Vismay

Deva Bhavit writes:

Prem Vismay was born in London in 1960 and left his body on 12th January 2017. He collapsed at a bus stop in Hampstead and died in the ambulance as the paramedic team worked to save him. After an initial diagnosis of heart attack the post mortem remains at present inconclusive.

Prem Vismay, whose name means ‘Love, Child of Wonder’, took sannyas in the mid nineties at Osho Leela in the English countryside. He was involved with Humaniversity therapy, completed their nine-month personal growth course and then went on to participate in the first two years of the Humaniversity four-year therapist training programme. After the millennium he briefly visited Pune where he participated in Born Again which he loved. Vismay told me that he felt most at home at the Humaniversity where he loved fixing things. Being fascinated by all things technical and being a very capable electronic and computer engineer he got to display his virtuosity in this arena whilst there. He was full of energy, always buzzing; he delighted in theatrical performances, writing and orating poetry and telling truly awful jokes, for which he was pretty nigh infamous amongst his friends in London.

I was not present as an eyewitness at the Humaniversity; it was in London, during the past six years, that Vismay and I became close, although we had known each other within the sannyas community since the mid nineties. I first visited Vismay at his home in Kentish Town when he asked me to decorate his hallway and tile his kitchen floor.

Vismay was the archetypal dream brother; he always gave me whatever I needed, be it soft love, tough love, a loan, furniture removal, astute psychological insight, a sofa to sleep on when I was shaken up. Vismay was always there for those he cared for, but unfortunately he couldn’t understand or meet his own real needs. For the past two years he was struggling with depression and sensory overload, finding it increasingly difficult to be around people or to go out. But his life-long struggle was with compulsive overeating. It hurts to say, Vismay was killing himself overeating and neither his two sisters, Posey and Iris, his friends who loved him, and they were many, nor myself could effectively touch and hold that part of him. But compulsive overeating was his behaviour and not who he was.

Vismay was incredibly generous with money, time and energy; he certainly had the greatest capacity for forgiveness that I have met with amongst us un-realised buddhas. He was an incredibly sensitive and wonder-full soul and an utterly true friend. I often berated him for his apparently reckless generosity – now faith tells me that it is his love and generosity of spirit that he journeys with.
Fare thee well, my friend, and thank you for enriching my life in a thousand ways both light and dark. Travel with love as your companion.

Text by Bhavit, photos credit to Bhavit, Iris Green and FB, cartoon by Satya Loka (summing up Vismay’s sense of humour)

I, Daniel Blake director Ken Loach joins vigil for ‘fit to work’ man who died on way home from job centre – article on Camden New Journal

Tributes

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Many of us met Vismay sometime in the 90s in Osho Leela, when he was participating in the Humaniversity Therapist Training. Later on he helped regularly with the London Aum meditation, for quite a long time. We did many journeys to a storage place together, where our sound equipment was stored. At that time I would have been stuck without him. Vismay was usually on hand to check the electrical set-up was working properly, fix broken connections and cables, and then he had fun in the Aum! In the Aum he was large and loud! He was always a very humorous and friendly guy, and enjoyed being helpful to people. He was very helpful to me personally too and I thank him. As a small example, he helped me move house one time – he usually had a van of some sort. He was just available to help.

Sometimes he had birthday parties in the small garden behind his flat house during August, and made a large pot of curry.

He liked football and I think he was an Arsenal fan.

I always felt that there was a lot more to Vismay than he was able to show, and he never quite realised his potential. He liked music – particularly artists like Eric Clapton, Hendrix, and Frank Zappa, and had a large collection of vintage vinyl albums. One time I was there and he was playing a Jeff Beck album which I liked hearing and he made me a copy. The last time I saw him was before Christmas sometime at his place and I thought he was more at ease in himself than I had known him for a while. We usually had a cup of tea and a natter on these occasions. He was a bit zany, very human and often very silly!

One thing his friends are universally agreed on is that he told awful corny jokes! Maybe that was his lasting message to us!

Thank you Vismay! I am going to tell some corny ones now, to continue your vision…. Love,

Prabuddho