Maneesha commentaries

As the editor -- at first the only, then the chief editor -- of the Darshan Diary series, Ma Prem Maneesha added a lot of material besides Osho's words, in the form of commentaries and, later, interviews with "prominent" sannyasins. In this way, she became Osho's "chronicler", the de facto historian of the Pune One and Ranch years, making the Darshan Diaries an important source of information especially about the early years, say 1976 to 1979, after which they became increasingly only concerned with Osho's words.

NB Not all of Maneesha's commentaries will be presented here, nor will those presented necessarily be complete. And some will have wiki editorial comments attached.

Passion -- on groups

from The Passion for the Impossible, found in ch 21, Sep 10 1976, in which Maneesha expounds on the ashram's thriving therapy groups phenomenon. It is complete, with some additional comments below:

Bhagwan says that a Buddha is one who is the norm -- is one who has achieved the ultimate in wholeness, happiness and health. His emphasis is on being total rather than being perfect. He says he is not here to make saints of us, but to help us towards becoming simply human beings -- humans capable of being. In his terminology, wholeness is holiness. Holiness has nothing to do with any dogmatic beliefs or ritualistic and repressive modes of life. Holiness is simply the vibration of one who has relaxed into himself in his totality.

Much can happen to those who are within the radius of such a being. Hence the growth, the therapy, that happens around Bhagwan Shree is absolutely unique, for it is a combination of most of the group processes that are happening in the West, eastern techniques, meditation, and the panacea of Bhagwan's presence -- what is known in the East as satsang.

"This is the point from where all growth starts -- through acceptance, not struggle. It is not an effort to become something. It is a relaxation into whatsoever you are". The growth groups -- and they include, among others Primal therapy, Encounter, Unconditional Acceptance Seminars, and Hypnotherapy -- provide an opportunity for one to experience oneself without the limitations and conditions imposed by society on one's being from birth.

The basic tenet of the groups is that we are already perfect as we are, but we are so busy trying to be someone other than ourselves, that we cannot see that. It is not that we need to add anything else to ourselves, but that we need to fling off the blinkers of oughts and shoulds, and dare to be who we really are.

The benefits of working in a group structure as opposed to one-to-one therapy are manifold. When others are dropping defences and taking risks, it becomes almost an effort not to do likewise. One person's insight can become a triggering for the rest of the group; each individual's breakthrough, a step forward in the evolution of the group consciousness.

One can soar far higher on the crest of the collective energy than one could ever hope to individually, and in that merging and moving together as a group, individuality, the personality, drops. One sees oneself reflected in others, and can use that vision to transform oneself. With fourteen participants giving voice to their feelings about you, it is somewhat more difficult to rationalise these opinions as simply misguided notions and projections, as one might do in one-to-one work.

The groups which are of an eastern orientation -- Enlightenment Intensive, Vipassana, Tai Chi and Yoga -- are more concerned with one's relationship to oneself, with inner coordination, and are usually considered more helpful once one has passed through the more cathartic western groups. The meditation techniques that Bhagwan devises are composed of both western and eastern elements -- catharsis and centring -- and as such provide a therapy or healing on a more subtle level.

Rolfing, Postural Integration, Alexander Technique and massage facilitate the release of bodily tensions and blocks, while the music and dance groups are simply an excuse to enjoy and delight in one’s existence. Bhagwan emphasises their importance as situations where one can also lose one’s ego and its limitations.

"You will feel an expansion of consciousness because you are not there as an individual. You have joined together with a collectivity. No more islands . . . everybody has melted. Then the whole thing becomes intuitive. You are joined by a telepathic cord which surrounds you like a climate, touches you all, plays in your hearts together".

Over and above the work that happens within the actual context of the groups, the ashram itself is like an on-going group. Underlying what the newcomer might regard as simply a frenetic hive of activity, there is a current of great caring and concern, a tremendously positive energy, an atmosphere which is wholesome and nourishing for the receptive individual.

