Rabiya

Ma Yoga Rabiya left her body, at the age of 97, in Celia’s House Hospice near Ashland, Oregon, where she spent her last 9 months. Her move out of the retirement home in Ashland where she had lived for many years, to this beautiful hospice, was facilitated by Vanya and her husband Tarsh.

“Rabiya was born in Atlanta, Georgia and became a music teacher. She was on sabbatical in India and went to one of the early camps in 1972 where Osho gave her sannyas,” writes Bharti.

In the Pune communes she was involved in typing, editing and compiling Osho’s discourse books, as well as taking care of the books in Osho’s private library in Lao Tzu. In Rajneeshpuram, she worked in Buddhaghosha, the department responsible for the warehousing, sale and distribution of all of Osho’s books.

Govind and Gayatri write, “In the early days when we were still in Bombay and there were very few westerners, Bhagwan was living in a smallish flat, and we would all, naturally, spend a lot of time there. Rabiya would always be there.

“She didn’t talk much, but she was already over the top lost in love to the point where every time she saw a picture of him, she would look at it and literally swoon and faint, falling in a heap onto the floor!

“One day stands out more than the others to me. Someone had made a huge portrait of Bhagwan out of flowers. We were walking out of his room as the maker was carrying it in to show him, and Rabiya walked toward us, saw the huge flower portrait, and once again swooned and fainted, this time falling onto us.

“She was a true and complete bhakta.”

Prem Asang writes, “When Rabiya arrived in Bombay the second time, she brought a beautiful gift for Osho: the famous black chappals. She presented them to Osho with such love and put them on his feet. Since then Osho used only that brand until he moved to Pune.”

And Narayani says, “I worked with Rabiya in Osho’s library and the most beautiful memories about her and that time is that each time the power went out, she would completely stop, close her eyes and go into meditation until the power came back. Exquisite moments! It was lovely to be with her and work with her. Loved her sincerity and sense of humor.”

Bharti adds, “I was talking with her on the phone every day and in the last month of her life she was ‘sleeping’ a lot. She said it was ‘glorious’. She started singing songs that she made up about the subjects we were talking about in that last month. She was having a wonderful time on the way out.”

Chetna sent the photos below saying, “My Mum Kumud, Devapria (DP) and I went to see Rabiya on Thursday and spent two hours together, talking, laughing, sharing, teasing. Her sense of humor was on point, as was her acceptance.”

Alert thanks to Anuragi, info and photos thanks to Purushottama, Bhagawati, Keerti, Devapria, Chetna, Suparni, Setu (due to the nature of this page, modifications to text and photo contributions are ongoing)

Purushottama, Amido and Nirvesha visiting Rabiya in Ashland, OR, in 2014

Sufi Fairy Zen Master in LTZ Library

by Suparni

Rabiya was one of the first people I met when I arrived in Pune. I didn’t know anyone, I had been backpacking around India for many months and I was mystified, relieved, and refreshed just gazing down Lane One from North Main Road – a scene that is forever emblazoned in my cellular memory.

Immediately (within a few hours) my passport was stolen, along with all of my money, travellers checks, ID, anything that had my name on it was gone. Good thing I was 21 because now after all of this meditation – I would probably freak out but back then I could take it. After 4 days in Bombay sorting that mess out, I returned to Osho Commune and within a day I was interviewing with Rabiya for a job in Lao Tzu library. I was a hyperactive 21-year-old kid from NY straight out of the NYC rave and club scene and I wanted to work in LTZ Library, dusting books all day, hanging out with Rabiya – and she thought it was a great idea!

Rabiya was like a strange Sufi Fairy Zen Master in LTZ Library. My time in there with her was almost psychedelic. I would love to be able to tell funny stories and anecdotes about some situation that happened at work, but to be honest – most of my experiences with Rabiya happened in silence. They happened in the depths of a mirrored wonderland where it was my job to sit up on a ladder and read Zen stories from Osho’s books as I cleaned mirrored shelves and dusted, flipping through pages to air them out, stopping where Osho bookmarked the parts he was interested in to have a peek. Sometimes it was a long peek. Rabiya was always so sensitive in that regard; she always knew a good point to remind me to snap out of it and keep dusting… I did get a lot of reading done though.

Of course, when you are sitting there with the Book of Mirdad, The Prophet, Camus, books on obscure tribal rituals and Tantra, Dostoevsky, etc – lots of interesting stories and conversations come up. I got to know Rabiya’s life and the history around Osho through these stories that came out over time. During those first months I would often find myself sobbing in the library for no reason, or feeling as if I were walking on air for days.

