Nivedano Interview 2012

Interview made by Sw Anand Goloka with Sw Anand Nivedano, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, June 2012.

Why only now, after 22 years from the time that Beloved Osho left the body, did you decide to show the world your experience with Him?

Nivedano: When I came to Brasil in 1991, I wasn’t mature enough to face the consequences that such a move would bring to me and the work that I am proposing. Brasil was at that time very unwelcoming towards us, especially after the blunder of the sannyasins who came with us and now are lost in that wonderful place, full of unconsciousness, called Alto Paraíso in Goiás.

The mango is only ready when it is ripe, sweet, delicious.

I have heard that you lived in Lao Tzu House for many years. What impression did this intense experience with Osho have on you?

Nivedano: To live in the presence of a Master is already a very rare and unique opportunity. In my case I was immensely honored by so much attention that Osho showered, better yet, poured over me in such a trust. One day, Shunyo, one of the Master´s attendants, came to the garden to tell me that I should not be worried about the politics around him, and to say that He trusts me. When a Master trusts his disciple it is a sign that even to a disciple it is possible to surprise the Master. I loved to surprise Him with poems, gardens and beautiful music.

You were the most constant and active musician in the work of Osho, is this true? Tell me about it, please.

Nivedano: Yes, indeed I was playing in His presence from day one all the way to His last day in the body. In reality even after he left the body he might have still heard my drums in Buddhahall when Amrito told the commune of His death. On my first day on the Pune Commune, upon arrival, I played for Satsang and Darshan.

After that He told me not to bother about any therapy groups. I was to go immediately to the music scene and there I stayed for all the years with him. I saw an ad two days ago and would like to correct their mistake by setting the record straight.

I love Milarepa and we are still friends but the truth of the matter is that he started to play for the celebrations regularly at the Pune 2 Commune in 1986. In March 1981 Bhagwan went into silence and Yashu, the flute player much loved by Osho, replaced Chaitania Hari / Deuter, today a famous musician.

The new band was Yashu, Rupesh, Haridas and Nivedano with occasional guest musicians. Osho was in silence and we played through the whole Zarathrustra series, that lasted 2 months.

Then we went to USA with the Master and he took His new band and as He always did, He showered his light on us continuously and there too, there was always music. At Rajneeshpuram there was music every day. Indian Kirtans, Music groups, Sufi Dance, Theater, Ballroom Dances. At that time I met the great Milarepa that today fills our hearts with sweet music and illuminations, I love him dearly, great guy, a real mango eater!!!

At the end of His life, Osho created, devised a new meditation and called it the Oshoba.

It happened because one evening I had a loud argument with Milarepa about the kind of music that was being played and that from that day on I would not play anymore. Osho heard about it and sent me a message not to stop playing. I then told Him that I would then make a new experiment with drums and Brazilian beats and it became the hit of the commune, and the Oshoba was born. It pushed lots of people’s buttons because it was a wild and very rhythmical, inducive and precisely executed combination of elements that brought the whole commune afire and celebrating.

He loved it and insisted that we kept that kind of music for Darshans. One day He told someone that He was happy with that kind of music and then said, “When the drummer is good even a Buddha can dance".

I was thrilled and immensely happy and unfortunately got continuously beaten by the jet‐set of the commune who wanted to remain on their small‐minded music dreams. Oshoba is the no‐mind way of the new‐man. It means let‐go, flow with the rivers and clouds, don’t be a miser, be an emperor, the bringer of joy and celebration...Yahoo, the Mystic Rose.

Osho mentions your name to beat the drum every time He conducts the 'no mind' meditation, starting and ending the 'gibberish', our most important prayer. What is the meaning of the drum in Zen?

Nivedano: The drum is an empty shell, without any mind, just like a new‐born baby. When you fill the baby with your non‐sense it becomes a monster like Mussolini, Gengis Khan or Ronald Reagan. But when the new‐born is left alone in his findings he will probably choose the way of being joyful and bliss‐out in its simplicity. Like that is playing a drum.

Put into the beat first, and most of all, the silences, then a handful of your imaginative essence and creativity, add beauty, sweetness and rhythm and there you have a commune afire, agog with celebration. It is contagious I can guarantee you.

We used to start the working day at the Pune Commune playing drums together to roll the day away with lots of fun and we did change the mood all around the commune.

This is the meaning of a beat‐less beat, beating the zero beat. In Zen it is used more severely, maybe so because of the snow or because the monks were prohibited to make love and became hard shells, who knows?

In Osho’s presence we co‐created the OSHOBA and this is a wonderful new way of one being meditative and yet alive and pulsating.

