A lively start to the day: Morning singing at Parimal

Nirbija about a special meditation room – in one of the first Osho communes in Germany

Imagine a world where every morning there are people who gather to sing, laugh or let a few tears fall? Dreaming, Utopia? No, this happens regularly in the Parimal commune. Osho has often spoken about the importance of temples, and Gurdjieff gave this advice to his daughter: “In the place where you dwell, always create a sacred place.”

It’s 8.30 am. The singers find their seats in what was formerly the coach house of the Gut Hübenthal estate. Soon the first song, accompanied by a guitar, emerges from the Mandir. That’s the name given to the small, twelve-sided room, fitted with a white marble floor. The name Mandir means ‘temple’.

The Mandir stays open 24/7 for silent sitting, and for this morning singing. Today we are joined by some participants of this weekend’s three-day Vipassana retreat, adding beauty to the assembly with their serene faces.

The Mandir came into being when, in the late 90’s, after one of the many building extensions at Parimal, a space with a beautiful view onto the garden was left over, but was too small to convert into an apartment. So the idea came to build a room just for music and silence. For instance, Vipassana retreats are held there regularly. To manage that programme and its finances the community created a separate association, the Mandir Association, of which Wahhab and Sangeeta are the chairpersons. During the Covid pandemic, the morning singing continued online, and it’s still today, on Sundays, when the gathering is broadcast via Zoom.

Accompanied by the voice of his co-singer Dhara, Wahhab strums the first chords of the Daybreak Song on his twelve-string guitar: I will give this breath to the rising sun…. Residents from the community, neighbours and guests who are currently taking part in the group programme sit in a circle. As they sing together, any uncomfortable unfamiliarity soon disappears and melts into a sometimes festive, sometimes exuberant mood. Hearts open and serious, adult faces start to brighten up.

There are quite a few musicians who live at and around Parimal. They each take their turn in accompanying the choir one day a week. Each one of them brings their own individual programme. The repertoire also includes the hit song, King of the Moon. Svadesha, the much-loved and recently-deceased musician and composer, who created more then 20 songs for the Mandir, dedicated this heartfelt invocation of a seeker to his Master Osho:

King of the Moon

Your are the king of the moon
You are a rainbow in the dark
Like an ocean so deep
Want you to live in my heart

Oh, could I cease my foolish games
Like a breeze fly out of frames
Lose my mind in ocean blue
Oh, could this drop melt into you. (…)

Darpano, who plays the guitar and also sings, says that to immerse oneself in sound and feeling in the morning is like swimming in “…a river which never stops flowing.”

“It’s so beautiful to sing mantras, and songs about Osho, over and over again, together with other Buddhas – and to feel them!” he adds, summarising what all the musicians probably experience. And if children are present, he might even play a lively All My Ducklings, where the children sing along giggling.

Even if after this half hour the songs are fading away, the morning singers take their melodies with them into the day. The songs will accompany them like a fine fragrance. Remember, Parimala means ‘fragrance’ in Sanskrit.

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