Rabiya was a good friend and coordinator through those times and I am forever grateful. She would often let me skip out of work to attend meditations happening in Buddha Hall because I was so young, hyperactive, and in need of the active meditations! Rabiya had a grace and lightness about her – many afternoons I could see that light all around her head and she kind of danced in her own world through the gardens in her purplish robe to go get a chai at 4:15.

I am forever grateful to Nirvesha and Devapriya for keeping me connected with Rabiya over the years. Forever grateful for the magical gift of Rabiya in my life.

Fly high, beloved.

Suparni

Ma Yoga Rabiya: A blissful flower

by Prem Anubuddha 

In my cosmology, there are many many sannyasins (known and unknown) who contributed in a very unique and essential way to Osho’s Garden of the Beloved… and without them, the Garden would be missing something. And I would also have missed something without knowing and interacting with them. I learned something mysterious from them, and was inspired to take risks by watching how they lived their lives; they helped me stay in touch with the mystery that is Osho.

Ma Yoga Rabiya is one of those precious flowers for me. And in sync with this mystery, a beautiful exotic bird is tapping on my window in Vilcabamba right NOW as I write this love memory.

When I would meet Yoga Rabiya, I knew to always ‘expect the unexpected’. I found her so unpredictable, and joyful to be around. For me, she was so consistent in her unwavering devotion to Osho and her inner truth. In the early days, Rabiya was like my ‘Osho big sister‘, and she helped open my eyes to what being an Osho Disciple could mean.

I’ll never forget when I first met Rabiya in New York – it was on July 7, 1976, at the iconic Ananda Rajneesh Center on 29th St. She was there with the Center leader, Ma Yoga Seeta, from Brazil. What a haven of love, tranquility, exoticism, and meditative energy in the heart of the Big Apple Ananda was! What a special vibe it had…

Why do I remember the date I met Rabiya so clearly? It became my ‘Sannyas Birth Day’, and she was one of my midwives.

This little sharing is more about my love of Rabiya, but here’s the background story of our first meeting:

I had arrived in New York City on July 3, 1976, just in time for the July 4 Bi-Centennial Festivities. I had started out from the newly-formed Geetam Rajneesh Sannyas Ashram in California. I was the Real Estate agent on the property sale, and after living there for the first 3 weeks with other beautiful Souls, I suddenly ‘had to get to Poona for Guru Purnima Day – whatever it takes’!

I didn’t have much money, so I decided to hitchhike to New York, where I needed to get my Indian visa, and then fly to Bombay. Innocently (or stupidly – lol!), I thought it would be easy to hitchhike across America – especially because as this was 1976 – the bicentennial Anniversary of America. Plus, I thought, it would save me a lot of money to hitchhike.

Geetam was near the Highway that becomes ‘Route 66’, and goes straight across America. But it took 6 hours before anyone stopped, and I got to Las Vegas in the early evening. If you look at the US map, Las Vegas is about one 50th of the way there! Lucky for me, a very good friend from University lived in Vegas (his father owned a small Casino) so I slept in his house. In the morning, over breakfast, he gifted me with a flight to NY (Rob and I are still good friends to this day). I had been practicing and sharing Yoga already while we were at USD, so Rob knew I wanted to go to India.

So, when I knocked on the door at Ananda in NY, Rabiya answered. She showed me around, and we enjoyed talking for a while. I told her and Seeta that I’d be happy to take anything to Poona that they wanted to send… They gave me a bunch of random stuff which I enjoyed delivering to the happy residents at the Ashram; they were always so grateful to receive things from the West. After living myself in India for years, I definitely understood how fun, and sometimes necessary, it was to get things from the West.

Then Rabiya asked me, “So, Ron, are you ready to take Sannyas?” I said, “I am on my way to Poona, and for sure I will take Sannyas when I get there.” Rabiya: “How do you know you will ever make it to the Ashram?” I thought quickly, and said, “You have a good point,” but I was still thinking I was on my way to meet Bhagwan right now.

So then Rabiya added, “All you know for sure is this moment – you don’t know about the Future!” I had no argument for this mystic vision, so I said, “OK, I’m ready now.”

Seeta, Rabiya, and a few other Sannyasins prepared a beautiful ceremony for me in the Meditation Hall. We danced, listened to Bhagwan, I had my Mala, but still no new name – that would come in India from Osho.

