Histórias com Osho – Punya

Abheeru and Divya wanted to know from Punya how she came to take sannyas and how Osho News came into being (zoom video). The article includes an excerpt from Bhagawati’s book, Past the Point of No Return

This video is part of the series Histórias com Osho (Stories with Osho) by Divyadez, conceived by a group of sannyasins in Brazil (Abheeru, Divya and friends), who have been interviewing sannyasins for the last three years. Their channel boasts to-date 138 episodes, 38 of which are in English with Portuguese subtitles – youtube.com/@divyadez1020

00:20 How did Osho come into your life – and what happened next?

16:07 How Osho’s meditations evolved.

19:35 Tell us about your life as a sannyasin.

26:50 How is Osho in your life today?

29:50 About Osho News: how did this project start?

36:22 Tell us about the music event in Corfu with Peter Makena.

39:33 The magic of Osho’s songs (Abheeru’s experience).

44:55 Tell us the story of the enlightened drum.

50:28 One word to Osho…

Watch on YouTube

“Virtue is the opposite of Sin”

an excerpt of Punya’s story in Bhagawati‘s book, Past the Point of No Return, published on Osho World‘s website

Osho had asked me in a second interview if I wanted to take sannyas and I had said: “I think, after the camp,” but had not managed to wait that long. The day before we left, on 10th January 1974, I came to Woodlands in tears. We talk about tears of joy, tears of sadness, tears of excitement, but I think these we need to call: tears of ‘yes’, tears of ‘coming home’ or tears of ‘surrender’. I asked Laxmi, the small lady in orange, if I could see Bhagwan to be initiated. While entering his room, I had a quick, intimate glimpse of him closing a book and putting it on a shelf nearby.

I seated myself on the floor in front of him, still sobbing like a child. I should have been embarrassed, but felt very calm inside and was listening attentively to what Osho had to say to me. “Your name will be: Ma Yoga Punya. Ma means mother and for me all women are mothers and so I call all my female sannyasins Ma. Yoga means Union and Punya means Virtue.”

“Virtue is the opposite of Sin, this is the meaning,” I remember him replying as I was not quite sure what virtue meant or did not much like the implication of morality it had in Latin. Still crying and sobbing I left the room and expected to have to pay for the necklace which I had received and was now hanging around my neck. But I was lead to the library downstairs where a cup of hot chai waited for me, as well as a book by Bhagwan: I Am the Gate. “I am glad I can now write your new name into it,” Deeksha said, while inspecting the initiation certificate to check on the spelling.

The meditation camp was for me a major revolution in body and mind through the Dynamic Meditation, the Kirtan dancing and Tratak jumping on one side and the two daily discourses, which I kept commenting in my head with: “Of course, I knew that all along, why hasn’t someone else said that before?” I travelled back to Bombay with the rest of the group (Osho had his own carriage on the same train which gave me a warm feeling) and felt so light in my body that it was easy to rest on the hard metal rack high up in the compartment. The night before the return flight my body reacted with a violent and heavy fever, maybe in the hope to postpone my return even further. But I stood firm in my decision: it was now time to get back home.