Responses by Sannyasins to Amrit Sadhana’s statement

Today, many sannyasins responded to a statement given by Ma Amrit Sadhana of the Osho International Meditation Resort management team in reaction to a news item carried by DNA newspaper (http://epaper.dnaindia.com/) yesterday, October 9, 2011.
Here is a selection:
This is a pitiable self-congratulatory cover up effort of all that has n
ot been done by this team of three individuals controlling the Indians in the Pune Osho Commune. While we refer to the place as Osho Commune it may be noted that the very reason for changing the name from commune to resort could have been to de-link the place and property from a commune or ashram to a private holding. This way it would make it easier for the trio (Jayesh, Amrito and Jayesh’ brother Yogendra) to be able to sell off the assets of the Osho Commune.
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It is noteworthy that since the establishment of Shree Rajneesh Ashram in 1974, huge amounts of resources have been pooled into the place by hundreds of Osho’s disciples. The question is, who has the right to own these assets? Obviously each and every sannyasin of Osho who has given his /her complete blood and sweat to the place, those who devoted their lives to Osho’s work and vision. And those who with their love and dedication for the master transformed this place into a temple of meditation. For hundreds of thousands of disciples from around the world this place is a gurudwara where they meditated together with the master. It is a dhyan mandir.
“I am against any kind of organization because every organization has proved an enemy of truth, a murderer of love.
I trust in the individual.
Each and every sannyasin, alone, is my medium.
Each and every sannyasin is connected to me directly.
There is no organization between me and you.
There is no priesthood between me and you.”
Osho, The Osho Upanishad, Ch 43, Q 5
“Each sannyasin has to be my successor, has to be me. There is no need for anybody to dominate. There is nobody for anybody to dictate to. They are on their own. If they want to be together they can be together. Out of their own freedom, it is their choice and their decision.”
Osho, The Last Testament, Vol-2, Chapter-14
This gang of three aided by an Indian called Mukesh Sarda have been claiming to own the spiritual legacy of Osho. OIF has been making false claims to trademarks of the name Osho and the meditations given by him, in addition to copyrights of all the public discourses given by Osho, totaling to about 9000 hours in Hindi and English. They were squarely defeated in a ten year long lawsuit by Osho Friends International (www.oshofriendsinternational.com) in the USA and have now been challenged similarly in Europe by the Osho Cologne centre.
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The workings of the Pune commune have been questioned by a majority of Osho’s disciples throughout the world. Senior sannyasins have been doubting the intentions of three westerners controlling this place of worship and converting it into a private property. How three foreigners have come to control all the public trusts and societies of the commune is a question mark for disciples. Dummy (benami) names of Indians have been used in the trusts and societies.
The 35 acres of prime property is owned by not one but several trusts and societies, each having benami names of Indians. The strategy now seems to be to change ownership from the trusts to the private limited company OIMR, where it will be possible to have foreign directors and shareholders. As a company for profit with the objectives of managing resorts and media they would be able to take dividends and shareholdings out of India.
Hence the application to the Charity Commissioner for sale of the property. With the involvement of powerful politicians of Maharastra it may be easy to influence the Charity Commissioner. For all we know the sale may actually take place outside of India and the proceeds will then also remain outside of India. Indians are familiar with such transactions happening offshore and proceeds going to the favoured country – Switzerland.
It is wonderful to hear that Indian sannyasins in Pune have taken the initiative to oppose this move to sell properties. Efforts to sell properties of the commune have been in the air on and off and friends have often been talking about big real estate agents scouting for customers in Mumbai and Pune. Fortunately potential customers have be
en wise not to entrust their money to three foreigners with doubtful credibility. Business organizations would think twice before buying properties of religious trusts as this may become a very hot potato with all the opposition from the followers.
In India this can happen only with political clout. The media reports in Pune and Mumbai have raised the question if politicians are eyeing this property worth more than 200 million US dollars. No wonder the government of Maharashtra has not yet taken any action against the move of these three westerners who obviously enjoy political protection.
Is there no law in India to check foreigners controlling huge amounts of religious assets without proper legalities?
– First of all, there has been no application made to sell property of the meditation resort.
Time will tell if the spokesperson, Ma Sadhana, needs to eat her words. The copy of the application is not yet on the net yet but hopefully sannyasins opposing the sale will come up with a copy soon for all of us to see. OIF may not initially want to sell the properties directly to an outside party. Their biggest hurdle is the Charity Commissioner who controls all the trusts of Maharashtra. They would want to get out of this control and so transferring the properties to some other entities out of Charity Commissioner’s purview would be logically the first step.
– Secondly, with the permission of the Charity Commissioner, our property #9 has a mortgage against a small bank loan for renovations and upgrades that have occurred over the last three years including substantial costs to implement a world class security system. This loan practice is in the ordinary course of business, is current and in good standing and falls within our standard operating model.
Did anyone speak about any mortgage or loans? What is this about?
– For your information, in terms of operations Osho International entered into a Joint Venture with Godrej Properties in order to carry out the construction of the Osho Guest House and the world famous, Osho Auditorium with a construction cost of 32 crores. 65 % of the construction cost of 32 crores came to the foundation from sales profits.
Congratulations, can we please have some accounts of the 30 crores profit made on the auditorium? Let’s remember that the property is owned by a trust. What was done with that money?
This brings us to an important issue of financial transparency about the financial management of the place. There is different guesswork floating in the air, facts and rumours all mixed together creating an aroma so pleasant to gossip.The workings of the place have been completely hushed up and are known only to Jayesh or to his helper, Mukesh Sarda.
Is it not time that sannyasins ask for financial transparency about the workings of this temple of meditation?
Does the secular government of India not have any responsibility of spiritual heritage places such as this?
Why are they not concerned when three foreigners come to plunder their most precious heritage of spirituality, whereas all these political leaders of India never tire of boasting about the great religious legacy of this country?
– Over the 20 years since Osho left his body, 110,000 square feet of developed space has been created for use. When Osho left his body there was a total of 15,000 useable square feet, so in effect we have increased useable square feet by seven times!
Well done. Great figure work like that of a Mumbai builder’s salesperson.
Sannyasins would like to know what has the management done to this temple. This used to be a commune bustling with energy and full of meditation activities; thousands of people from all over the world converged here for years and today a pitiful number of less than 100 somedays just a handful are seen during meditations. That’s where the management has a problem, being more real estate developers and money makers than facilitators for Osho’s work. Love is gone over these 20 years.
– In addition, in this time we have added the front road development and the award winning Osho Teerth Park.
Good work doing the road. And thanks for the park.
– Regarding the people named in the article, Jayesh, Amrito and Yogendra, it should be noted that Jayesh and Amrito were respectively personally appointed Chairman and Deputy Chairman of the Inner Circle by Osho.
The Inner Circle appointed by Osho has already been destroyed by Jayesh and Amrito. Please do not take refuge behind the Inner Circle. The Chairman and Deputy Chairman ensured that it does not work in the way as Osho had envisioned it. Spiritual inner circles can work only with inner harmony and love and meditativeness, not with intrigue, conspiracy and authoritarian attitude.
What are the other credentials of these three people? There have been reports of criminal cases – one in Canada about Jayesh (Michael O’Byrne, who is now known merely as Michael Byrne), and reports of his younger brother Darcy O’Byrne having a pending FIR in Pune for rape, and the third faithful, Amrito, who appears to be inebriated every night, as witnessed by Koregaon Park’s residents; all of this is publically known, posted on the net.

