BALPREET
The Hindustan Times
Chandigarh, 26 June, 2001
It’s NOT their smiles…It’s the glint in them and how they’re welling up their eyes, is what tells you that something very beautiful, very, very beautiful, has happened to them. It has. By way of Osho Nisarg Foundation, that has just sent lighter beings back home. After this three-day camp (June 22-24) at Naddi, Dharamsala. This Osho meditation camp, held for the first time at Dharamshala, conducted by Ma Yoga Neelam – Osho’s long time secretary and disciple for over three decades, was partaken of by as many as 56 people from across the country and outside – Mauritius and Germany.
As for our City group – a dozen of them, mostly women, has returned with amazingly balmed-out insides, the Spring in their souls, wings beneath. And this might read like some attractive words strung for effect. But we promise, they are not.
In fact, they don’t even begin to say anything of their faces. As they welcome you with such meltingly warm hugs, this lump thickens in your throat. Add to that, they talk of the camp, Osho and all that happened up there in that hill. Of them, 15 took sanyas …Seeing a twisted brow to this, smiles Swami Chaitanya Keerti, long time editor for Osho Times International and now Osho World, a Hindi magazine: “Sannyas is not renouncing. It’s about living to the brim, the fullest, the deepest within. Denying nothing. Accepting absolutely.”
This lady, now christened, Ma Jeevan Madhur, nods to this. The pink under her skin in not from the hills, it’s from this bliss from three days of being amidst the thick of what she calls Buddhist energy. Into Osho for over 20 years now, this camp finally picked her afloat to take sannyas.
The camp had at least 30 first-timers… like Sunita Sahi, to whom the craving to attend the camp came very strong after hearing an Osho cassette on Buddha. For others- like Ma Dharma Jyoti, Ma Yog Radha, Ma Yog Shukla… whose bonding with Osho goes down two-four decades, this was yet another moment to rediscover how an Osho camp continues to be the biggest tug to adopt his way of ‘being’- blissfully, acceptingly, fillingly.
Housed at Himgiri Resorts, the group meditated all through each day – 6 am -9.30 pm – breaking after each session. With five sessions of varied techniques of meditation – spanning – Dynamic, Kundalini, Natraj, Nadabrahma, Nischal Dhyana Yoga, Osho White Robe Brotherhood… it indeed was a thorough reaching within. “And so much cleansing,” gushes Sahi, admitting her first day was far from easy. “The first half of the day, I kept thinking what am I doing, why and how come… I couldn’t concentrate, not even as much as keep my eyes closed… But in the evening, suddenly as if the energy in the air got around to me and I was into it. ” Most of them find Dynamic Meditation quite difficult , but then, they all have their hurdles to get over…
“And once you are trying it along with such a large group, the collective energy comes to your help,” adds Swami Chaitanya Keerti.
As we leave the room, the bliss comes along… making us promise we wouldn’t miss their next one (July 6-8, New Delhi). That glint in their eyes is after all, too hard to get away from. And then, there’re many knots in our own heads anyways…
This feature has four colour photos with a caption: CAMPFUL OF BLISS: The recent three-day Osho meditation camp held at Dharamshala, sent back all the campers so very blissful and revitalised. While, for the old timers, it was yet another experience of reaching within as guided by Ma Neelam, Osho’s long time secretary, it was amazing new experience for the first-timers.
