Simha / Ralph

Simha Carroll was born in 1946 in the USA. He took sannyas in Pune on 15 March 1979 and received the name Deva Ralph. He was then also in Rajneeshpuram and in Pune 2, where in 1990 he was one of the assistants of a Hypnosis training for therapists with Ragini. He was also part of the group experimenting with the Orgone egg. Some time after Osho left his body, he visited Lucknow and became a disciple of Papaji, who gave him the name Simha.

In recent years he was in Tiruvannamalai where he was living a very happy and quiet life. Simha died from an accident: trying to reach the water tank on his roof with a ladder, he lost his balance and fell. He was so badly injured that the doctors could not save him.

Divine Wolf

His sannyas darshan with Osho

Deva means divine, ralph means wolf – divine wolf, divine animal. That’s what is special in man: all animals are simply animals; man has a deep yearning to reach beyond himself. He is the divine animal. He is discontented with himself. He wants to surpass, transcend. He wants to be infinite, eternal. Those are the qualities of god. Man is a desire to be god.

The animal has not to be killed; that’s what has been done in the past. The religious people have been killing and destroying the animal, thinking that by killing the animal they will attain to god. The whole logic is based on a fallacy, because the animal is our energy. If you destroy it you destroy all possibility of your ever being divine. The animal has to be transformed, not destroyed. The animal has to be loved, respected. The animal has to be understood. It has many secrets to reveal and many mysteries to open to you, but those mysteries and secrets can be opened only when the animal is respected, loved, when you befriend it.

That’s my whole process: befriend the animal. There is no need to fight with it, because it is you. It has to be transformed, certainly, because it has the potential of being more and more and more. The poison can become nectar; one only needs a little wisdom to transform it. One needs to know the art of alchemy – of changing the animal into the divine.

Religion in the past has functioned in a very artless way, except of course for a few people – a Jesus here, a Buddha there. Otherwise millions of people who have tried to search for god have fallen into the trap of destroying the animal, and once the animal is destroyed or crippled it becomes impossible to transcend. The animal has to be kept healthy and whole, then it can take you, you can ride on it. It can take you to the beyond.

Osho, You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet, Ch 15

There’s no life after death

In a post on Facebook, where he was very active, Simha wrote on 4 April 2023:

There’s NO life after death. There’s NO heaven or hell. Start living life to the fullest today and turn Planet Earth to your heaven, that’s what the people who gave you the book of fairy tales are doing – while telling you “to give God money so that you can be rewarded in heaven after death.” That’s bullshit: why must you die first to enjoy a better eternal life? It doesn’t make sense. After death you will decompose and make fertilizer for trees and plants that brings life to those after you – that is evolution. Stop believing in fairy tales and fiction, and stop giving your hard-earned money to the fake Men of God.

Tributes

I haven’t seen Ralph for many years, probably the last time in the 90s. I lived with him and 4 other people in 1981 in a house on Funston Ave in San Francisco. He was just back from Poona and was a welcome addition to the house.

Not many people know that he was drafted and went into the Airforce to avoid going into the army (Vietnam), and a year into his service was busted for Marijuana. He was sent to prison in San Quentin (one of the more notorious prisons in California) and spent 3 years there where he was active in forming the prisoner’s union. Probably not a move that gained time off for “good” behavior.

The presence and depth I always felt around him seemed to flow out of his experience of two opposites – San Quentin & Sannyas. Only someone who has experienced both, prison and freedom, could integrate this dichotomy in their being as Ralph, in his humble, understated way, so aptly demonstrated. A lovely man with a big heart and the intense eyes of a wolf who went to the beat of his own drum – which I now recognize as sovereignty.

I also remember going to the neighborhood pub for a drink and some backgammon where he would relieve me of all the money that we played for. I never did beat him.

Farewell, dearest friend, and may we meet again…

Sw Deva Allen

Ralph was the king of the sheetmetal shop on the Ranch. No problem was too bizarre for him and sheetmetal can be like doing Rubic’s cube behind your back. He was a kind caring presence under lots of heat from the moms to complete this or that ‘now’. He didn’t lose it. We’ll miss your steadiness down here on the earth in these trying times…

Fly high, sweet Ralph…

Sw. Ramapada

Damn, Ralph, you always stood out to me as a Man’s Man – a real Mensch. You showed your devotion on the Ranch in your work, and your down-to-earth humor. No holier-than-thou bullshit. You will be missed. The planet needs more Zorba the Buddhas like you!

Abhiyana

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