Talk:Encounter (group)

It is said in Groups that the people in groups got to come to Darshan when their groups were finished. This was the case in mid-1978 and later (afaik) when i was doing groups, but in earlier times it may have been different. And in fact, in 1976, it WAS different, at least for Encounter.

We find many references in the CD-ROM to the Encounter group's being present in darshan on a given night. Several of them indicate, suggest or hint that the group is still in progress, a fact which can possibly be verified by referring to the original hard copy versions. One clear example of this is in the case of Veeten/Terence Stamp: in his sannyas darshan, Osho tells him to book for Encounter on Dec 4-10 (1976), and the CD-ROM tells us that Encounter group is present on the evening of Dec 8. (The precise dates Veeten is to book for are scrubbed out of the CD-ROM but his complete darshan message is reproduced in Osho News' report on this event, original source The Shadow of the Whip, Ch 8.)

FWIW, the instances of the Encounter group being present in darshan found in the CD-ROM are 5 Jan, 17 Mar, 27 Mar, 5 Apr, 25 Apr, 27 May, 27 Jun, 13 Jul, 27 Jul, 27 Aug, 8 Sep, 27 Sep, 8 Oct, 27 Oct, 8 Nov, 8 Dec, 27 Dec, all 1976. Then they get more sporadic: 8 Feb, 11 Apr and 28 May of 1977 and 3 Feb and 29 Apr of 1978. The patterns suggest a few things:

1. Not every occasion is noted of the group's presence, at least in the CD-ROM. Perhaps only small talk arose on occasions left out.

2. Encounter seems to have been offered twice a month, with some variability in the timings, though very regular at the end of 1976.

3. As time marched on, mentions became more sporadic. This is not because Encounter lost its cachet but because all such interactions, ie between Osho and visiting group-leaders and/or their participants, diminished as more people came to take sannyas, along with ever-more arriving and leaving darshans, and then Energy Darshans. -- doofus-9 23:27, 15 January 2021 (UTC)