Time and again sannyasins express -- with surprise at hearing themselves say so -- that coming to the ashram the first time felt like a homecoming. It is perhaps more than just an unconscious recognition of associations and memories from past lives. For the first time, people discover a place where they feel at home with themselves. In some inexplicable sense, you suddenly see that though life may be a jigsaw, you have all the pieces. They may need rearranging, but you are already complete. You begin to have fewer expectations of yourself, and hence of other people. It becomes a virtuous circle, so that acceptance and love beget acceptance and love.

But the groups, the group meditations, and the ashram, are simply the periphery of the healing that is happening. Some regard Bhagwan as a "super therapist" -- but he is much more than that too. He has the astuteness, the humour, the wisdom, the versatility, of the most capable of therapists, plus the awareness and love of a Buddha. Somendra, a groupleader from London, commented that while work that happens through any therapist in the West can only be partial, as the therapist himself is not yet wholly integrated, the growth that happens around Bhagwan is part of a complete process, part of a circle.

It is difficult to actually verbalise what happens to someone in Bhagwan's presence. You need to see someone on their first visit to the ashram, and then in the following weeks as they pass through groups, attend darshans, and almost invariably become sannyasins, and live, love and work around Bhagwan. Their being is the message.

"When you listen to me, a healing is happening all the time. When you listen to me so attentively that you are not there . . . suddenly you are healed.

"Without your knowing, the healing force surrounds you; your limitations are broken. This is therapy".

Maneesha has compacted the quote above from its original source, Come Follow Me, Vol 4, ch 4, also thereby subtly adapting the meaning, though not egregiously. But in fact, its context is fairly appropriate and relevant to the current use, so it might be useful to reproduce some of that here:

Have you watched? There are only a very few doctors with whom you don't feel humiliated, with whom you don't feel as if you have been treated as an object, with whom you feel a deep respect for you, with whom you feel that you are taken as a person, not as a mechanism. And it is more so when it is a question of psychotherapy. A psychotherapist needs to forget all that he knows. In the moment, he has to become a love, a flowing love. In the moment, he has to accept the humanity of the other, the subjectivity of the other. The other should not be reduced to a thing, otherwise you have closed the doors for a greater healing force to descend, from the very beginning. To be a therapist is one of the most difficult things in the world, because you have to know to help, and on the other hand, you have to forget all that you know to help. You have to know much to help, and you have to forget all of it to help. A therapist has to do a very contradictory thing, and only then does therapy happen. When love flows and the therapist listens to the patient with tremendous attention, and the patient also tries to listen to his own inner being, to his own unconscious talking to him, when this listening happens, by and by, in that deep listening there are not two persons. Maybe there are two polarities....

When you listen to me, healing is happening all the time. When you listen to me so attentively that you are not there -- no mind, no thinking -- you have become just the ears, you just listen, you absorb; and I am not here at all, so when in some rare moments you are also not there, there is healing. Suddenly you are healed. Without your knowing, you are being healed every day. Without your knowing, the healing surrounds you, the healing force surrounds you. Your wounds heal, your darkness disappears, your limitations are broken; this is a therapy.

In the East we have never had anything like a psychotherapist, because the Master was more than enough. Whatsoever psychoanalysis knows today the East has known for centuries. Nothing is new in it. But in the East, we never gave birth to the category of the psychoanalyst, but the Master; not the patient but the disciple.

Just look at the difference. When you come to me as a patient you bring a very ugly mind; when you come to me as a disciple you bring a beautiful mind. When I look at you as a therapist, that very look reduces you to a thing; when I look as Master that very look raises you to the heights of your innermost being. In the East we have never called the Master 'psychotherapist', and he is the greatest therapist that has ever been known in the world! Just sitting by the side of a Buddha, millions were healed. Wherever he moved there was healing, but healing was never talked about. It was simply happening; there was no need to talk about it. The very presence of a Buddha, and the loving look from the Master, and the readiness to absorb from the disciple....