As I have been in Pune until August and worked in the commune for many years I would like to share some of my experience. Not much is known directly about Osho's guidance for the new pyramid. Mostly we have only the words of some people. To the perception of some friends, and me the new pyramid is a space that attracts big egos and it gives them space to work on their egos. That is definitely not Osho's work.
But it is not a space where the guest is invited. It is not a space where Osho is invited, or Buddha, or the ten thousand Buddhas. When the whole resort-trip started, Vatayana said in a meeting: "The new people don't come here for any spiritual enlightenment". It is meditation for busy people, but nothing esoteric like enlightenment. Already, over the last months the cutting of Osho's discourses during White Robe has become prevalent, most discourses were split and the cutting was done at odd places or the complete end was cut off and in all discourses the entering and leaving of Osho was cut off. To old discourses the ending meditation from Zen discourses was added, but without pictures and it lasted only up to the first "Yes Osho"; Osho's question, "Can we celebrate the ten Thousand Buddhas?" The 'Yes' and 'Celebration' were cut off. Once I witnessed, that Maneesha was asked, "Do you promise to keep on celebrating?" and ... cut. So for me it is not a question of devotion or a marble podium or holding on to the old, it is a question of the spiritual dimension of Osho's work.
Devageet mentioned that Osho wanted the meditators to enter the new hall via a bridge over water as a symbol for dropping the mind. Exactly this original design was dropped. I was amazed when I visited a publishing house near Munich last week and entered the building via a bridge over water. Something of Osho was resonating in me when I crossed this bridge. In Pune there is no bridge, but two square basins of water to the right and left of the walkway towards the hall. In the beginning it was put out, that Osho wanted a Dharamshala, a resting-place for seekers. This name also got dropped and the new hotel is called Osho Guesthouse.
In Pune I have spent the best of my twelve years in the housekeeping department that organizes cleaning and maintenance and in the course of events also took charge of the gardens. If you listen to Osho or read his books, many times you come across what he says about trees, how trees are living sensitive beings (I once read, that they will one day take revenge on man for all his killing of trees). Many times Osho harassed Mukta for hiding her scissors behind her back. In the last years I witnessed a continuous harassment of Mukta by the Housekeeping Department. When the commune started, Osho told the gardeners to plant trees, then they said, it's enough, and he said, plant more trees, and they said, it's enough, and he said, plant more, Through this the marvelous and unique campus, where you literally walk through the trees and look into them and dance with them and are surrounded by them, was created.
There is a story about the fountain that used to be in front of Krishna House. Designs to change this area were sent to Osho, and he changed the design, and new designs where sent in, and so on. And then at the end he said: what's wrong with the fountain? So it stayed. And got removed some years ago after he left and got replaced by a "designed" area. Many plants got ripped out in course of time.
Another styled area got started around the cappuccino bar (which used to be Eckhard House). Once Mukta caught Anandadas ripping out plants there and he told her, that this is not her business, and that this should be a styled garden. And whenever Mukta left for a few months, there was this: Oh, she is gone, now we can cut. What not many know: she resigned from the Inner Circle a while ago because she was fed up of saying yes to "fait accompli". The Meera area was a later addition to the campus and there also the
gardeners put a lot of love into the garden. Then shortly before I left this summer the whole area got redesigned. Already during the time of construction of the new pyramid, lot of trees had been removed. Videha originally wanted to cut them and only through the initiative of Namito most of the trees did not get cut, but were moved. Nevertheless, so many smaller trees, bushes and other plants were just thrown out. The garden was replaced by stones. Videha's design has not only most of the ground covered by square stones, but he also built stone walls all through this area to make it really and completely square.
Through all this I got a lot of insight into how Jayesh wants the place to look like and after the report about him going around the campus I could feel him replacing Osho's garden by his idea of a Zen Resort. In this context it has to be noted, that the word Zen has been misused by the resort (and other Sannyasins) over the last years. Zen has been used for the way of the mind that controls and represses. What Jayesh and Amrito think of Zen has nothing to do with Zen. Zen is alive, it is full of reverence for nature, it is not opposed to the heart, it is Zorba the Buddha. In the name of Zen the upper structure of the Buddha Hall podium including the Pagoda did get demolished when everybody was gathered in what Osho called the "Meeting of the Osho White Robe Brotherhood" and lately got renamed into the "Evening Meeting or Sandhya Satsang".
And many in Pune cried and were shocked! They are in disagreement with all that is going on. And if you see the whole picture and the development over the last years this is an expression of wanting to destroy the Master's podium, wanting to destroy the bridge of the Master to the seeds. Nowadays Osho is a label, a trademark. If you want to check this out, look at www.osho.com. To accomplish this, an immense job of streamlining had to be done over the last few years. Neelam once called this 'streamlining' a process of slow poisoning. And by the way, the management team was not created by Osho; it was started after Neelam left the commune. Devageet, I notice, you are very fast in saying that something comes from Osho. I heard Osho say, that he wants a holiday resort, where everybody can play his guitar as he likes, but I did not hear him describing the reality of Zen Resort Pvt. Ltd (that's the name of the company in whose name most of the business is run).
So, many things had to be streamlined: There is no doubt, that Osho wanted a continuous publicity about AIDS and the dangers of AIDS. Already years ago the last notice boards about AIDS got removed and even in a Tantra issue of the Osho Times for India (!) the subject of AIDS and Safe Sex did not even got mentioned. Amrito had told us, that Osho had told him to remind his people, that his leaving the body was the work of the American fundamentalists. But as the hope of the resort is directed towards America, all reminders had to be dropped, from the biography in the books, from the Osho Times, from the Web. The commune got created as a place, where all the work is done by the people coming there. Osho asked many times the place to be run without hired labor.
Now a French multinational company called Sodexho runs the new hall and the new hotel. This includes all the cleaning and especially the cleaning of the new hall. These guys can be put into neat uniforms, do what you want them to do, can get fired and everybody gets exchanged after six months to prevent any trade-unionism. Just do a little google-search in the Internet with the word "Sodexho" (don't miss the involvement of Sodexho into the business of privatized jails in America) and you will find Jayesh's vision. But for this you don't have to go to Pune. There are many other nice places available.
Now it's the flight from the Alone to the Alone. This feels very good and it gets better day-by-day. For me it cannot mean that I will ever stop raising my voice when our egos claim to work in the name of Osho. In that spirit I want to mention one more issue of immense significance. Osho Friends International write: "Osho disciples and Sannyasin publishers who were publishing Osho's books in their original version, have been harassed by this outfit (i.e. Osho International Foundation) with costly legal cases. We know that they have also sold world rights of some books to Western publishers and the books have been heavily edited. We are afraid that soon there will be no original versions of books left in the world." Amrito is notorious for heavily editing Osho's words. Just by chance I came across a brochure that he published years ago and just by chance I compared one discourse with the version on the CD. The result was shocking. Maybe it's time for somebody of the publishing department to speak out. Neelam was one of them. For a long time she has been in a power position and has been involved in many things. But she also had the courage to speak out. For that heaps of shit has been thrown at her. It was interesting, that in all that Devageet quoted there is no mention of the issues of maroon robes, Sannyas celebration, work meditation and Samadhi that she mentioned to me.
I was also involved in many things, as was Nandan and as was Devageet. So, for me all this is not about personal stuff against anybody, it is about cleaning our own unconscious, it is about stopping to compromise and starting to live, what the Master is giving to us.