We then went out for New York-style pizza (my first experience – very different from California-style!) All I remember is laughing the whole time. Rabiya was so much fun to be around… and in her humor there was always wisdom. And, being a Sannyasin, I somehow did feel brand-new and different.

Something else I noticed right away with Rabiya which was very new and unique to me at the time – and it became more transparent and significant over the years I was around her – Rabiya seemed to have a direct access to ‘Bliss’. She would go into a kind of ‘no-mind euphoria’ with soft gibberish and latihan movements, just softly swaying to her own rhythm. It was subtle, and so different from the more obvious ecstatic hippie-type celebrations which I had seen since my teenage years in California. It helped open my own connection to euphoria and ‘uncaused bliss’. Her meditation had a kind of subtle catalytic effect on me.

Rabiya and I didn’t talk a lot, but whenever the moment was right, and we crossed paths, she either looked at me with so much love, or we hugged, and shared little off-the-wall comments about nothing and everything. I always treasured my interactions with her, and felt grateful. It gave me energy, and kept me in touch with the mystical side of being in Osho’s Commune. Especially at the Ranch, and in Poona 2 we shared nice moments.

I never knew what she was thinking (or, ‘not thinking’). She just always seemed to breathe in her own world, where no problems existed. Like I already said, Rabiya was unpredictable, yet always connected me to the present moment and to a place beyond the normal mind.

I loved the videos of her from her last days – a true Osho flower, and inspiration. Feeling her NOW takes me deeper into the mysterious unknown. Thank you, Beloved Yoga Rabiya.

With Infinite Love and Gratitude to Rabiya and all of the Soul Flowers in Osho’s Garden,

Prem Anubuddha

From Devapria’s visit last Friday

Safe alone under the stars

by Padmini

I met Rabiya when I gave a rare, hand-crafted book of original photos (“Siberia, 1917”) to Osho’s library after leaving the US and moving to Pune in 1988. Rabiya received it from me at Lao Tzu gate.

Later, she and I would meet to drink tea and chat; she gave mind-blowing tarot readings. It was during one of our chats that she told me something I never forgot. She said that when she lived on the Ranch (Rajneeshpuram), she saw stars for the first time in her life. This stunned me. Rabiya’s experience growing up African-American in segregated Baltimore meant never going outside at night, which was something I had never considered.

Rabiya’s young life had been in a dangerous inner-city, and that experience shaped her expectations. Unbeknownst to either of us then, her relating that childhood memory influenced my understanding of the children I teach now in Los Angeles’s notorious South Central. It is nearly one hundred years since Rabiya’s birth, and inner-city children still have limited experiences outside of their homes due to violence: recently, gunfire has become the leading cause of death for American kids between 1 and 10 years old! My students also have a fear response to the night because that’s when gangs attack one another and commit random attacks of violence in their neighborhood.

Rabiya said that standing in the deep dark on the Ranch alone at night was a profound experience of liberation and joy. Until then, she had never been alone under the stars. Realizing she was in a safe place gave her life a whole new dimension. She came to love walking alone at night on that remote ranch in Oregon. Rabiya told me that she felt overwhelming gratitude toward Osho for bringing his people to Rajneeshpuram. That gratitude resonates with what I feel toward Rabiya for her warm, loving presence, and her sharing with me her unique perspective.

Padmini

 

More Tributes

Sweet sweet Rabiya. Thanks for incarnating so I could know you for a while, walk the Bhakti path with you a little while. Your every gesture taught what it is to be a Devotee. I judge you fully dissolved into the Master. You truly live up to your enlightened namesake. Ishq ‘Illah mabud Lillah!

Abhiyana

Beloved Rabiya

Only met you a few times way back in Osho Lao Tzu Library, when I arrived with all my questions for Osho Source Book and you arrived with all your laughter and presence, so fairly soon all questions disappeared and only laughter remained…

neeten

 

fellow travelers on the way…
I saw Rabiya in Poona 1, in the library packing Osho’s books,
on the ranch and in Poona 2…
we never had personal contact,
but seeing her touched me with some unknown beauty,
she was so with herself, innocent, in the middle of all our aliveness.
I could sense her devotion for Osho and somehow just seeing her
gave me some strength for my journey
and a touch of gratefulness in that moment
and here now in that moment again…
your being touched me…

Niharika

 

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