Manan

Anand Manan (Andrew Orchard) “grew up in England, studied at Cambridge’s Kings College for an MA in modern languages, and obtained a teaching degree from Exeter. In 1971 he moved on to London where he landed a teacher’s job,” writes Bhagawati in an interview with him that was published in the magazine Viha Connection last September.

In London he came across Veeresh and Somendra, with whom he made an Encounter Group. After the group “everything changed. I was eager to go to Pune to meet Osho.” He took sannyas from Osho on 8 March 1976. He also visited the Humaniversity before visiting Pune again.

“Over the years Manan continued to work as a teacher, visited all festivals in Rajneeshpuram, and stayed in Pune every winter. As a result, he was in Pune when Osho left his body. ‘I felt graced and blessed by Osho.'”

In an article he wrote two years ago for Osho News (Teaching meditation to children in Nepal) he says: “I found myself travelling in Nepal and by chance, or through divine destiny, met a young principal of a private school at a meditation centre near Pokhara. He invited me to visit his school and introduce meditations at the school. I soon found myself connecting to many other schools and for the past seven years or so – and intensively during the last three years, since my retirement from teaching full-time in Australia – have been sharing Osho’s meditations in schools in Pokhara, from kindergarten up to and including college and university students.”

He gave introductory talks to teachers in Nepal about Osho’s vision on Education and shared many active meditations, in particular the Children’s Mystic Rose with the students, some of which (teachers and students) took sannyas. He created the Osho Amala Meditation Centre in Pokhara, Nepal, his adopted homeland, and promoted the meditations in schools via Osho Rahasya.

From Samved, who was with Manan at the time, we hear that he was admitted to an Intensive Care Unit on 24 February after suffering a minor stroke.

Manan was discharged a week later. He spent the next 6 weeks in his flat, being cared for and looked after by friends. His physical health remained very frail during this time, although he was able to walk around a little with assistance and sit out in the sun. He spent most of his time talking to friends and meditating in his room.

He left his body on 12 April at 4.30pm after suffering another stroke. Manan was awake at the time and was surrounded by several friends when he left his body.

Alert thanks to Yatro via BB Group, thanks to Samved for correction to concluding text 16.4.2023

Swami Prem Anand writes: “I have known Manan since 2015. I met him in Kallangur, Australia, at the community centre where every month he came to facilitated an Osho Meditation Day. At that time he ran a centre called Osho Anugraha in his house in Brisbane. He has touched the hearts of many people and ‘shared through his vision’ as he had been encouraged by Osho.”

From a FB post by Manan, dated 26 January 2020 (his highlights):

The last days of the life should be totally devoted to prayer, to meditation, to God. One has to prepare for death. And death is more important than life, because life is just superficial. Death will take you to the ultimate core of existence. It will reveal to you the eternal.

Much has to be prepared; otherwise people die in a state of unconsciousness. They live unconscious – they were sleep-walkers in their lives – and they die unconscious. They miss all.

Death has to be explored, and with tremendous joy, because you are not going to die! You are the very principle of life – there is no possibility for it to be destroyed. Only the shell around you will die, only the body will be gone, not you; and when the body falls you become infinite, you become unbounded. So the preparation for life is very ordinary; any school, college, university can do it. Now you have to be part of my university. We teach death – how to prepare for it and how to be able to celebrate it.

If one can die dancing one has overcome death. And that is the whole purpose of life: to overcome death, to know that death is false, to experience that life never begins, never ends, to come to an existential understanding of one’s own eternity, timelessness.

Osho, Hallelujah! Ch 26

More Tributes

We first met Manan in 2014. Shortly after we invited Manan to start sharing Osho Meditations here at our centre, Osho Divine Zone in Pokhara, Nepal. For the next 9 years Manan shared meditations here with thousands of people from all around the world. We are so grateful to have received so much love from Manan. He shared so much with us about his life and the time he spent with Osho.

