“I stagger out onto the lawn, lie down in the grass and weep at the sky for some time, then stagger out the back gate and wander down the road to find a spot on a wall to sit where I won’t be visibly devastated to everyone who passes by.
“It is lunchtime, and the children from the nearby school are on the streets. Two small girls come up to me and, in their singsong voices, try to practice their English: ‘What’s your name?’ I play the game grudgingly, wishing they would go away, until one holds out her hand and asks, almost demands, ‘Paisa?’ [Money?]
“NO! I say, with all the guilt and anger one feels when confronted by a poverty that can never be healed by a few coins tossed in its direction. She asks again, more gently this time, looking straight into my eyes. ‘Paisa…?’
“I hear the words in my head: ‘You can’t give anything, not even a few words.’ I dig into my bag and give her a 10-paisa coin, and the two of them skip off down the road, leaving me alone to wallow in my self-pity. A few minutes later, just as I’m starting to settle and even to be a little hungry, the girls return, carrying three stalks of sugarcane, one each for them and one for me. They sit with me again and, laughing at my ineptness, show me how to strip the skin off it with my teeth to get to the sweet inner core. Then they head back to school, and it’s time for me to head back to the group. I’m ready.
… “Over time, I saw that there was a (perceived, if not actual) hierarchy both of groups (‘beginner’ through ‘advanced’) and of group leaders, and that some of those group leaders were ‘stars.’ It was also pretty clear to me that some of the group leaders took themselves seriously as stars and behaved as such, while others were more down to earth, accessible, ordinary. Regardless, Osho’s presence was somehow always in the group room. His photo was there to oversee the proceedings—sometimes with amusement, sometimes with a raised eyebrow, sometimes with intense interest and presence. And his guidance—his understanding that it’s not about fixing the mind but about freeing the being—was always at the core of the group offerings.”
*
Group participants and their leaders always have a darshan together after the conclusion of their group. At the time of the commencement of the darshan diaries, ten different therapy groups are underway. Later we can boast a staggering range of therapies—some offered on a group basis, others through individual sessions. Added to those previously listed are Energy Work, Tantra, Centering, Soma, Rebirthing, Rebalancing, Dehypnotherapy, Rolfing, T’ai Chi; in addition there are the purely meditative ones: Vipassana and Zazen.
At darshan group members have the chance to speak to Osho individually. Someone might express that he feels he’s left something unfinished from the experience; others simply want to say how good they feel. To the former, Osho might suggest another group or even repeating the one they have just completed if they have not thrown themselves into it as totally as they might have. At other times Osho might suggest an individual meditation to help clear the person of the block they have.
Countless issues are brought to Osho, not the least being the inability to express what is happening internally. It is true, Osho says to a person with this problem: often the changes inside happen so rapidly, are so elusive, that they defy definition; and the thing is so big it cannot be caught in words. “So whenever something real happens, you can show it but you cannot say it. The next time when you feel like that, you can come and dance, or you can sing a song, or anything. Or you can just sit silently, not saying anything. I will understand.”
However many we are, however often he has heard this particular problem, always Osho’s attention is totally available for each person—unique in ourselves and thus needing a unique response. So, two people might come with the same question and Osho’s suggestions indicate opposite directions for each.
One person might say they have too much sexual energy: perhaps the Tantra group is appropriate for them, or a special technique that enables them to turn the energy inward rather than in an overt expression of sexuality. Another might be experiencing great fear: the suggestion may be that, in the protective environment of a group, they go fully into it. Conversely Osho might suggest they be with the fear, witnessing it as something separate and passing.
The group leaders have the opportunity to ask for Osho’s comments about how they are doing in their roles. They have all led groups in the West but this is a whole new ball game—being in a ‘Buddhafield’ and an environment in which therapy is not an end in itself, and the group leader is not a master but a sannyasin, in the same boat as the rest of us.
Veeresh is present one evening with his “Aum Marathon” group. He felt “thrown off a bit” doing groups in the ashram, he says, adding: “I never had anyone to account to before. Here I started to look at what I’m doing, and I realize that a lot is wanting to please you, to get your approval. I think that was important for me. The Marathon seemed to be turning out better for the leaders than for the participants, from my point of view.”
Of course Veeresh has had more freedom when he was working on his own, Osho agrees, so it was easier. Osho’s constantly being in the background here has become a problem for Veeresh’s leadership. He could have dropped that as a problem, and that would have been a maturity for him. If group leaders are working on their own they remain outside the group, so no growth happens to them.
Osho continues:
Sometimes helping others can become an escape, because you forget your own problems…. You always have to be the wise guy, so you remain outside. How can you bring up your own problems? If you do it will be difficult to help others because they become unconfident about you. So you have to pretend that you are absolutely certain about what you are doing. The act helps others, it certainly helps, but for your own growth it is poisonous.
By and by you will completely forget that you were acting. Your problems will remain in the unconscious, waiting; but by and by you will stop looking at them. In fact you will avoid them whenever they come up. This is not only for you but for all group leaders. This is so for Divya [she has been leading Primal Therapy groups in the ashram and is present at this particular darshan]. She is perfect in helping others; then her technical knowledge functions. But when it comes to her own problems, all technical knowledge flops.
So in his next group, Veeresh is to try to allow Osho to work through him. And he does not need to worry about having or losing his approval:
What you do is not the point but what you are. Whether you do or not, succeed or fail, is irrelevant: my approval is unconditional and you can rely on it. You can be a failure and rely on it; you need not bother about being successful.
And much had happened for the group, Osho adds. Simply, Veeresh has been so preoccupied with this issue that he may not have been aware of it.
“Come here and contradict Veeresh!” Osho greets the first group participant, as Veeresh returns to his place and she takes her turn on the hot seat.
On another occasion, this time not in darshan but privately, Osho talks briefly to Teertha—the erstwhile meditation leader and now facilitator of the Encounter workshop. At this time he is also my partner, and he has fallen in love with his assistant. Apart from the hurt Teertha is causing me (seated, on this occasion with him, in front of Osho,) Osho says it’s not a good idea for a therapist to be romantically involved with his assistant; otherwise they can inhibit each other’s working in the group, watching out to see if the other is being sexually attracted to a group member, and so on.
*
Osho is not just a super-therapist. He encourages most Westerners to go through groups, to work on the body, the mind, and the emotions—but this is just a preliminary step, a kind of weeding, before the seeds of meditation can take root. Always he reminds us of what lies beyond: the fourth dimension, Turiya. His dictum—like that of Buddha twenty-five centuries ago saying “Cheravedi…cheravedi…”—is “Go on. Keep moving; there is more, much more.”
It’s only now I realize that on the path that has led me here, to Osho, I systematically explored the body, through my nursing experience, the mind,