Talk:Ma Yoga Laxmi
Laxmi and subsequently many other people spread the story that she was the first sannyasin to be initiated,
but that was actually Ma Anand Madhu in 1970. [1]
[1] Max Brecher : A Passage to America, 2nd ed, p 376 --Rudra (talk) 19:19, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
Hmmm. Some clarification is needed. Laxmi was indeed among the first group to be initiated, with Madhu (and Dharm Jyoti and Chinmaya and Chaitanya Bharti usw), and that was in 1970 (not 1971 as on the article page). It hardly matters who was first in that group, so perhaps if she was making a big deal about that, she should get criticized. Otherwise ...
What is Max actually saying about her and her claim? I only have the first edition, maybe i could find it if i knew what else went with it. -- doofus-9 (talk) 07:52, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
- The next time Rajneesh arrived at Bombay's Victoria Terminus, Laxmi was on the platform to greet him with about 100 people. She was dressed in orange. He called her to him and said, "This is beautiful. This is the way existence wants it to happen. Today, my neo-sannyas begins."
Max Brecher : A Passage to America, 2nd ed, p 37
you could say that this really was the moment Laxmi took sannyas. but it really is just splitting hair and of no consequence. --Rudra (talk) 18:35, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
- It was at Kulu Manali in January 1970 that he had initiated his first disciple. Not Ma Yoga Laxmi - as I had been led to believe by her and other sannyasins – but Ma Anand Madhu. He did so with some secret trepidation.
- The day I started initiating, my only fear was, "Will I be able to some day change my followers into my friends?" The night before I could not sleep. Again and again I thought, "How am I going to manage it? A follower is not supposed to be a friend." I said to myself that night in Kulu-Manali in the Himalayas, "Don't be serious. You can manage anything, although you don't know the A-B-C of managerial science."
Max Brecher : A Passage to America, 2nd ed, p 376 --Rudra (talk) 18:35, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
Okay, that's great, makes it much clearer. Does the new edition have an index? Not easy to find anything in the old one. Oh well :-) Thanks for all this -- doofus-9 (talk) 07:49, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
To split a few more hairs, Laxmi's "claim", such as it is, seems to be resting on that meeting in Victoria Terminus, not on being first in Manali. If Osho actually said, "Today my neo-sannyas begins", there may be something in it. Today i came across an account of Osho's arrival at VT in Neeten's Osho Source Book which corroborated and filled that out:
- Laxmi, who had now been close with him for quite some time, was standing among other people on the platform, wearing her new ochre clothes, the traditional colour of Indian sannyasins. When the train finally came to a halt Rajneesh smilingly said she was to become his first sannyasin, and on the spot he named her Ma Yoga Laxmi. So Laxmi became his first sannyasin, initiated right there in the noisy marketplace of one of India’s most busy and crowded railway stations.
Neeten does not indicate his source for this. And against that, if these things matter, we have another stream of indications in his letters. In Talk:Dhai Aakhar Prem Ka (ढाई आखर प्रेम का), we find out that he was also writing letters to two people before Manali (late Sep 1970), already using their sannyas names. The letters are Jan and Feb 1970 to Madhu and early Sep 1970 to Jyoti.
His cousin-sister Kranti could make a valid claim to firstness too, based on her multi years of support in Jabalpur, but maybe enough of this for now. -- doofus-9 20:39, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
