The Osho Experience...Part Two

So here I am. In paradise.

I’ve been here in Pune now for almost three weeks but the time I spent in Goa, Mumbai, Agra or anywhere else in India seems like years ago. London? I can barely remember what the place looks or feels like!

Those of you who know me will know that I came to the Osho Ashram to do a ‘Work As Meditation’ programme. I booked this seven months ago and at the time I fondly imagined doing a bit of gardening, maybe chopping some veggies for dinner, or perhaps doing some laundry as my work. It seems that my imagination was stuck in how it was here 20 years ago!

This place is a business and as such there are business-type jobs for us ‘Sannyas’ to do. I found myself working in the office where they administrate people like me who come here to work. Basically Human Resources (or Personnel as it was known in the days when I had a ‘proper’ job).

Apparently the work is selected based in part on your experience and from the answers you give to the application questionnaire. Well I can’t remember what answers I gave but there is nothing on this planet that could ever make me suitable for that type of work.

I understand the concept is to give you tangible skills that you can then take back into the real world and apply to your daily work, but given that a/ I “retired” on 1/1/11, b/ I haven’t done a corporate job for over 20 years and the last time I did it ended with me having a massive breakdown, and c/ even if I wanted a ‘real’ job, I’ll be 50 when I get back. I doubt anybody is looking to employ a 50 year old stand-up comedienne to run their personnel department.

So from the start it was a challenge to see exactly how this was gonna benefit me in any way. Then you must factor in the personalities and working practices of the other people. Now one thing I am good at is reading people very quickly. As a comedian I’ve had to be able to do that well, that’s how I’ve made a living for so long, and my reading of the characters in this game led me to understand that where they were coming from couldn’t be more diametrically opposed to me.

The killer quote was that I was told I was a ‘people person’ when we all know I’d take a monkey over a human any day of the week!

The icing on the cake of course was the office gossip and politics. As someone who’s been getting paid for being honest for the best part of 18 years, I find it hard to bullshit and kiss ass. Actually, make that impossible.

So all of those factors have led me to where I am today. Sitting in one of the deluxe rooms, bank balance slightly lighter, writing this post having spent the morning just ‘being’. I changed my whole programme on Saturday and now my days will be spent in meditation, tai chi, swimming, sunbathing, reading Osho’s words (which is what brought me here in the first place), and doing some writing.

Outside of the office this place is paradise and that was brought home to me in the Tai Chi class yesterday morning. It was 8am, so peaceful, I was focused on the forms then I spotting something moving in one of the bamboo trees that line the space where we were Tai Chi’ing. It was a macaque! He was a right big old bugger too! Only last week I’d thought to myself that this place would be perfect if there were monkeys, and now there are.

Here’s to perfection.