The Missing Chapter 29 of Glimpses

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Chapter 29, or "Session 29", of Glimpses of a Golden Childhood appeared in the first, 1985, edition of Glimpses but was removed from subsequent editions. The chapter mainly concerns Osho's purported "adoption" when he was four years old to prevent his premature death as foreseen by various astrologers. The "adoption" story's entanglement with his American visa / immigration process and Ma Anand Sheela made the whole thing very suspect, hence its removal.

See discussion and also the talk page of Glimpses for detailed speculation on the politics and circumstances of that removal.

Sannyas wiki presents the missing chapter below in its entirety. We believe that this material holds no commercial value for any claimed copyright holder and is of sufficient historical interest to override such claims and make its presentation here "Fair Use", especially as its author may be someone other than Osho.

I CAN SEE WITH MY EYES CLOSED. At least you cannot deceive me, and you should not. It is not fair to a man who has never done any harm to anybody. I have lived so much in such small life that it seems almost impossible. I remember a few things that I have never said before and I want to unburden myself totally. It was for a certain reason that a few things were to be kept hidden and secret. The astrologers had told my parents, and particularly my grandparents, that it would be improbable that I could survive more than seven years. They even refused to make my birth chart. The simple reason was that if the child was going to die within seven years, what was the point of making a lifelong chart to predict things about a life which was not going to be lived at all?
So the astrologers, particularly the greatest astrologer in India at that time, Pandit Gopinath Mahopadhyaya -- he was known worldwide for his predictions -- just refused my parents and said, "It is pointless to make a birth chart. But still I would like to see the child. If he survives seven years, and I am also alive" -- because he was an old man at that time -- "I will be happy to make the birth chart". I was taken to him. It was a long journey. He lived in Benares, the oldest city in the world. I believe that it must be the oldest because it is so ugly and so dirty.
I went to see Gopinath. He was really a beautiful man, very old, yet very young. His eyes were those of a tiger in the forest, wild and primitive. He was a rebel. I fell in love with him at first sight,and it was the same for him. He said, "I feel that it will be so unfortunate if you don’t survive. Make every effort to survive up till the seventh year. It will be a most dangerous time for you. If I am alive, come back and I will make your birth chart. But I am happy to see you because I have never seen a person who is on the last circle of his lives. This is your last life". And he wept just like a child. I now know the reason: he died before the seven years had passed.
He suggested a few things to my father. One was, "Don’t tell anybody the exact time of birth" -- which was sunrise. In India sunrise is considered to be the most auspicious birth time, and sunset the time for the most beautiful death. It is obvious why birth should be connected to sunrise, and death with sunset. He also suggested that up until my seventh year it would be good if someone adopted me. And the person who adopts me should be neither of my own caste or religion, nor in any way related -- an absolute stranger. That would help.
I was too young to care about all that talk that went on between him and my father. I was more interested in the person than in what he was saying. But my father followed exactly what was suggested. In Benares he took me to other people too. He wanted to introduce me, or expose me to as many influences as possible. One of the men was Pavaharibaba. I can still see him, because in my whole life I have seen thousands and thousands of men but not another Pavaharibaba. He was so different from everybody, so centered, so aloof, so far away and yet so near. I can see him yet, holding my hand and laughing. He never said a single word, just laughed. My father asked him to bless me. He simply laughed and laughed. I said to my father, "This is his blessing".
Pavaharibaba belongs to the long history of great Masters like Bodhidharma, Chuang Tzu, Gurdjieff. I never saw him again. Years later I searched and looked for him everywhere, but he has disappeared into the Himalayas, the last place where many before him ... and many after him will disappear too. There is no other place so beautiful to disappear. Lao Tzu disappeared there, Bodhidharma disappeared there, Pavaharibaba disappeared there; and I have dreamed of disappearing there. I could not meet him again but even in the first meeting the transmission had happened. He touched my head, played with my hair....
In Benares I met a few other people. One was Madanmohan Malviya, the founder of Benares Hindu University. I was not impressed by him at all, rather nauseated. He was a Hindu chauvinist, but a very famous man and a great politician. I just told my father, "Please don’t take me to the politicians. I’m not interested in them. That’s not my business".
