Sw Ashoka

(Bill Grossman)

It is not known whether Ashoka had an additional "middle" name.

Ashoka was an American group leader and therapist who was instrumental in transplanting the innovations at Esalen to England in the early 70s. With Sw Anand Somendra, he set up the second humanistic growth center in London called Kaleidoscope, which soon became mainly Somendra's Community.

When he first came to Pune, Osho wanted him to lead some groups but first experience how they were done in Pune, so his first group was Somendra's Leela group. After he did that group, he was interviewed by Savita. From Believing the Impossible Before Breakfast, p.122-123, a small extract:

I've been leading groups now for about ten years and doing individual therapy for about the same time. I started leading groups around the same time as Somendra, and we had this centre in London. There'd always been a rivalry between us, but now I saw him doing something that was just totally beyond me. I thought, 'Well, where has he learned that?' I guess I was feeling indignant that he knew all these things I didn't know, things I didn't understand. Somendra would carry on with the work at points where I think many other group leaders would finish. He'd find a way of carrying it onto newer heights or newer depths...

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bibliography

(as Grossman, William E.) "The Encounter Experience", published in Self and Society 1, no. 2 (April 1973), p 27‒31

see also

Sw Anand Somendra

"American Healing", a brief history of the therapy group scene in London in the early 70's, mentions at least seven prominent sannyasin therapists, by their legal names