Lots of love,

Bhakta, Avaya and Devaprem

Namaste Friends,

It was September 2018 when I first met Manan. He was sharing Dynamic Meditation at Osho Divine Zone here in Pokhara, Nepal. I’d never met a sannyasin before and didn’t know anything about Osho, but I realised after the meditation that there was something very special about Manan. With that insight I decided to stay for three months, meditating with him every day. Those three months were a real eye-opener and changed my life forever.

For the last ten years or so, Manan shared meditation with thousands of people here in Pokhara. Every week he visited several schools and shared meditation with hundreds of students of all ages. In the morning and evening, he would share meditation at Osho Divine Zone and Osho Rahasya, and in the last couple of years, he’d share meditation every Saturday at Osho Amala.

I’m truly grateful to have met Manan five years ago. Since that time, I came back to Pokhara four times and spent many hours meditating with him. I learned so much from his open, compassionate and loving heart. A treasured friend who enriched my life in so many ways.

In the last 7 weeks, Manan spoke often about his death. He sensed that the time was near. Manan would often remind us that death is to be celebrated, not feared and to quote Osho: “The real question is not whether life exists after death. The real question is whether you are alive before death.”

Enjoy the next part of your journey Manan. Lots of Love,

Samved

I would like to express my love to Manan and gratitude for being him in my life, as we never got to say goodbye. I was shocked and saddened that he didn’t recover after his stroke after he returned home, as it looked like he was going to.

I met him a l o o n g time ago in London, in the late seventies when he was teaching in schools, and at the same time into things esoteric, it might have been crystals then. Later he was channelling dolphin energies long before anyone else seemed to know there was anything special about dolphins.

Much more recently, he was passionate about meditation and his work in Nepal. We exchanged brief messages about how we were and healing, but mainly about his work, “Here I’m enjoying sharing in schools with children very much and also in the two centres the meditations are vast and deep. Love Manan”

So farewell, Manan, much love and light to you for your onward journey!

Yatro

PS I got to know more about Manan’s life from the following LoveOsho podcast (thanks to Veena for the link): www.sannyas.wiki

I first met Manan during the early 80s in Bristol in the UK, where I learned for the first time about subtle energies, through taking part in the workshops he was running at that time. This coincided with my first experience of somebody close to me leaving their body when my Dad suddenly died, and, thanks to Manan, even in the midst of all the shock and grief, I was able to experience a presence of an aliveness in the room where he had passed, as if the very air itself was dancing.

Manan was also the very first person to introduce me to network marketing, which eventually lead to my own vision of how network marketing has the potential to become spiritual practice, through remembering Manan and his love of crystals during a business conference, and suddenly seeing the similarity between the structure of crystals and the business model based on patterns of duplication.

I connected again with Manan during the 90s in the UK, at a time when he was into channelling dolphins and other entities, manifesting what he had come to call the Divine Energy Dance. I have lasting memories of times we spent in and around Glastonbury visiting different energy-sites and meditating.

It was also during this time that I discovered that, alongside his commitment to meditation and mysticism, Manan’s other passion was steam trains, and that as a child he had been an enthusiastic trainspotter!

This inspired me to apply for a grant to make a video featuring him as the Mystic Trainspotter. I filmed him walking around the former railworks in my hometown of Swindon in the UK, and he provided a spoken narrative talking about trainspotting as a metaphor for the process of meditation, skillfully weaving together both topics. The resulting video was screened in public, and I remember a comment being made by someone who had never met him, about the mellifluous quality of his voice, which seemed to act as a transmission as much as his words.

Even though I have not had any direct contact with Manan for many years, since he permanently moved to Australia, the profound experiences and glimpses I had when I was around him have stayed with me, and had a lasting impact, and he has helped open doors for me on my own inner journey.

Another recording I made with him was in the immediate aftermath of the death of Princess Diana in 1997, and I feel the insight he shared at that time is relevant now to his own passing: that even though the discontinuity of death can be a shock, we can be grateful just that she/he was here at all, and the qualities she/he manifested and mirrored for many people.

Fly high, Manan… even in departing this physical world, you are continuing to open doors for me and be an inspiration for my own journey of discovery and vision for what I can share and manifest in my time here.

Ma Prem Merlina

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