He was amazed, because Malviya was thought to be a very religious man. I said, "That is impossible. A politician and religious? Those two things don’t go together".
Pandit Gopinath also suggested that if I survive my seventh year I may die in 1984. He said, "It is possible to avoid the time of death, but it will all be up to the boy. He can choose. Death will not be accidental -- he will choose it".
It appeared strange at that time, but now I know it is true. Whenever I die it will be my own choice. Soon after this my father took me to Bombay. He was often going to Bombay for his business, and he was very interested to take me there. But I was not aware what was going to happen in Bombay. In those days Bombay was really beautiful, particularly the place where we where staying, on Juhu Beach. It was wild with woods, thick with trees, yet undisturbed by hotels and skyscrapers. We were staying with a certain man, Ambalal Patel, who was my father’s friend. He was so loving towards me that I found in him another father. After the very first day I started calling him Bapuji, which means father. That’s what his children continued to call him later on. At that time he was not yet married.
He was an Oxford graduate, but a little bit crazy. I loved his craziness. It gave him the quality of a poet. He played on musical instruments, sang beautiful songs, told odd tales -- he was just the type of man I liked. He wanted to become my godfather. I had no objection at all; in fact, I loved the very idea.
My father agreed to him and a whole ceremony took place in which I was put in his lap. I enjoyed the whole scene. While the pandit was reciting the boring Sanskrit slokas I fell asleep. When I woke up the ceremony was over -- and nothing else was said to me.
My father had some business in Ahmedabad so he left the next day. I remained with Bapuji for more than three long years -- but how short were those years, and how sweet. It is impossible to have them back; the wild ocean ... the woods ... and Bapuji singing in the night.
I lived with him for those years and only rarely visited my Nani. Those years passed dancing, singing, in deep ecstasy. I was very averse to school, but Bapuji continued to teach me at home. I learned a little bit of Gujarati.
You cannot see the ocean that I have seen ... it has disappeared. It was wild, immensely beautiful, particularly at first because I had come across the ocean for the first time. When I saw the inner ocean....
The astrologer’s predictions about me have all come true, whatsoever he said. Now I can die at any moment, but I can avoid it too.
The man with whom I had gone to live, Ambalal Patel, was not only my godfather, he was also my friend and was one of my first disciples. Now he is Swami Swarupananda Bharti. He is a sannyasin, a very old man with a very young spirit. He was married after he met me, about five months later. I started calling his wife Ba. Ba means mother. I called my own mother Babi, which means elder brother’s wife, because when I was born my mother was looking after my father’s younger brothers and sisters. My father's mother was dead. They were all calling my mother Babi. I also followed them and started calling her Babi. Nobody else among my brothers and sisters calls her that. It is very strange. I myself cannot manage to change it and call her Ma; to call her "mother" is awkward. Years of calling her Babi makes it impossible to call her Ma -- mother. But Bapuji’s wife from the very beginning I started calling Ba. Ba is Gujarati for mother. She is a beautiful woman, very rare. I have seen thousands of women but they are all jealous. Rarely have I come across a woman like Ba who is without jealousy; who can simply love without any fear, any competition.
My godfather, Swami Swarupananda Bharti, is one of those few people who have understood me, not only now but even from my very childhood. Even then he had so much respect for me that even my father was amazed. When he got married, his wife could not believe it: You can be loving towards a child, but respectful...? Loving he was, extremely loving, but more than that he was respectful.
And he was a rebellious man, against the tradition, against the bureaucracy, against the priesthood, and yet he told me once, "You mystify me. I have been an unbeliever, but seeing you, and being with you, I suspect that I am becoming a believer. A strange faith is arising in me, an interest that I have not known before". In the woods at Juhu Beach, in that silence, isolated from the hubbub of the world, we used to sit together for hours doing nothing, watching the waves of the ocean. He used to take me everywhere he saw an opportunity for my education. He had been in intimate contact with Mahatma Gandhi. They were constantly writing to each other. I have seen Gandhi's letters written to him. He took me once to a small meeting of Gandhi's where a few followers were present. I could not be impressed by the man. He impressed India because he lived according to the old Indian tradition, he fulfilled the Hindu mind. But to me he was just a pure politician, not a religious man -- a hypocrite pretending to be something he was not. But in India, to succeed you have to at least pretend to be a religious man, and he did it very well. He was a good actor.
