Talk:Shaktipat-Dhyan (Energy Meditation)

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Here is the deal: Sannyas Wiki has had an audio file since Jan 2012 with this name (1973-06-01 Shaktipat-Dhyan Energy Meditation ~ Number 5), OMA Catalog No 257, but beyond having it, not knowing what to do with it.

In Jun 2020, along comes Hindi series of talks with dates (source document), a new list of Hindi events and their dates, with a fair bit of new information, including "Shaktipat Dhyan". As this list has proved relatively accurate (though not 100%), it seems reasonable enough to finally go somewhere with the #5 file. Especially given two things:

1) While the new list only offers date ranges rather than specific dates for each event, the date range for "Shaktipat Dhyan" is tantalizing: 01/02/73 to 01/08/73, for "7+1" events. The wide range for the 7 (or "7+1") events plus their first of the month first and last dates strongly suggest a once-a-month series.
2) With the date AND number (#5 on 01/06/73) AND name of the audio-tape agreeing with this projected series, it looks like a lock.

AND an inspection of the 1973 Timeline shows that there is not only room for such a series to fit without conflict, but that he was in Bombay for every one of those occasions. Such a series would naturally work best there, or at least in some continuing location, and where else would be better in that era?

Couple more things: The name for this projected series has been adapted from that of the audio-tape. The adaptation has been to put parentheses around the last two words, indicating that they are an English approximation of the original Hindi term. Dhyan ≡ Meditation is a familiar equivalency, Shaktipat ≡ Energy less so.

Going the other way, G**gle Translate gives ऊर्जा (oorja) as the most important term for "energy" in Hindi, followed by "Shakti". So why has Osho gone with "Shaktipat" here? We can only speculate here of course, but it is observed that some other "New Religious Movements" (NRMs) of the 60s and 70s were using the term Shaktipat to refer to a personal transmission of energy from master to disciple via some sort of touch -- Muktananda used a peacock feather for example. Perhaps Osho felt to use a somewhat familiar term, though without being bound by a particular usage. The audio for instance indicates that this event did not involve any one-to-one personal transmission of energy at all.

Transmission (of energy) may have been happening in a mass way, involving perhaps Osho's presence, but Osho's language and instructions in "similar" situations and here convey an emphasis not on the master but on the meditator, ie you get out of it what you put into it. So draw yer own conclusions.

Anecdotally, this editor recalls a comparison being made between Osho White Robe Brotherhood and his Shaktipat, the "old sannyasin" speaker saying that there had not been anything in sannyas like "this", ie White Robe, since Shaktipat, in the Bombay days, now clearly referring to these events.

One other thing that will have to remain unresolved for now is, what is this "7 + 1"? There is a column in the new list that has the number of events, with no explanation of what the occasional "+" means or refers to. So for now, we'll just have to call this seven events, with the "+1" a mystery. -0- doofus-9 23:37, 5 June 2020 (UTC)


Each date for all 7 talks confirmed by Hindi series of talks with dates 2 (source document).--DhyanAntar 09:38, 5 September 2020 (UTC)