Talk:Meditation Camps

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Notes are arranged chronologically, according to camp dates. Sources cited repeatedly below are Neeten's Osho Source Book, Gyan Bhed's The Rebellious Enlightened Master Osho, Ageh Bharti's Blessed Days With Osho and "Doc X".


before 1969: Jeevan Sangeet (जीवन संगीत) has "Talks given possibly at an early meditation camp." and " ≤ 1969".
It's translation, Falling in Love with Darkness says "Extemporaneous talks given by Osho in Udaipur, India.".

So these should have happened in Udaipur, but as yet I see no slot for them in the camps below. --Sugit (talk) 14:13, 6 October 2018 (UTC)


1962/3: More info on both the Jabalpur proto-camps can be found at Neeten's Jabalpur section.


Jun 1964: Ranakpur is also rendered as Rankpur and Ranakput; Osho and some others say the camp was at Muchala Mahavir (with variants Muchhal, Muchhala, Mahavira and in all combinations), a half-hour drive from Ranakpur village. Perhaps it can all be considered Ranakpur district (tehsil?). Current net info suggests Muchala Mahavir is little more than a Jain temple ruin, though splendid enough to be on the tourist map. -- Sarlo (talk) 21:11, 28 May 2014 (PDT)


Feb 1965 Mahableshwar: It may be necessary to note the history of this entry to sort out a conflict among sources: originally, info was from Gyan Bhed and consisted only of a date and Mahableshwar. In Mar 2014, "Dhyan Sutra" was added as the discourse series, based on Doc X as a source, while querying Doc X's dates (Feb 12-15 as opposed to Gyan Bhed's Feb 12-14). That addition was consistent with previous info @ the Dhyan Sutra page which mentioned an undated camp at Mahableshwar, and "improved" it. At that time, the Dhyan Sutra page was also updated to include these dates. Now an alternative series for those dates has come along, Dhyan Darshan, via Neeten. FWIW, both Neeten and Doc X's dates are Feb 12-15, so i'll update the dates but leave Dhyan Sutra for now -- Sarlo (talk) 09:19, 13 July 2014 (PDT)

Dhyan Darshan has found its home in another time slot, Dec 1970, so that conflict is resolved. -- doofus-9 17:51, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

Feb 1966 Tulsishyam: About the "puzzler" aspect of this camp: Only two talks have been documented from the camp, one on Feb 4, the other on the 6th. In the e-book for Chal Hansa, it is called a meditation camp (sadhana shivir), and what else could it be at this remote location, but why only two talks from those days? The rest of the chapters in Chal Hansa are clearly indicated as being Q&A's from the Mumbai area, except for the 6th (of the seven). It too is a Q&A but no date or location is given.

There must have been more talks from this camp -- in three days only two talks would be unprecedented to the point of impossibility. And it doesn't seem very likely that other talks would be in different books, so two other possibilities remain: One, that chap 6 was also from Tulsishyam, though even that would make only three talks in total; and two, that all other talks have been lost. Sadly, this seems the likeliest. -- doofus-9 17:16, 12 May 2016 (UTC)


Mar 1966: About Karm Aur Dhyan (कर्म और ध्यान), it was previously written that Doc X is the only source for this "discourse series" from Ahmedabad. Now Neeten has also confirmed it, on the same date. -- Sarlo (talk) 09:26, 23 August 2014 (PDT)


May 1966 Udaipur: Previous speculation for this camp (whose dates and location are known, likely from Gyan Bhed) had it that the discourse series is Apne Mahin Tatol (अपने माहिं टटोल). That series WAS at a camp in Udaipur and fit well in all respects, including being the first known camp in Udaipur after the 1964 Ranakpur camp, where Bhuribai first showed up and her book was an item of discussion. But no cigar. See Jun 1967 Udaipur below. -- updated doofus-9 05:21, 28 November 2018 (UTC)


Jun 1967 Udaipur: A "reliable source" has given these dates for Apne Mahin Tatol (अपने माहिं टटोल), so we are going with that rather than the speculation above re the May 1966 Udaipur camp, however reasonable. -- doofus-9 05:21, 28 November 2018 (UTC)


Feb 1969 GJ: Neeten's Jabalpur section has some material concerning the three-day camp from Feb 13-15. It began in the morning of the first day and so could have as many as six discourses. Gyan Bhed has it as four talks ("sermons") and names Baroda as the place. He writes at some length about an "incident" there where someone threw a shoe at Osho during the talk on the 14th.