– All three have a major focus on International Media and making Osho available. To that end, Osho in now available in printed books in some 60 languages, and has been seen by some 19 million people on the Osho International YouTube Channel. Osho has a yearly digital reach of over 350 million digital impressions through, digital mediums including, osho.com, Facebook and Twitter. While it took almost 30 years to have Osho published in the mentioned 60 languages it has taken just two years to have Osho’s video talks translated to that same figure.

Brilliant performance results are being expertly rattled out and credit is given to those three individuals. Please be reminded that these results are simply commonplace in present day technology. What has not been mentioned is the policing that has been done on the net and over the meditation centres.

It should be mentioned just how many Osho related websites have been pulled down. It should be mentioned how many of Osho’s discourses that were available on Youtube have been pulled down. It has not been mentioned how many Facebook pages that posted Osho quotes or videos were closed by actions of the management. Much of the internet presence that disciples created worldwide was attempted to be slashed by this policing.

And the management continues to charge royalties for all the books contracted out to world publishers, while entry charges to the Osho Commune have been increased. Osho’s discourses are being made available for profit but where does that profit go?
This group has not been facilitating the growth of Osho’s work but killing sannyasins’ and Osho Centres initiatives by threats of legal actions.
Presumably it will be said that the accounts are filed with the Charity Commissioners of Mumbai or Pune, and whoever wants can go and look for them there. And just who will be able to do this?
– The trustees and management team will continue with best efforts to best support the Osho proposal.
We would like to trust that the best efforts will prevail. But to what end? What is the Osho proposal? To all of Osho’s sannyasins’ best understanding of His proposal is of love and meditation, dance and celebration. But alas anyone visiting ‘the resort’ does not feel the love and meditation.
So what is this proposal for which the best efforts will be made ? Presently it appears the efforts are to clean out the place and make it a resort focused on commercial activity. There is no love, there is no meditation. Yes, there are dance programs but there is no celebration. Love is gone, the essence is gone.
Also, all sannyasins would like to know who is meant when Trustees are mentioned. Are these the benami names of Indian sannyasins on the trust papers who don’t even know what is going on?