Prem Hanny

Ma Prem Hanny van der Sterre – de Bruijn had one passion, that of spreading Osho’s vision in the world. She loved to translate Osho’s discourses into Dutch and that was the only thing she loved doing till almost the very end.

She is the author of a little book full of devotional poems about her love for Osho. She also published, in 1995, the translation of A Cup of Tea, titled, Thee uit een lege kop, letters by Osho to disciples and friends written between 1962 and 1971.

When she realized that her disease was going to be too painful to bear, she decided to take her life into her own hands. She also chose to no longer have visitors from the neighborhood, as all the talk would just be about illness. She said that her time was too costly to spend in this manner.

Before dying, she said to a cousin who wanted to touch her arm, ‘Please don’t touch me, I love to now be 100% with myself and with my Master.’ After her short illness, she had decided to go to the other shore in awareness with her Master.

She yearned for a calm end and a simple funeral. She died aged 91.

Thanks to Tarangita and Gyanam

Grace, mercy, prayer

Hanny had written about her darshan with the Master on 21 February 1979:

‘Do you know what your name means?’ Osho asks me and I repeat inside, ‘Jo-hanna, bringer of good.’

Then I start hacking away aloud with ‘Jo-hanna, Jo-hanna’ and Osho says, smiling, ‘That will do and… close your eyes.’

My heart beats like crazy but I am aware that ‘I am now with Osho’. I am overwhelmed by a tidal wave and am immersed in an immense silence. To my mind, an eternity later:

‘This is your name: Ma Prem Hanny. Prem means love, hanny means grace, mercy, prayer. All the three meanings are beautiful, and all the three meanings arise out of love. The loving person cannot be anything but graceful; it is natural. The unloving person cannot be but ungraceful. The very idea of love deep down in your heart makes you luminous; a certain grace starts surrounding you – a beauty that is not of this world, a fragrance that comes from the beyond. It is something from god, and is available only to those who allow love to happen in their hearts.

‘The person who is loving, graceful, is bound to have compassion, mercy. And there is a great difference between sympathy and mercy. Sympathy is only in specific situations: somebody is miserable and you are sympathetic. Mercy is simply the way you live. It is not a question of specific situations – that you are compassionate to the beggar because he is hungry, and merciful to the blind because he is blind. These things are good, but mercy is something more: it is simply your very life style; whether somebody needs it or not is irrelevant. It is not a response to somebody’s need, but an overflowing of your own heart. It is not a reaction created by the outside, but a sharing of your joy – because you have so much, you would like to share it.

‘And the third is the ultimate expression of love: prayer. When one loves one person it feels so good, but it brings misery too. You love one against so many, hence the misery of love. If you start loving more and more people, less and less misery arises out of love; and the day your love becomes universal, it becomes prayer. Then there is no misery. then love is sheer joy. Then love is rejoicing, a celebration. And when somebody is able to celebrate love on that plane of universality, god is happy; one has entered into the garden of Eden again.’

from Osho, Won’t You Join the Dance? Ch 21

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