Nivedano, as well as a musician you were a gardener and landscaper of Osho. You built waterfalls and made part of the project Osho Theert ‐ Nala Park , which now decorates and beautifies the Osho International Meditation Resort. How did it happen and how did it affect your life? Osho also asked you to make a lake of dolphins around the Poona Ashram, is it true?

Nivedano: My first day in Rajneeshpuram was in the Lao‐Tzu garden and since that day I created most of the gardens around Osho’s houses and his communes. At first I didn’t know that I had that talent in me and was a side‐man for the Gardens coordinators at that time.

With Sw Tamaia and Sw Hendrikus I learned the magical way of using plants, flowers, huge trees and rocks to create beauty and wonders for the eyes and the heart. We had to make instant gardens wherever the Master would go and that training was necessary for the work that would happen years later at the Pune 2 Commune. When I got back to Pune 2 my main occupation was to make Osho’s socks and die them at night, 3 am.

One day I got the message to take away this and that buildings, put down the walls here and there, extend the road a bit here and there and make a waterfall and gardens all around the Budha Hall. Great idea!!! I Now I would now have to leave that wonderful and cozy environment of the sewing room, full of beautiful ladies, fruits and cakes, including my beloved Gayan, to go pound cement and sweat the shirt again with the babas and learn how to curse in Hindi! !! Maakishut!!!

That occupation of landscape gardener together with the music and all the extras made my life a wonderful opportunity to learn the magic of being contented, ecstatic and blissful. On His last days in the body He called me in His room and told me that the water fall, made of marble from the Makarana Desert wasn’t finished and asked me what to do about it.

I replied to him that it was taking that long because the bureaucrats didn’t want to give us more money to complete the work and were now really obnoxious and adamant about us to stop the construction. To continue the work I had to go around asking my rich friends to pay for the black granite, the new lights for night viewing the gardens and fall etc...

I got lucky and we put together almost 250.000 dollars and finished the job. By the way, he loved our work veeeery much. Still, not happy yet with the course that the situation took, the bureaucrats wanted to prove their point to the Master and dragged me again to see Him and by crook they found a solution to compromise and don’t lose face.

The Master winked at me and said “Nivedano, it is better to let go of this because I have a new project for you.” Excited to the max I asked Him what He wanted. He told me to make a Dolphin Pond around the Ashram and that I should start immediately. I went 2 days later to Hong Kong to be with the dolphins and found out that to do that in Pune would cost 5 million Dollars. I was ready to start when He left the body… Bye‐bye sweet Master, I still carry You in my heart, deeper and deeper.

Nivedano, what is Oshoba Celebration ?

Nivedano: Oshoba is the last meditation created by Osho. It still is such a force that still upsets the narrow minded people who don’t want to let go and join the dances on the caravanserai. The last moments in his presence were permeated by this Oshoba Celebration.

A music which is not music, a rhythm that takes your mind‐set regulators into chaos, a swing that is orgasmic and sacredly divine. It is supposed to wake you up and also should be done together with the gibberish part of the meditation. It is meant for this new generation of humans who are in a hurry to get to no‐where. It transforms the no‐where into now‐here.

I noticed that you have brought Umbanda into the context of your spiritual journey. What does that mean?

Nivedano: After being in India meditating at the feet of the Master Osho, playing His music and songs and doing the landscaping of both communes, I came to Brazil with my lady Gayan, and we moved into the forests at the most enchanting place that I’ve seen on this Earth.

It has been 20 years since we came here and most of them we stayed in the sacredness of the splendorous nature that abounds that area. By being in such immaculate nature it was possible to assimilate the impact of what Osho gave directly to me. I was hit for many years by the thunder and lightening of His presence. It was, though I didn’t know then, just a preparation for what would become here in Brazil Project New‐Man.

This experiment still goes on nowadays, only on a ticking mode now, waiting for the sacred yes from the universe, blessing us all, the ignorant, to continue. All that preparation was necessary to face here in Brazil an immense opposing force that still kicks and bites but is on its way out. They will go out screaming ‘murder’, but out of the picture they will go.

Through all this friction I become available to an egregore of beings that inhabits the universe and permeates the entire fabric of the cosmos, Kryon calls it the Lattice. The forests, full of wild animals, the starry sky full of wonders, the sweet waters and immense quietness, brought me to the pantheon of the Umbanda Masters.

These are many, and they are very beautiful and gracious beings and without my knowing I became their new companion. In such an undisturbed nature one becomes available, again, to what it means to be in a real spaciousness and who are our eternal companions on the caravanserai... Praise them, love them, support their divine nature... We are them and vice versa... always.

But, even being prepared exhaustively and personally by the Master, the lessons were not fully assimilated. The gringos poisoned Osho in USA and something was unfinished on my devoteeship with the great Bhagwan Osho Reketesneer.