Then Gyan Bhed has Osho returning to Mumbai, with a talk on the 16th at Bombay University on "Students and Sex", then a series of undated talks in Nagpur, Nasik and Rajkot, ending up in Junagadh the night of the 24th before beginning the "Exploring Truth" series there. (The order of the undated talks was given somewhat informally as noted but a more "sensible" travel arrangement would be Nasik first.) -- updated doofus-9 17:23, 19 January 2016 (UTC)


Mar-Apr 1969 Patna: Osho speaks at the Second World Hindu Religion Conference, debating with the Shankaracharya of Puri and creating an uproar.

Lots more can be read at Neeten's Osho Source Book, Jabalpur section. He has collected stories from Gyan Bhed, Ageh Bharti and Osho about this event.


Oct 1969 Dwarka: Dwarka is a major sacred pilgrimage site for Hindus, said to be an ancient capital of Krishna. There is conflicting information about this camp in different sections of Neeten's OSB. In his Bombay section, he says that no meditation camp could be held there because of its holiness, so Osho apparently only delivered discourses. In his Jabalpur section, he has a fair bit of info about meditations there, including the Floating and Dying Meditation (Bahana aur Mritana), introduced at Dwarka and given final form later in Mumbai. As of this writing, his OSB has a huge amount of unprocessed raw data, so we'll have to see how this shakes down. -- doofus-9 06:03, 15 March 2016 (UTC)


Mar 1970 Ludhiana: Specific dates were found in Neeten's Jabalpur section for this event, Mar 21-24, but they conflict with e-book data for Aath Pahar Youn Jhumte (आठ पहर यूं झूमते), which have him in Pune on Mar 21 and 22. We await developments. See also notes below.


Aug 1970 Gujarat: (refers to the late Aug camps at Baroda and Ajol). Gyan Bhed is the sole source for the Baroda camp. The Aug Ludhiana event is well-documented, then GB goes on to say that "he went to Baroda from Ludhiana via Jalandhar where a three day meditation camp was organized. From there he returned to Bombay via Ahmedabad".

It now seems possible that GB meant that the supposed camp was in Jalandhar, which would a) cramp a camp in Ajol even more and b) be less likely immediately after an event in Ludhiana. But even a Baroda camp would have been tight, and unlikely so close to the camp in Ajol. So wherever the camp was, if anywhere, it can get a ** treatment.

Afterthought fwiw: the 1970 Timeline page mentions an "Early Dialogues #3" on Aug 26 -- and it should be changed to "Early Talks" -- an interview in Mumbai, makes any camp between Ludhiana and Ajol out of the question if it's accurate, though the CD-ROM is not infallible.

The Ajol camp is reported in quite a detailed way by Ageh Bharti, who participated in it. He dates it no more precisely than Aug 1970, but his details do have a ring of truth and in fact Ageh's story of the camp ending in the early afternoon and Osho asking him to attend a "meeting arranged by the Doctor's Association in Ahmedabad in the evening" fits well with just such a meeting documented by Neeten on Aug 31. How about that! So let the camp be Aug 29 to Aug 31 for now. -- doofus-9 06:00, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

update: Another source has identified the series at this camp, as Jo Ghar Bare Aapna (जो घर बारे आपना) and given info regarding its times and structure. Unfortunately these dates do not exactly fit other facts, and dates have been found in another part of Ageh's book, so the info has been blended into a "best guess". See Jo Ghar's talk page for details. -- doofus-9 17:51, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

Sep 1970 Manali: Source for the id of the picture is possibly Keerti, via Sannyas News (nb refers to caption of b/w pic near top of page, not the orange sannyas group shot.


Feb 1973, Anandshila: was a piece of land donated for Osho's use by Sw Anand Sagar and Ma Anand Saroj and for a while was to be the World HQ of his movement, then known as Neo-Sannyas International. Mumbai had become untenable, with Woodlands (Osho's residence) much too small to handle the numbers that were coming and Mumbai too unhealthy for Osho. Gyan Bhed has Anandshila located in the Trimurti Hills 40 miles from Kalyan, Osho World on "an island at Ambernath" and Neeten "on 254 acres of land at Trimurti Hill, between Ambernath and Kalyan, 37 miles from Bombay". Neeten also has an excerpt from the Sannyas (magazine) of the time which has it at 125 acres but still 37 miles from Woodlands, and which mentions that the island project is dropped, with "Tri Murti Hill" a kind of sacred site "with very ancient natural stone carving of a spiritual nature." Gyan Bhed embellishes the stone carving, telling of sannyasins climbing the "Trimurti Hills" and finding "one of the idols there was just an emulation of Bhagwanshree ... They felt as if the sculptors had the instinct that a Buddha of that appearance was to come under those hills after centuries".

