Tathata (group)

Tathata was a Pune One therapy group. It was offered continuously from Dec 1975 till at least Mar 1978 (the cut-off date for group info in The Sound of Running Water) but possibly not long after that. Initially it was led by Sw Pujari, then by Sw Kabir (both potentially having middle names as yet unknown).

Maneesha writes about Tathata in the first text of the first day of the first Darshan Diary, Hammer on the Rock, dated Dec 10 1975:

This evening, members of the Tathata group (Unconditional Acceptance Seminar) had darshan. Each of the therapy groups available in the ashram has the opportunity, once during the course of the group, to bring to Bhagwan Shree their individual and shared experiences, and to discuss insights gained and blocks encountered.

The Tathata group aims to help individuals to learn to accept themselves and others, unconditionally, as they are. The process, the duration of which is anything from twenty-two to twenty-five hours, involves much physical and mental exertion. This brings the participants to a point of complete fatigue, in an effort to facilitate the dropping of defences and masks, so that people can face themselves and others honestly and authentically.

After Maneesha's words come Osho's words to Pujari:

It has to be remembered that the leader is not, in fact, a manipulator. He should not be. If you manipulate, then it is something from the mind, and that which comes from the mind cannot go deeper than the mind. So the leader has to be open to the beyond.

In the beginning the mind will be there. By and by lose it so you are possessed. That's the right word -- you are possessed. Then you are no longer there. Something greater than you, something bigger than you, has taken possession. Then you do something, but you are not the doer; then something happens, but you are simply a witness to it. Then the leader is lost, and once the leader is lost, the real leader enters in. When the leader is no longer there then you become part of the group. Then those who are being led by you are not separate; no duality exists. Once the leader is possessed, the duality disappears. Then the teacher and the taught are one. The physician and the patient are one. Only then, and only then, healing is possible. And it is not only that you are healing them; you are also being healed through the process.

Until a group becomes an enrichment to the leader also, how can it be enriching to those who are being led? Unless you grow through it, how can you help others to grow? So be possessed. And that is one of the most difficult things, mm? The mind wants to manipulate, control, move on a fixed pattern. You can move on a fixed pattern, but then nothing special will ever happen. People may be helped, they may attain something through it, but the whole thing will remain on the surface, and technological. Love will be missing. And God will not be there. So allow yourself to be possessed.

You can do this: whenever you start the group, close your eyes and allow your whole group to surround you. Let them hold hands and start by a prayer. The prayer should be silent, just an opening -- that God should possess you and you should not in any way be manipulating or controlling others. And you withdraw, and immediately you will see an energy entering, and there will be a tremendous change, an infinite power, inexhaustible. Allow it.

Then each group will be a new opening, a new door, a new experience. You have never been there before, it is a new space -- not only for those you are leading, but for you also. There will be many surprises. And unless it happens, sooner or later the leader is bound to become dull and bored -- because it is a repetition. The members will be changing; they will be new again and again. For them it may be new, but for you it becomes just the old pattern. Never make it that way. This is possible only if you become possessed and you allow the infinite energy to move. It needs trust, it needs dying of the ego.

So remember me. Each time you start the group, remember me -- and leave it to me. You simply become a vehicle and the possibility is tremendous. Then you will be more able to help people because you are not there, so nobody hinders. When the leader is there, the led also feels a resistance -- the ego fight enters. When you are not there, things become very simple and easy. So this has been good.

But always remember -- by and by you remove yourself.

And then you become a worthy vessel of many many things. Good, Pujari.

Maneesha adds in Nothing to Lose but Your Head (Feb 22 1976) that Tathata means suchness, and it is "an unconditional acceptance seminar, the purpose of it being to rehabilitate one's ability to unconditionally accept oneself and other people, and to transform one's ability to experience".

Next, Maneesha writes in The Cypress in the Courtyard (Jun 6 1976):

Tathata is a twenty-two-hour group, the idea behind it being to learn to totally accept oneself, because unless one can accept oneself one cannot accept others.

Tathata means suchness. It means to be with the fact, without any evaluation for or against.

"If you are angry, then be angry, and don’t judge that it is good or bad. If you can allow anger without any judgement on your part, you will feel a deep freedom coming out of it. It will be released and a great tension will go with it. It is the same with all emotions.

"Repression has not to be allowed. Expression has not to be forced. This is what the word ‘suchness’, tathata, means".

Kabir [the new leader who has replaced Pujari] said that he saw through the group how the harmony that comes about through conflict works.

[Osho:] The whole pattern of Tathata is such that you go on forcing so that the negative surfaces. When the negative is released on the surface, the positive will be left there. You need not create it. You have simply to make way for it. The negative gone, the way is open. The negative leaves the inner space and that empty space simply attracts the positive. You are not to do anything else.

[ ... ]

Even a single drop of poison is enough to make you sad, to make you ill, to kill you. So your whole effort is to bring all the poison out of the system. Go on forcing... and that's why I say that you have to be hard.

Softness will not be of any help. The rock won't listen to softness. You have almost to be like a ghost haunting them. They have to be stirred so deeply that all their defense mechanisms are broken. You have to hit hard because they all have hard shells around them. Their anger is not just available. On top of the anger there is a personality, a character, a structure, that defends the anger inside. You have to be hard to destroy this structure. You have to bring them to a state of characterlessness. Then only will they reveal their reality.

And once it starts, go on pushing; don't relax. And don't be bothered about the positive. It will follow. Be hard! Good, Kabir.

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