Here in Brazil trough the Umbanda I came to realize what Osho and Exú have in common, what the man of the white cloth means...ha‐ha‐ha...Krishna with his bow and arrow, just like a Caboclo, Shiva and his trident and also Poseidon are just like Exú's trident.

Do you know what the trident really means? Find out, it may help you on the journey. Nowadays we are still living on the same forests with my new companionships who are the Umbanda Masters who presently are here to help on this planetary crisis.

Many of the people that I know as sannyasins may twist their noses about Umbanda and have the wrong Idea that Umbanda is a (Fundo‐de‐quintal) lesser, backyard religiousness. What a mistake!!!

I can tell you that Osho and Cipriano do Sião, also Master André da Umbanda, Exú Akezan do Universo, everyone sings the same songs and Umbanda and Zen, here, in this tropical environment, will really make a difference on facing what is coming on the way of humanity.

Osho laughed much, Exú is also a great master of laughter, what about you, and won’t you join the dance???

Now after 20 years on the forests and inside of the bureaucratic jungle. It is about time that Nivedano feels to bring out to the world the very last meditation created by Osho in Pune India, called OSHOBA. Not SAM‐BA, but OSHO‐BA. It is supported by an intense drumming that creates the atmosphere for you to let go of your fears and drop all the unnecessary bondage that keeps humanity imprisoned on cages made of gold.

It is made for the new humanity who flies on planes, eats poisoned food, freaks in general of the planet to whom just a sitting meditation won´t help at all. Before anything, one needs to empty the cup, the cup of the mind which is always full. The best of life is to be happy, joyous, contentedly blissful, Saravá!

Umbanda is the South American way of Zen. In this continent religiousness is colourful, rhythmical, full of zest and enthusiasm. Obviously, Zen in Brazil needs the colors, the drumbeat, the suntanned enlightened beings just like in the East, Zen has many faces, many ways. The color of Zen in India is saffron. In China, Japan and Asia it is usually Black. In Brazil there is a whole rainbow, it is to me a much more interesting way then having only one colour, uniformly for that branch or the other, Ha‐ha‐ha!!!

Buddha in reality had nothing to do with Zen Buddhism. By the time it happened to be called Zen, This Zen, That Zen... Gautama the Sacred, also my dearest beloved, was already in the Orun having a cup of tea with Sr. Exu.It is very important and opportune to remember, especially for the Osho´s sannyasins, that intense Black Magic was used to speed‐up his disembodiment.

Apparently it was done by a Disciple who died years later inside the Vatican walls. So, first of all have respect. This story that the light is stronger than the darkness is bullshit made to lullaby you into oblivion. What is called light is always fair and just and what is known by darkness is always using every trick on the book to prevent humanity, you for sure, to be free of this eternal bondage. Osho`s vision and Umbanda understanding are meant to melt and evolve. When Osho left, I was starting to become acquainted with other ways of perceiving different realities, parallel to this limited 3 dimensional environment of the Earth.

The channel was becoming cleaner and more refined, therefore easier to manifest whoever was around at the time. During discourses at time I could see very loving beings full of glowing luminous presence all around Buddha‐Hall. I never said anything because I was already known to be crazy and if I started to tell that I´ve seen this or that hanging around, they would stone me dead. I guess that in the beginning I´ve joined Umbanda to learn how to channel and further on be able to channel Osho.

It was going well until the day that, during a channeling practice with the Eastern Phalanx, I heard Osho`s voice telling me not to bother Him anymore because I could now go on, on my own and please rejoice in such blessed company as the Umbanda Masters. Basically, he told me to give Him a break and get a job!!!

Why do you want to join the Osho in Brazil International Festival Team?

Nivedano: The most difficult and the arduous task in the established society today is to get individuals to pull‐up together to get anything done. It is a malady that has infected the whole planetary community. To get three people together to do any work is a major effort. Mama Mia chicho!!!

Nevertheless, I am a living witness of what can be created when a group of individuals team‐up and let it go beyond their small mind‐set conditionings. The creativity then happens on its most sacred expression. Because I’ve seen and experienced such a miracle happens, I trust that I am able to spark that flame once again and keep it burning up towards a balanced and calibrated humanity.

The south and the north should work together and not separated as ego‐ sparks, it should be a unity of the divide, shining together with the east and west and of course in the middle, where Project New Man takes place. I am talking about Brazilian sannyasins all over Brazil, most of them are ‘cobra‐criada’ and know everything better than the next one.

My aims are the simple people who never heard of such a thing as meditation, Yoga, Zen, etc…

That is why I am now at this unique and rare intersection in life where meeting of remarkable people are current life style. If you can join in with the ones who are really making the difference, maybe you will also meet a new man and maybe you yourself will be also a new man.