About 18 acres of prime real estate in Pune’s posh Koregaon Park is in the news over a controversial attempt to sell off part of the Osho Commune properties.
Although Osho’s samadhi — final resting place of the mystic’s mortal remains — is located in what was his bedroom in the Lao Tzu bungalow (33 Koregaon Park), all of Osho Commune is hallowed ground for his followers worldwide. The entire place (now known as Osho International Meditation Resort), which used to throb with people and activity in his lifetime and till about a decade after his death on Jan 19, 1990, is like his samadhi for his followers. They cannot fathom any attempt by the managing trustees to sell off this invaluable property bit by bit.
In January 1990, after Osho's death, his British-born personal physician, Swami Prem Amrito (alias John Andrews) had addressed a large gathering in the Buddha Hall giving details of Osho's final conversation with him. In that video-recorded account, the swami said he asked Osho what should be done for his samadhi? To this, said Swami Prem Amrito, the dying mystic replied: “You just put my ashes in Chuang Tzu under the bed. And then people can come in and meditate there.”
'Chuang Tzu' was the lecture hall where Osho, as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, used to give discourses after he had settled in Pune in 1974. It was later converted into his bedroom and the entire bungalow was named 'Lao Tzu'.
Following these instructions, the bedroom was renovated lavishly with marble flooring, walls and pillars (since Osho ascribed spiritual significance to marble used extensively in temples) and a circular crystal chandelier. An urn containing his ashes was buried in the ground where his bed stood and a marble platform created over it. His photograph was placed on this platform with the epitaph, ‘Osho: Never Born, Never Died. Only Visited Planet Earth Between December 11, 1931, and January 19, 1990.'
Osho's followers would meditate in this samadhi routinely.
In 2007, there was a buzz that some changes were being made to the samadhi. As a journalist with The Times of India's Pune edition, this writer sought permission to visit the Samadhi, which was granted reluctantly by Amrit Sadhana, the commune's representative. During that visit she said boldly (or foolishly) in an interview (published in The Times of India's Aug 19, 2007, edition) that the commune made “a mistake” by using the word ‘samadhi’. She elaborated: “We do not call it a samadhi. It is called Chuang Tzu Hall where Osho gave his first lectures after arriving in Pune in 1974. As per Osho's wishes, his ashes were put in an urn and buried there.”
This was the first official shift in the Osho Commune's position on the existence of the samadhi.
Soon, all references to the samadhi disappeared from the commune's website. Five years later, in July 2012, Mukesh Sarda, a senior trustee with Osho International Foundation (OIF), reiterated this position in an affidavit to the Mumbai Charity Commissioner. "It is absolutely incorrect that there is any samadhi of Osho on the property owned by the trust. There never was any samadhi or any structure as samadhi of Osho,” he said in his 34-page affidavit.
Osho’s followers tried to make sense of this bizarre and blatant rejection of the samadhi. They came to the conclusion that this was nothing but a ploy to erase the religious/spiritual significance associated with the word ‘samadhi’ and thus open up the property for lease or sale. After all, which developer would want to purchase a property with a samadhi on the premises?
There was a previous attempt to "gift" a portion of the commune property to a Delhi-based trust which was legally thwarted by Osho's followers. Mr Sarda, on behalf of the OIF, had justified that attempt by saying the properties were not required by the trust which was finding it difficult to maintain them.
Early this year, another controversy erupted when it came to light that the Osho Commune trustees had applied to the Charity Commissioner for permission to sell two properties citing losses during Covid-19. This controversy surfaced again last month with the Charity Commissioner inviting fresh bids for sale of the two properties.
Earlier, Osho’s followers were ecstatic when a Bombay High Court order of Aug 11, 2022 (by Justices SV Gangapurwala and Madhav J Jamdar) stated categorically that "there is no prohibition for the petitioners or devotees to visit the samadhi. The directions are also given to protect the Osho samadhi. The petitioners or devotees certainly can visit the Osho samadhi."
This was a major victory for Osho’s followers though many complain of entry still being denied to the samadhi on some pretext or the other.
The Osho movement, which attracted international attention in the 1970s, has completed half a century. The mystic’s distinctive meditations and his discourses in Hindi and English on religion, spiritualism and other issues continue to draw a following even today. Like Auroville, Sri Aurobindo’s commune in Puducherry, Osho’s samadhi and the Pune Commune should be allowed to retain their identity rather than fall prey to crass commercial interests.
Abhay Vaidya has worked as a senior journalist with a number of leading publications. He is now director at a policy research think tank in Pune
