Sw Deva Sarlo
After a long time in Vancouver, moved to Vancouver Island in 2008, in a bucolic rustic paradise for as long as i can "manage." Chopping wood, etc.
Since 2013, plunged into wiki editing big-time; since 2014, working especially with Osho's Hindi books, where there is still lots to learn and unlearn ... the blessings continue.
Love, Sarlo
A Personal History, for those so inclined:
Sannyas Jun 1978 in Pune (Madman's Guide), 11 x groups, back to Vancouver to get more money to "stay forever", returning in Aug '79 (Upset Sutra) to do a few more groups then work. My luck o' th' draw: Guard, getting to challenge (or not) people's perceived right to pass, and being on call for whatever, and watching it all, not least a reluctance to challenge.
The "reluctance to challenge" was a fairly cool device for all concerned. In fact, most jobs in the ashram had a component whereby the needs of the job might at times mean that the otherwise lowly position would assign the holder of that position a certain amount of power over others, even those who would normally be "above" them in most other situations. Such as a kitchen worker who would close the line twenty minutes before discourse and stand firm against all importuning "important" people who would demand a last piece of toast.
That said, guarding had more scope than most jobs for saying no and otherwise exploring the use of authority with strangers and not-so-strangers, so i got to explore an area of some discomfort. (Which was certainly the case with most ashram jobs; we were not there to be comfortable.) Telling people they couldn't pass did not come easily and naturally. What to say to the woman who lived at #122 for whom the gate was locked for the 45 minutes of energy darshan and who just wanted to get quietly to her room and rest, and could have entered easily if she had just come a few minutes earlier? The word was "No", but i felt like a heartless torturer and an obedient slave to an inhuman rulebook saying it.
Very good then, feel like a heartless torturer and obedient slave, and see where that takes you. It's all processing, grist for the mill. And no real harm done. I told her if she could manage to climb over the wall (not easy), i wouldn't interfere. She waited for forty minutes until i opened the gate. That was her device.
Guarding did have some perks to compensate for the suffering of saying no. All workers got to go to darshan every three or four weeks. Guards were among the lucky crew who also got to go occasionally to be "lifters" during energy darshan, ie to carry those who were unable to make their own way to the back of the hall after being zapped in their personal energy darshan. Perhaps this was a compensation for being male in a system where virtually everything was run by women. (More on that later.)
After a slow, sleepy start (five months at #122), i began to "rise in the ranks" to the back gate, but not for long. An intruder managed to sneak into Lao Tzu, getting to Osho's bedroom window during the night while the guard there was sleeping. The unfortunate guard got sent back to the back gate and i got bounced back to 122.
The intrusion heralded a new era in guarddom though. The guard dept got split into the elite, martial-arts-handy Samurais, who guarded Lao Tzu, and the more laid-back "Krishna guards" (named for Sw Anand Krishna), who guarded everything else.
This split occurred in Feb 1980. Everything after that in guardland became more serious, though naturally we did our best not to take it too seriously. But really, Osho had always to change or escalate the situations through which we would have to pass, so as to continually push us into seeing and processing some inner obstacle or inner strength on the path to truth / light / love. The escalation of seriousness of course came to a grand climax at The Ranch. More about that when we get to it.
In guardland, we soon got uniforms. They were spiffy and classy in their way but they were still uniforms and as such inspired currents of anti-uniformity that lay latently or not-so-latently in many of us. They were a plain maroon, cut in a martial-arts-inspired way: a wide-open jacket with stiff lapels (edges or whatever you might call them) that could be closed with a wide cloth belt, no metal, just tie a knot. Pants were a kind of capacious pajama with one atrocious ill-considered feature: They were supposedly designed to allow freedom of movement so that one could actually do martial arts but the crotch was so low, it actually inhibited full movement. (To imagine how this might be so, just consider an exaggerated possibility, of the crotch going as low as the knees, and with your knees held together, make a great kick.)
While we're here, it will be good to mention Bodhena, who was a guard too. He has managed to get a worthy book together which includes lots of memories of those days in Pune One. The two pics at right are samples taken from excerpts of his book put up at Osho News. Links to the collected excerpts are here.
We also had to practice at martial arts, mainly aikido and tae-kwon-do, which were not well-suited to my laid-back self-image. In those practice sessions we were re-united with our former brethren the samurais, but they were gung-ho, already hot-shot practitioners while most of the Krishna guards were not. So off we went kicking and punching at the air, shouting Huh! and Zah! as enthusiastically as possible. It was at one of these practice sessions that Vimalkirti burst a blood vessel in his brain, leading him to leave his body a week later. I was not at that one.
I was not back at 122 for long before my "career track" resumed. I was moved to a number of posts, then got to be a "rounder", someone who would go 'round and give guards who could not leave their posts a pee and tea break. While not doing this, i would sit at Hotei, the thatched-roof open hut at the end of Buddha Hall where people would pass into the less public part of the ashram (if they were allowed). This modest hut also served as Krishna's office, so i would help with some of his paper work, which was growing as the ashram grew.
Then . . . More to come . . .
Contact Details
- address
- Vancouver Island
- Canada
- phones
- Phone:
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- email Sarlo
- websites
- Mueslings
- Songs in the Key of Osho
- Sarlo's Guru Rating Service
- Zen Masters Lineage Chart (all the Zen/Chan masters Osho has talked about)
