Blimey!

Sooooo my website has been offline in one way or another for aaaaages and as a result I’ve not blogged for over a month. I’ll spare you the minutiae, but here’s an overview.

In the last blog I got a haircut, India won the cricket and I saw a cock. Since then I finished up my time at OshoWorld, had some of my plans thrown into disarray as a result of relying taking people at their word, but made a couple of good friends in the last week or so that I really wasn’t expecting to.

The heat in Pune was climbing on an hourly basis it appeared. I spent the last 10 days constantly drenched in sweat, to the point where if it wasn’t for the dark patches on my maroon robes I wouldn’t have even noticed I was sweating. I just surrendered to the heat.

My constitution finally caved in, having had no real stomach issues for the first three months here, it all started to go wrong in a big way around mid-April and to be really honest it’s been dodgy ever since! Not death’s door dodgy, but a ‘don’t risk a fart’ dodgy.

My time at OshoWorld needs a bit more reflection before I can truly say what I did and didn’t get out of it. I know it didn’t meet any of the expectations I had of it - but that is just a lesson for me not to expect too much of the unknown - how can I know/expect?

A few basic observations from the “World According to JoJo @ Osho”

It’s extremely popular with the recently divorced.

Despite everyone calling it so, it is most definitely NOT a commune.

Despite the sign on the front gate, it’s not a full-on “Resort” either. It has the appearance of a Club Med enterprise, but the facilities and service remind me more of Butlin’s.

The organisation is very ‘nickle and dime’. Charging people Rs850 to come in for the day then charging them another Rs150 to use the pool is cheap and nasty and leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Charge Rs1000 and tell ‘em everything is free - simple psychology innit?

The maroon and white robes, the maroon swimwear etc., needs to be dumped. Does nobody see the irony of listening to Osho negatively describe China’s old policy of making its people all dress alike as a way of ‘suppressing the individual’? Again, it comes across as another way of making a few bucks on the side.

Having said all of the above, I have no regrets about my visit, and I would recommend anyone who is interested in seeing humankind stipped bare and really close up to take a look. It’s fascinating!

Where its future lies will be interesting. I heard that a lot of the old timers were very unhappy with the direction OshoWorld is taking, I wonder if they will continue to desert the place or whether they will fight back and help to get it back on track. The place has such potential for both good and bad - it just depends who’s steering I guess.