Sundar recalls a special moment in darshan when he passed on a message to Osho.
Osho gave me sannyas in 1978 and after that visit I had returned to Berlin where I enjoyed living among many sannyasin friends while still working as a professor at the university.
In June 1979 we had just opened the Vihan Meditation Center and I was to fly to Pune in July after having finished summer term at our institute at Freie Universität Berlin.
The evening before my departure, Deepen and I had visited Wolfgang Hochheimer, Professor at the Department for Psychology; Deepen had written his doctoral thesis about the Shree Rajneesh Ashram together with him. I had mentioned that I was going to Pune the next day, so when we left his home, Prof. Hochheimer said to me, “… and by the way, my heartfelt regards to Bhagwan!“ Deepen had told me earlier that Hochheimer’s girlfriend, Ma Prem Neerjo, was living in the ashram and he usually met with her at Lao Tzu Gate when he arrived in Pune.
The next morning I took the S-Bahn (commuter train) to Schönefeld Airport, at the time situated in the former German Democratic Republic (DDR), on the other side of The Wall. I carried with me in a holdall a whole bunch of photos for Bhagwan of Vihan’s opening celebration.
At the check point I had to open my bag and the customs officer said when discovering the thick bunch of photos, “Ooooh, now what’s all that about?“
I probably said, “Only a few party photos.“
His reply was short, “Just a moment, please!“ and then disappeared, taking the photos with him.
I waited for 5 minutes, 10 minutes… nothing happened. I became – to say the least – a little bit impatient, because I was afraid the plane would leave without me! After one hour he returned and said: “Herr Dr. Kroll, you can fly now.“
I replied a bit miffed, “To where? The airplane must have left already!”
He smiled knowingly and said, “No, no, the plane has been waiting for you.“
Now – imagine: a fully packed Tupolev, Ilyushin or whatever type of airplane it was, with approximately 150 passengers had to wait for some customs officers at Schönefeld Airport curiously looking through the images showing all those red people from our Vihan opening party!
Things like this are usually only possible in Communist countries with an almighty state administration, or was there inexplicably some other force of nature at work, making sure those photos would reach the right person in Pune on schedule?
Upon arrival in Pune I went straight to the ashram’s office and gave Arup the package with the photos. A couple of days later I went to evening darshan on the porch of Lao Tzu House.
And then I was called up to sit in front of Bhagwan. After some of the usual questions: “When did you come, what kind of groups did you do, when do you leave…“ he silently looked at me, being totally relaxed in the here-now and asked, “Something to say to me?”
Well, I knew that such a question would come and I felt a little bit uncomfortable because on the one hand I am by nature quite loyal and reliable – on the other hand I felt that it was not on to say that, because I remembered what Wolfgang Hochheimer had asked me to do. Nevertheless, my feelings of loyalty and reliability prevailed… my eyes downcast I said as quietly as possible, almost whispering, “Professor Wolfgang Hochheimer asked me to convey his heartfelt greetings…“
Bhagwan’s eyes became as big as saucers, he just about jumped at me, almost shouting, “Wulfgäng who? Who is it?“ And then, turning to Laxmi, sitting next to his left side, again, “Who is it?” And then, “Is he a sannyasin?“
I don’t know if Bhagwan said something else, as at that moment it was far too noisy to hear anything because everybody in the audience was just bursting out with laughter…
Footnote by Osho News
Deepen added that Prof. Wolfgang Hochheimer had visited the ashram at the end of 1977 when he was already over 70 years old. During a darshan with Osho he asked him which groups he should do. Osho replied, “There is no need.” Since then he had always asked Deepen to give his love to Osho when he left for visits to Pune. He also supported the sannyasins he came to know in many different ways, also financially.
Deepen also mentioned that Prof. Hochheimer was a very loving old soul who had helped him so much to complete his research project on the ashram as he felt it was important to use also the scientific channels to relay something about Osho to the West. Hochheimer died in 1992.
Last but not least, Neerjo assisted Ma Prem Divya in her workshops and groups and had access to Divya’s space in Lao Tzu House.
Related discourse
After much research it seems very likely that this question was asked by Prof. Hochheimer in December 1977 after his darshan with Osho.
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