Paddy goes to Pune

With the world opening up again, I was thrilled to return back to the OSHO International Meditation Resort from January 3 to January 17, 2023. Before I share my experience of my trip to Pune, I want to digress and share why I picked the title of this blog.

I was born in London of Irish parents. Growing up in England during the 1970s was a time of intense IRA activity plus racism towards Irish people. I was regularly called ‘paddy,’ at school, a derogatory noun for an Irish person. The irony is that when I moved to Ireland in 1981, I was beaten up there too for being English, so I was bullied for being Irish and for being English. I was in a weird no-nationality space which is fine with me as I still feel that today.

Osho talks a lot about nationality and divisions between nations. He pokes fun at all nationalities through his jokes as a zen stick to see what stings and help us be aware of our conditioning. When I visited Pune in 2016, I bought an album called Terra Incognita and when I first heard the tune ‘Paddy goes to Pune‘ my heart swelled. I still feel intense joy when I hear this cheerful tune and memories of bullying because I was Irish/not Irish is replaced with me as a woman travelling to Pune and experiencing intense beauty, joy, friendships and insights there. This paddy loves going to Pune!

Week 1: OSHO No Mind

I had originally planned to go to Pune in December 2020, but the pandemic hit and the centre was closed for over two years. It slowly reopened in July 2022 and I booked new flights for January 2023. I flew to Mumbai and booked a taxi to take me to Pune. As I arrived in the middle of the night, it took almost two hours to get through immigration in Mumbai airport and other security checks so be prepared for that. The taxi journey takes about 3.5 – 4 hours or longer in heavy traffic. I arrived at around 7.30am and at 10am I jumped straight into the first day of OSHO No Mind.

This is an incredible process that is for two hours a day over seven days. It is one of three meditative therapies that Osho created and it helps the participant get into a space of no mind. In the first hour you do gibberish, which is speaking in a language you do not know, and the second hour you sit in silence. OIMR run this process every month usually around the 3rd or 4th of the month.

In the afternoons I attended the OSHO No Mind Facilitation training, which means I can now facilitate this process in Ireland or be a helper for another OSHO No Mind Facilitator. Contact me if you want this process or help at your event.

My own experience of the process and the training is immense. The gibberish part of the process is a catharsis of the mind and for me I took the opportunity to throw out all my rubbish, or as much of it as I could. Some days in the silence, I dozed from jet lag or resistance. Other times the silence went deep. I cannot say what came up for me, I just know I felt lighter each day and the thoughts were less – sometimes to the point of not knowing where things are, where to next and time disappeared.

Week Two: Sufi Heart and Work as Meditation

In my second week, I did a one day course called Sufi Heart with Darpan (he organises the OSHO Festival in Russia) and is such a heart filled facilitator. This process was about remembering our hearts and our centre. There was lots of Sufi whirling, Zikirs and other techniques. There are no words for the experience I felt in that one day so what to say ….

I was grateful to take part in a beautiful night of Sufi in the group whirling. It is hard to see me in the photo but being in the Sufi whirling is achingly beautiful.

The next day I began work as meditation. The focus is on how you do the work, not what work you do. I wanted to get a taste of this as I love that Osho focuses on meditation in the marketplace. It is a challenge to be present and a witness while working or interacting with others as we are so other focused in our day to day life. At least I am. I was curious to see if I could remain the witness while carrying out work. I was hoping for some quiet work away from people so I was placed in the Welcome Centre – ha! ha! Not a quiet job away from people but absolutely perfect for me. I also had hoped that I won’t be sitting around as I struggle with doing nothing. I also received that in abundance too. Again perfect for me.

I can lose myself in being helpful/nice/etc with others. I lose my centre and it becomes all about them and I was becoming more aware of the impact this is having on me before I went to Pune. I discovered that I can be helpful and at the same time witness what is going on inside of me. When I did this, the dynamic between me and the other changed. Seeing this is invaluable for me. I can’t say how I did it, but I believe taking part in OSHO No-Mind, doing OSHO Dynamic, OSHO Kundalini and OSHO Evening Meeting every day helped. Being in the energy of the centre also helped me see inside of myself better too.

