Meditation, Celebration on Osho Beach in Goa

On Dec 11, 2011, Osho’s 80th birthday will be celebrated at Osho Beach in Goa, India

December 11, 2011 will be Osho’s 80th birthday, and his essence is alive and well and living on Osho Beach in Goa, India.

It’s been more than 40 years since Osho sent me down from Bombay with my friend Samadhi to open the first Osho center in Goa, Shanti Niketan. Niseema and I are now pleased to announce that we have secured a wonderful space over Café Coffee Day for the home of Osho Essence and Lovebaba’s. The space is air-conditioned, safe, clean, and within a two-minute walk from where sannyasins have been drawn for many decades.

We plan an ongoing environment for morning meditations, live music, performances, and a state-of-the-art surround-sound cinema for special arts film showings. Niseema will be designing the restaurant menu to reflect her love and expertise in natural and fresh culinary treats for the in-house restaurant, as well as rolling out her food lines to be offered at the nearby grocery outlets and delis. Harideva will be directing all of the other in-house activities, as well as producing the Goa Jazz and Blues Festival.

Our center will offer a real meeting space for friends, and we invite all friends to come and get involved in its creation and also offer whatever talents they may wish to share. Over the past seasons we have had concerts, comedy nights, and several dance parties, where some of our DJ friends from Europe and Japan have spun great dance mixes to get the packed club buzzing.

Since I started bringing Osho’s message and work to the West in the very early ’70s, I have always had a calling for creating a meditational atmosphere that was full of celebration and love. Our friends will find that here in Goa. As a group, many of us are getting older and some of us even a bit creaky. We might want to succumb to the approaching limitations of what once was a spry and exuberant physicality and move into isolation and a sense of a perceived “safety” that might be found in “settling down” and avoiding risk. Let’s not do that. Let’s go for life and see if somehow India still calls us.

Goa, and in particular Candolim Beach (what I have called Osho Beach), continues to be a clean and wonderful place for a healthy lifestyle while bringing us into close contact with international friends of every age. More and more families come with their kids, while an international collection of top-notch yoga teachers transfer their insights and disciplines to a fresh class of seekers. We have a blast almost every night. Goa is a place where all of his lovers can come for some silence, great surf, and the serenity of knowing that we are surrounded by friends.

Hope to see you there. I leave you with one of my favorite quotes:

Around the Corner
by Charles Hanson Towne

Around the corner I have a friend
In this great city that has no end,
Yet the days go by and weeks rush on,
And before I know it, a year is gone
And I never see my old friend’s face,
For life is a swift and terrible race,
He knows I like him just as well
As in the days when I rang his bell,
And he rang mine.
We were younger then,
And now we are busy, tired men.
Tired of playing a foolish game,
Tired of trying to make a name.
“Tomorrow” I say, “I will call on Jim”
“Just to show that I’m thinking of him.”
But tomorrow comes and tomorrow goes, and
distance between us grows and grows.
Around the corner! – yet miles away,
“Here’s a telegram sir‒”
“Jim died today.”
And that’s what we get and deserve in the end.
Around the corner, a vanished friend.