Sannyas mag also says that "the land is between Ambernath and Kalyan". These two are both decent-sized towns not far from each other, so we may presume they are joined by a decent paved road and that anything literally between them is not very isolated. It is not much of a stretch though to imagine that the road to Anandshila might take off into the hills from there. There is support for this notion in another citation by Neeten, quoting Ageh Bharti: "Bhagwan had to stay in a guest house at Kalyan with rough rides by car on a uneven road to travel the 10 kilometres to the camp site took him 40 minutes, when going back and forth four times every day". This may be as good as we're going to get, though we still can't find the famous Trimurti Hill or Hills on a map.

Anandshila turned out to be unsuitable and was soon superseded by the ashram in Pune, far enough away from Mumbai and a large enough property to work for many years. A couple of short references to its demise after the camp have been found: From Ageh's book (p 231) we have, "That project failed because the donated land was found to be disputed", while Gyan Bhed says (p 356) that sannyasins who stayed there to help "had to stop construction due to some hurdle created by the government and some legal impediments".

-- updated doofus-9 17:20, 13 May 2016 (UTC)


Feb 1973, Samadhi Ke Sapt Dwar: It was previously thought that Sadhana Sutra belonged here, sharing the Anandshila camp with New Alchemy, a "natural" dancing partner in that both have the same subject, Mabel Collins and her book Light on the Path. But that became unsupportable when the Sapt Dwar e-book was looked into. That e-book is well organised and is consistent and clear about this. In fact, New Alchemy's 17-chapter Appendix, which IS from this camp, has mostly fairly short talks, making Sapt Dwar the major series from this camp, in terms of hours.


Apr 1973, Sadhana Sutra: It is still not 100% certain that Sadhana Sutra occurred in tandem with New Alchemy even in this camp, but it seems the most sensible place, and is similar to the way That Art Thou occurred together with the three Hindi Upanishad series at Mt Abu earlier. Anyone know for sure? -- doofus-9 (talk) 22:13, 12 December 2014 (PST)


Jan 1974, Mt Abu: According to Neeten, this was the last meditation camp ever to be conducted by Osho in person. He says, about the camp preceding it: "After the camp, the departing scene on the platform at Ahmedabad railway station was getting almost out of control, as a huge crowd of friends and other passengers followed Osho towards his A.C. first class coach. His shawl was ripped from him in the chaos and he even had to take care of his long beard. People were going to extremes in their efforts to come close and have a darshan, and we can understand that all this trying to touch his feet and pushing in the crowd was behind his decision to protect himself and refrain from conducting any more meditation camps."



Other Matters

you just added a date to the 1970 Ludhiana PB : 21 - 24 Mar.

that clashes with :

21 Mar 1970 Pune (Poona) Discourse Hindi Aath Pahar Youn Jhumte, # 6 **
22 Mar 1970 Pune (Poona) Discourse Hindi Aath Pahar Youn Jhumte, # 7 **

--Rudra (talk) 03:53, 7 December 2015 (UTC)


Yes, good catch, i checked the sources and they have been transcribed here correctly: the OW e-book for Aath Pahar and Ageh Bharti's notes via Neeten for Ludhiana. Neither is infallible, so i put it back to how it was. -- doofus-9 20:17, 7 December 2015 (UTC)



I removed the following item from the Timeline:

|  two camps at Nargol, dates unknown
| ie sometime after mid-Dec 1969 and before May 2, 1970
|-

I had put it in in May 2014 possibly based on a mis-reading of Neeten's OSB and/or possibly he is wrong. Anyway, for now it looks doubtful that there are two missing Nargol camps in the short time span envisaged. -- doofus-9 23:14, 4 February 2016 (UTC)


And i removed the reference to Bikaner Palace Hotel from the Ishavashya Upanishad camp, the first Mt Abu camp, since Neeten and Ageh Bharti both supply a lot of info about the Mt Abu camps, and agree on almost all of it. In those accounts, the Bikaner Palace does not appear until the fifth camp there, with a very consistent and convincing story about the Rajasthan gov't cancelling bookings for state-owned facilities on very short notice due to concerns about nakedness in the meditations, and that was when the Bikaner Palace came into the picture. And "Bikaner Palace" may turn out to be a misnomer, being actually "Palace Hotel, Bikaner House". Source for that is Ageh + this is what it's called nowadays on the net. -- doofus-9 06:48, 3 May 2016 (UTC)