Upadhi

(27 December 1956 – 1 July 2022)

An excellent metaphysical reader and energy worker

by Maneesha McClure

Ma Veet Upadhi (Rita Maggi), my beloved friend and fellow traveler, was loved by many all over the world. Many of us will know her from Pune One, the Ranch in Oregon and Pune Two.

Upadhi had the gift of perceiving subtle energies and give energy healing since she was a child. In Pune she developed Osho Prana Healing, originally together with her friend Chidvilas. Later she continued to expand and develope it further while at the Osho Mystery School in Pune and Sedona. She was an excellent metaphysical reader and energy worker.

With her deep caring, love and understanding of human beings, and her devotion to the Master and his work, she was able to share with many that it was possible to live a life of inner growth and meditation. Through O.P.H., the certified school she had founded in Italy, many have gone through her trainings and have been introduced to meditation.

Upadhi took sannyas in Pune on 9 April 1980. Her name means ‘perfect wholeness’. Osho spoke to her during darshan:

We are not aware of how precious we are.
We are not aware of the inexhaustible treasure
That we are carrying within us.
And because we are not aware of it
We go on desiring small things
Quarrelling about mundane things
Fighting, competing for something trivial.
The moment you become aware
Of your own inner beauty
All this struggle on the outside disappears.
Life becomes calm and cool
Life attains to a grace.
One is no more interested in the non-essential.
That’s what sannyas is all about:
Awareness of the inner, and the transformation
That it brings on the outside.
Inside you become more and more meditative
Outside you become more compassionate.
The universe is vast, unbounded
And so are we because we are part of it.
And the part is indivisibly one with the whole
So whatsoever is the quality of the whole
That is the quality of the part too. *

This is where she and I would meet, knowing that the Master had pointed us in the right direction, to our inner work, and to use everything to transform and go deeper. In celebration, dance, joy, silence – and awe at our blessings. With her laughter, her smile, her giant heart, she was and is a light, to me and many of us.

The death of a close friend brings me face to face with impermanence; I feel her with me so tangibly… and yet she is gone. As I am sure many reading this can understand, I miss my friend terribly. At the same time I am in gratitude for the opening to the mystery it brings each time when one of our beloveds leaves this planet.

In January this year, she was diagnosed with cancer of the biliary tract. Her beloved companion Gaya cared for her until she went into a beautiful hospice in a nearby town, just a week before she died.

Close friends from Osho Miasto were able to visit her. They reported that she was moving into a deep acceptance, and that she was in peace, especially in the last days. I spoke with her many times in the first few months, and then arrived here in Italy in time to see her letting go. She wanted her friends to be near-by, and to sing Fly High.

As only a limited number of people could be at her bedside, we sat with her in meditation in Miasto, with music and silence, as did other friends around the world. On Sunday we had a death celebration here in Miasto. Friends came from far and wide to feel her in their hearts, to dance and give her a joyous send-off into the unknown. There was live music with her favorite songs, such as Asalam Aleikum, The Universe is Singing a Song, and of course Fly High.

* Excerpted from an unpublished darshan diary, Eighy-Four Thousand Poems, Ch 4

A constant presence

by her friends from Miasto

Upadhi made a choice in life, the choice of living in the Buddhafield surrounding Miasto, close to the Commune which she supported, loved, cared for, and nurtured like a garden during all its seasons. Even while travelling around the world, she was a constant presence for us, in our moments of meditation, celebration and in less easy situations: she was there.

Upadhi was one of us: a “Miastina”.

She passed on to us much of what she herself had experienced for many years in the Commune and in the presence of Osho. Her dedication to the Commune was total as she recognized it as being a powerful tool for growth. Each year she would dedicate several days to guide us, with her subtle energy, to always go a bit further, to always dare a little more, to create more space, and to stay in the Present.

Upadhi has spent her life “awakening life” in all of us, and when her time came, she was ready, serene, with a total YES inside… with a noteworthy letting go.

She taught us something to the very end.

Fly High, Upi! We are already missing you.