Bapuji took me to him. He asked me afterwards, a little afraid, what I thought about it. I said to him, "Don’t be afraid, because if you are afraid I cannot say the truth. He is a hypocrite, a cunning politician". Bapuji was stunned but he understood because he loved me.
He also took me to see Muhammadali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan. I was not at all interested in his ideology -- he was destroying India -- but I liked the man. I liked him more than Mahatma Gandhi, his opponent, for the simple reason that he was a clear politician, not hiding it. He was in the open world. Muhammadali Jinnah was a man without any hypocrisy about him. He was very consistent and with a character. By character I do not mean moral character, I mean integrity. He was so consistently integrated, one-pointed, against the whole of India. He was fighting for a wrong purpose, but fighting with a spirit that I loved. He founded a nation alone, single-handed.
Bapuji, that is Swami Swarupananda, took me to many other people of national and international repute. A few of them are worth mentioning. The most important was J. Krishnamurti. I immediately saw the truth of the man: he was another Buddha.
J. Krishnamurti has spoken against me but I cannot speak against him, because he does not know me, but I know him. J. Krishnamurti is bound to speak against me because I am trying something -- the Master-disciple relationship -- which is against his ideology. But I cannot speak against him. I know he is one of those who have arrived, but I also know he is one of those who cannot express what they have experienced. They are alone. They cannot create a religion. They are alone, they cannot create a following.
Krishnamurti is one of the rare spirits who have come to know, but he cannot convey his message to others. It was Bapuji who introduced me to him. He wanted me to meet him personally but I refused. By the way, I refused again after many, many years. The second time I had to say no to J. Krishnamurti, even though he wanted to see me. I said, "There is no point in it. I have nothing to say to him. He has nothing to say to me. Only silence..."
Bapuji showed me to a few other significant people. He took me to a man, Gautama Sharatchandra Chatterji. This man, Chatterji, is of the same caliber as Krishnamurti but not known as much, for the simple reason that he does not speak in English. In fact he does not speak much. His one book in Hindi is one of the most beautiful books I have ever come across: Vivek and Sadhana -- awareness and how to attain it.
He was very loving towards me. He asked me to come again and again. He was an old man but so young in his spirit. I cannot forget his face. He is no more in the world, but the last time I saw him we discussed many things, things which would concern very few people. For example, things that do not concern you, Geet Bharti. How I hit you, Geet Bharti, the way you hit your devils, otherwise they don’t work....
Chatterji has written only one book, the one that I have mentioned. He was not a writer, but just that one book has made him the beloved of thousands of people, particularly those who are on the path. It certainly describes awareness and how to achieve it.
Of the many people Bapuji took me to, I would like to mention one more. He was a very tall man, must have been seven feet or even more. Everyone called him Babaji. He became very famous later on because Bennett has written a book on him. Bennett was a disciple of Gurdjieff.
Babaji was certainly a man to be impressed with. He was very lean, seven feet high, with fiery eyes, and when he spoke it was all fire -- words on fire. Religion can speak only that language. I don’t remember his full name but I can see his face, his eyes -- I can hear his voice. I was so small and he was so tall. He took me in his arms and said to me, "What I have not been able to do, you may be able to do".
I had no idea what he meant. Now I know. But it is something that is always incomplete and can never be done. One can try better. One can reach higher, but still there is something that remains incomplete. I can understand only one thing, that incompletion in itself is not bad. Perhaps it has its own beauty. Perhaps completion is a kind of death. The incomplete lives; the complete dies, comes to a full stop.
