A FLOWER HEADS TO THE OSHO RE-TREAT, PUNESeptember 21, 2008 by Jim...People all over the world head tothe Osho meditation resort to ‘findthemselves’ and I’ll share with youhow it goes as I’m booked in for 24hours. ...Down a palm tree infestedside street was the OSHO meditationretreat as the award for the ‘customerwho looks like they really need tochillout here’ pitched up.

‘Welcome to OSHO, Sir, please putyour bags there and we will arrangeyour AIDS test’.

I was in shock — what AIDS test?

DAY 1 AT THE OSHO RETREATSeptember 22nd, 2008 by Jim...It turned out my health check akaHIV/AIDS test was a requirement ofevery guest at the ‘resort’ but that pre-sented 2 problems that prevented mefrom a sound nights sleep despite find-ing the sound of the tropical cricketschirping comforting:1) I am Trypanophobic — I’m weak atthe knees with needles as the thoughtof them makes my palms sweat thatand yesterdays episode with claustro-phobia. 2) The health center closed 30 minutesbefore I arrived so my medical wouldhave to wait.I was still allowed in and at the whitefloored and white walled hospital typereception I was kindly asked to changemy rupees for ‘credit tokens’ as no cashis handled at the resort, apart from atreception, you understand.“How long are you with us for, Sir?”“Oh just 24 hours” I replied. That wasthe plan and the following morn-ing...my medical was complete andwithin 10 minutes my robes werehanded over to me. A huge relief, allwas OK and I didn’t have to be cattleprodded out of the OSHO retreat.

DAY 2 AT THE OSHO RETREAT, PUNE.September 23rd, 2008 by Jim With so many things on offer here atthe Osho meditation resort. ...I’ve de-cided to change my flights and stayfor 8 days so I can take this place in

and leave with an informed opinion...

GO! SMELL THE FOOD ON DAY 2,OSHOSeptember 23rd, 2008 by Jim

...The OSHO resort claims to be theoasis of wellness and meditation inthe affluent area of Koregaon Park,Pune. Time will tell if I leave with thatconclusion but food is really on themark...

Residents can buy food stamps hereif they choose to eat on campus (somelive off and eat off site and come infor classes) and claim them back forfood. Interestingly enough a state-ment on the vouchers says ‘Contri-bution for meditation activities‘ ...

THE OSHO RESORT DAY 3!September 24th, 2008 by Jim

Day 3 here at the Osho InternationalMeditation Resort and after an initialcouple of days settling in to this lush40-acre campus with white marblepathways, elegant black buildings andgorgeous landscaped gardens time tostart sharing what I’ve been up to.

Osho ... has been described by theSunday Times in London as one of the“1,000 Makers of the 20th Century”and by Sunday Mid-Day in India asone of the 10 people — along withGandhi, Nehru and Buddha — whohave changed the destiny of India.Got to be worth a look then, right?

...Meditation is the core of all ac-tivities at the Resort as it runs througheverything like an undercurrent; theobjective being to fill every nook andcranny with peace and calm. So at10am our smiley Spanish leader (hasspent 1 month here every year for thelast 18 years) welcomed all 20 of us inour purple robes and requested thatwe started dancing to the music. Sooff we went, without the use of alco-hol, class A’s or any other dance in-ducing substances ... all in front ofeach other and huge mirrored walls.

Then a spell of sitting in silence,most of the group could do thecrossed legged thing but I struggled torelaxed so just got comfortable and

sat still, a first for me in a while. Thenmore dancing but this time playingmusic from our respective countriesto show that we all have preconceivedlabels of how we act at home: Gener-ic music form the US, Thailand, India,Spain, Italy and the UK blastedout as we took it turns todance like we dance at home.

I got the Beatles’ Twist &Shout to dance to. ...More sit-ting then ...The same exercise wasrepeated but without any facial ex-pressions to grin, laugh, look aroundit was restricting to say the least.

Glances in the mirror registered asa disturbing nothing through themask and after a few minutes we wereasked to slowly take our masks off,look in the mirror and consider thefaces we wear everyday.... I had thefilm Vanilla Sky on my mind after themask experience.

...This is the only place in the wholeworld where therapy is used as clearing theground for a tremendous transformationfrom mind to no-mind: Osho

From mind to no mind? Hmmm.In our group was a 20-year-old trav-

eler from Spain who is living off cam-pus but keen to dig deep. He was inse-cure and not feeling on the same lev-el as others ... ‘Me too’ I said ‘ So justenjoy it as an observer and do whatyou want to do — don’t be in a hurryto lose yourself and do what interestsyou’. Maybe dispensing advice alreadyputs me on the payroll here?

SMELL THE EVENING MEETING OF THEWHITE ROBE BROTHERHOODSeptember 25th, 2008 by Jim

Well flower smellers, I’ve had somenights out in my time and here... withmy open mind ramping up the oldkarma dollars, despite me being en-couraged to have no mind since my ar-rival here! I’d like to give you my hon-est as-it-happened feedback on what isconsidered the most important, mustattend event of anyone’s stay here...

Preparation for the meditation: At

18:15 havingshowered I stepped into my cleanplain white robe, showered but could-n’t use any smelly stuff like shower gel,shampoo or any perfume, left the oh-so minimal Osho guest-house headedover to the pyramid auditorium, themeditation hall, which reminded meof the Dark side of the moon LP cover.All those flowers to smell and nosmelling allowed?

...To avoid any green sideof the moon no coughing orsneezing is allowed in theauditorium and ‘peoplewith infections arebanned.’ So as I tookcroc sandals off havingpassed the ‘non smelly’test by a couple of elders atthe door I promptly sat at thevery back of this huge hall...

...The finale was when thevideo of the discourse fin-ishing Osho’s voice cameover the loudspeaker and 2or 3 barely audible jokeswere played But thelaughter also came withit from the originalrecording as othersaround me started tolaugh after whatthey thought was apunchline....CO N T I N U E D O NPAG E 11

SUNDAY READ PUNE MIRROR | SUNDAY, OCTOBER 5 , 2008 10

RS 27,OOOAND WAS TAUGHT TO

NO MIND’” - JIM WHEAT

IN KOREGAON PARK. THE FOLLOWING

TRANSCEND FROM HAVING A ‘MIND TO

BLOGS INCOGNITO FROM THE OSHO ASHRAM

ARE EXCERPTS FROM HIS POSTINGS

“I SPENT EIGHT NIGHTS AT THE OSHO ASHRAM. I

PAID

MMYYSSTTRRIICCKKEEDD!!

Jim Wheat

MMYYSSTTRRIICCKKEEDD!!