If inaction and action can meet, then the harmony arises.

Osho

During quiet periods where I was not registering new or returning visitors to the centre, it was quiet and silent. I grew to love those periods of inactivity watching the leaves fall from the trees, or the peacock sit on a bench and clean his feathers. Sometimes one of the cats would come in and sit on a rock hoping to catch one of fish in the pond or I would watch the fish swim around. Sometimes sitting in the chair, I would feel, see, do nothing. A big space of emptiness would arise while the world moved around – magic!

Reflections

I gained so many insights during my time in Pune, and received so much love and care from others while there. Someone would say or do the exact right thing I needed at that particular time. There is a serendipitous magic that happens and if you are open to it, it happens all the time. I loved meeting people from all parts of the world and in our sea of maroon robes during the day and white robes at Evening meeting, nationality, background, wealth or lack of it and all the other labels that exist melted away. We are a bunch of people who either love or are curious about Osho, his message and his meditations and we connect on that basis.

There is both an intensity and a softening effect on me when I come to the OSHO International Meditation Resort. The intensity is that I squeeze every drop of experience I can. Some mornings I would take part in OSHO Dynamic meditation, have a quick shower and join the Qi-gong class (Raj is an incredible teacher – the stuff he shared with me on uprooting is gold), eat and either start work as meditation or take part in OSHO No-Mind. That was either until lunchtime or 4pm.

The softening would be when I would slowly walk in Chung Tau Zu garden. It can be experienced in two ways – a collection of trees, plants, a path and a rock. A collection of things that can be easily bypassed or it can be a tantric paradise that enters you. If you approach the garden tenderly, it will unveil its beauty and glory slowly. I liked to sit on many of the hidden benches and let sounds, smells and sights enter me. Or if a large plant invited me to stand under it while it shared its energy with me, I would.

There is so much to experience at the OSHO International Meditation Resort and I would urge anyone who feels a pull to visit. I saw again and again where someone who would visit for a day or two, and had a full itinerary planned to visit other places – would stay for one day, and then another and another as the place pulled them in. It had that mesmerising effect.

There is a full schedule of meditations starting with OSHO Dynamic at 6am right through to evening events such as dancing, Karoke, Sufi nights, creativity nights or you can opt for night time meditations. Then there are the courses, individual sessions and OSHO meditative therapies. I recommend following your heart or gut as they will lead you to the right meditation, process or session in that moment.

This post has a lack of photos as we cannot take pictures inside and while the sharer in me wanted to take photos so I could show others, I am more grateful that I did not have to dodge phones or cameras. I find them increasingly invasive. It is worth understanding that some people who visit want their visit to be private for all sorts of reasons. Also what I really, really valued is that for two weeks, I was not on my phone, social media or the internet except for 10-15 minutes a day to check in with loved ones. If you want to see photos of the place, you can visit the website or follow OSHO International on Facebook – there are some fabulous photos there.

A final note about face masks

At the time of writing this, there is a requirement that while taking part in any meditations indoors or entering the Zorba cafe, you need to wear a face mask. Before travelling to Pune, I was concerned whether I could do the more active meditations while wearing a face mask. I knew I could just stick with outside activities, but I wanted to experience it all so I accepted wearing a face mask is a part of that. I also recognised that as so many people from all over the world are coming to the one place, having face masks inside makes good safety sense.

What surprised me is that the face mask did not get in the way of my meditation or the OSHO No-Mind process. It only arose as an issue while doing OSHO Dynamic. However, this felt like a mind thing where I fixated on all the problems of the face mask and how I could not do it properly. When I witnessed that this is a mind thing, and saw the reality that a face mask is just a face mask, all my resistance and petulance dropped. It is just a piece of material that covers my mouth – nothing more. The rest of the arguments about face masks is mind stuff.