Bapuji took me to one man known as Swami Nikhilananda. He was a man of great power, and by power I mean real power. I have seen his miracles ... even with my own eyes, being a skeptic in those days. You put a dead bird ... but Yashu Bharti, don’t put a Geet Bharti before him. Even a living Geet Bharti will not come to life again. I have seen it with my own eyes -- I don’t mean I have seen a Geet Bharti coming alive, but a bird coming alive. He would look with compassion and love, and the bird would start breathing again.
To me, at least, Bapuji was immediate. To the Hindu world he was a great man. He participated in one of the round table conferences in London with Mahatma Gandhi to discuss problems concerning India’s freedom.
When Mahatma Gandhi went to England, hidden in his turban was the phallic symbol, shivalingam, to protect him from any evil influences of the non-Hindus -- because according to Hindus anybody who is not born a Hindu is evil. He also carried enough water from the Ganges to London because he would not drink any other water, he believed that only the water from the Ganges is pure. Now, this type of man cannot appeal to me. I told Bapuji, "This man is a perfect idiot. Although perfection is very difficult, he has achieved it".
I was with Bapuji for over three years. He was married after meeting me. His wife was puzzled at first seeing so much respect towards a child, but as she became more acquainted with me she also started feeling the same way. Now she is also one of my sannyasins. All Bapuji’s children, who were born after I had met him, are my sannyasins: four daughters and two sons.
The eldest daughter, Prateeksha, is here with her husband Vedant. The youngest is Anand Sheela. What a coincidence that Sheela came to be so close to me. But the whole credit goes to Bapuji. He has been trying to bring his children as close to me as possible. He brought Sheela to me and from the very first moment I could see that out of all his children she is the most courageous, intuitive, intelligent and maybe a potential candidate for enlightenment. Bapuji is already enlightened.
I have never spoken about those years with him because I was told not to speak about them by my father. It had been suggested by the astrologer that if I could live away from my family, in a stranger's house, perhaps I might survive. The greatest risk to my survival would be from the fourth to the seventh year. This was the prediction of Pandit Gopinath.
But the ocean was not suiting my health, and my breathing was badly affected. I was continually getting colds, coughing, the beginning of asthma, and I have suffered my whole life from that. It was only on my visits to my grandparents that my health would improve again. It was on my last visit there that my Nana died....
It was difficult because I had become very attached to the woods and the ocean, and to Bapuji and Ba. But seeing that my health was affected I was taken back to my father's village to recover. Gradually my health improved and slowly, slowly, it was decided that I should stay.
I can see and understand now why Gopinath suggested to my father to keep my birth chart a secret. I myself have seen my birth chart only once. That was in 1970.1 was not allowed to see it before that because it may have affected my decisions for the future. It described my whole past exactly and also my future. I don’t know where it is now, or whether it has been destroyed. My feeling is that my father wanted it destroyed so that nobody would come to know about my future.
For example, it said that my death would be outside India; that my death will be in 1984 ... and many other things. It said, of course, that I can avoid the time of my death but that I may choose not to.
I can see it is possible that I may choose not to avoid it, because slowly, slowly all desire to help others -- for which I have worked for almost thirty years -- is disappearing. It may disappear completely, then I don’t see the point in living any more.
As far as I am concerned I have achieved what can be achieved in life. I have been living just to help, but if the desire to help disappears then the natural consequence will be to fall into eternal sleep. I have never seen such a perfect prediction. Even small details were there. I asked my father to see it, at least once when I visited my village for the last time in 1970.1 said, "This is the last time I will come home. I will not come back again". I had promised my maternal grandmother that I would come back at her death, and after that I would never come back again. She died in 1970 -- I had to fulfill my promise.
At that time my father showed me the birth chart. It was a long, detailed prediction. I was amazed because everything it said had either happened or was happening. Now, things that were in the future then have also become the past. They have happened.
I can say without hesitation that life is predetermined by past lives. But those three years were beautiful, the most beautiful time. Bapuji continued to meet me, and when I became a wandering teacher he used to come to my camps, to my meetings, and finally he became my disciple. Ba also became my disciple, and all their children became disciples too.
Anand Sheela turned out to be one of the most devoted and committed disciples. Bapuji is happy that at least one of his daughters is serving me. What he wanted to do, one of his daughters is doing. He is too old. He can only bless.