Aum Marathon (group)

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The Aum Marathon was a 48-hour Pune One residential therapy group led by Veeresh, AUM standing for "awareness, understanding, meditation". His process has undergone many adaptations of form since the early Pune One marathon and now survives at his Humaniversity as a two-hour "social meditation" which "guides you in a safe and supportive environment through 14 aspects of the human experience: hatred, forgiveness, love, stamina, life energy, chaos, dance, sadness, laughter, sensuality, chanting, silence, respect and sharing".

According to the groups timeline chart in The Sound of Running Water, the Aum marathon was offered continuously from Jan 1976 until Mar 1978, TSORW's cut-off date for group info. It is not known how much it was available after that.

Stories and info about this group show up several times in early Darshan Diaries. The first is in Hammer on the Rock, from 12 Jan 1976, where Maneesha, apparently citing another source, likely Veeresh, describes it as:

a forty-eight hour intensive, ego-awareness, and ego-reducing, encounter group. Within the structure given by Bhagwan, situations will be created, the emphasis being on awareness, exposure of blocked and reflex emotions, and avoidance mechanisms.
Techniques from the various therapies, including bio-energetics, gestalt, synanon, energy awareness, and meditations, will be used— but mostly the moment will determine what happens.
There are short breaks for eating and sleeping, but the group stays together for the entire duration of the marathon. No physical violence is permitted.

Next, from Nothing to Lose but Your Head, 23 Feb 1976, we have:

People who had done the forty-eight-hour marathon were at darshan.
"Aum" -- awareness, understanding and meditation -- is described by the groupleader as a "forty-eight-hour question mark".
"Apart from the fact that all who participate are interested in their own growth, there is no real description. The desire to take risks and to understand factors that prevent deepening awareness and meditation is the prime motivator.
"What happens within the structure of forty-eight hours of being in the same room with a group of people, eating very lightly, of sleeping for only four hours, of continuously focusing on feeling, depends on who the people are, and how their various energies meet and mix.
"It's just a situation of eliminating, as much as possible, all the things we cling to externally, so that we can put a spotlight on the things we cling to internally. The structure itself does much of the work of peeling off defences, and allowing possibilities for openness to deeper feelings. Play, tears, anguish, can and do happen".
Bhagwan asked the groupleader, Veeresh, how the group was.
VEERESH
It was a very sobering experience in this marathon. I've always worked with extreme negativity hoping that that will bring about love, but I began to question the whole thing.
Sudha [his partner and assistant leader] started questioning the concepts I was using from long ago -- from Phoenix House and the drug addicts. I got confused.

[Osho says:]

Don’t get confused. Your group is not meant to bring love. If you try that, not only will you be confused; you will confuse everybody who participates in the group.
Your group's whole meaning is cathartic, to bring up all the negativity -- that is your work. For example the group "Soma" that we are starting will be a positive group. The whole effort will be totally different. It can be useful only when you have done the negative work -- and within forty-eight hours you cannot do both. Later on I can introduce a new group for you. We can have two Aum marathonso -- one negative, one positive.
In the negative one you simply work on negativity. The whole point is to bring it out, because people carry negativity their whole life. It has to be brought out.

More DD excerpts to come . . .

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