much to it. Bon voyage, my friend on your next adventure!
You can leave a message / tribute / anecdote using our contact form (please add ‘Sarvam’ in the subject field)…
Prem Gayan (aka Lucia) was born in 1966 and took sannyas in 2001 at Osho Miasto Center in Tuscany. Throughout the years she remained connected to Miasto and, whenever she had an opportunity, she would come and assist during the monthly meditation camps.
Three years ago Gayan had an operation to remove a brain tumour and recovered well. Last year metastasis were found in several organs and, although she had an optimistic approach towards the cancer, in January it was clear that it was only a question of time.
Gayan wrote the letter below, addressed to herself as Lucia, during the group “The Art of Dying” with Ramateertha at Osho Miasto. She participated in the group after the operation and her wish was to share this letter with her friends, when she would leave her body.
Dear Lucia,
Thanks for letting me live so many experiences; some were painful, others ecstatic, others difficult, but each in their own way beautiful and important. Thank You!
I thank you for giving me my son, who has taught me patience, caring, dedication and love. I know that many times you were not able to deal with him, but also the mistakes you committed, you did them with passion and commitment.
It was the greatest gift you gave me, the most intense joy, together with the fact that you, one day, 12 years ago, brought me to meet Osho. Thank you for having the courage, the strength, and the humbleness for being able to expose yourself; thanks for being open to know your dark sides; thanks for slowly, slowly taking off that dress of “the good girl” that you had worn to please mom and dad.
I remember how many times you felt lost and had the courage to go into that moodiness. Thank you for having felt love for many people, men, women and for having been able to express it; and thanks also for all the times where shyness kept you from coming out in the open.
Thank you for your courage also, that time when you confessed to Luca that you liked him, from which was born an immense love that allowed you to grow as a woman.
I’m grateful for your passion for travelling and for the outdoor life; so many beautiful landscapes I have seen!
And thanks for giving me a strong body, solid, that knew how to deal with illnesses and that regained strength. A body that has allowed you to dance, jump, do a lot of sport, walking to the top of mountains and explore the waters of the ocean. And last year allowed me to discover singing … what a joy!
It is hard to let go of you; there is pain, fear and gratitude.
I love you.
You can leave a message / tribute / anecdote using our contact form (please add ‘Gayan’ in the subject field)…
