Deva Mali

Journeys

– 4 January 2025

The Mali

Our Mali, who had been taking care of Osho’s garden in Pune, left his body at the age of 86. (As nobody knew his real name, everybody just called him The Mali, or Mali Baba, meaning gardener in Hindi.)

He was, together with Mukta, the main gardener for Lao Tzu House in Pune One and Two. He was already the gardener there before the property was bought and was taken on as the seller had made a condition that he should be taken ‘as part of the package’.

“And when Osho returned from his World Tour in 1987, he inquired about his mali, as he was not there. The sannyasins then searched and found him eventually in Yerwada. He was invited to return and work in Osho’s garden. Tears of joy welled up in his eyes at the news. Osho often gave him gifts. He was a rare person of simplicity and innocence – a blessed one!” writes Keerti.

The Mali continued to work until his retirement, however, every year he used to visit the Resort. On one of these occasions, Ma Amrit Sadhana spoke to him and, in a short article in the Hindi-speaking daily Hindustan, published on 15 November 2021, she wrote:

He was a Marathi man; simple, uneducated. He had planted the trees and plants with great love.

Osho named that bungalow: Lao Tzu. It was a two-story sprawling building with a large round patio behind it, and a garden attached to it. Osho made that patio his auditorium. Sitting there, he would give discourses in the morning and evening, giving sannyas, meeting people. The atmosphere was surcharged with celebration. The gardener, in the proximity, would work quietly, soaking in the atmosphere.

The Hindi word for a gardener is mali, so everyone called the gardener, mali. No one knew his real name. In those days Osho was addressed as Bhagwan.

One day I asked the gardener, “Mali Baba, do you understand what Bhagwan talks about?” He said simply, “What can an illiterate man like me understand! But when he speaks, my heart expands. It feels so good!”

The gardener had summed up the very essence of devotion. If the heart expands and the divine dwells in it, that’s it! What’s left then?

“Has Bhagwan ever given you some instructions about the garden?” I asked him further.

“No, but he used to take a stroll when I was working around. Once I was working, as usual, scraping the weeds with my head bent, all of a sudden, my eyes fell on a pair of beautiful feet, as if made of sandalwood. When I raised my eyes, I saw Bhagwan standing in front of me. I got up in a hurry, folded my hands, and asked, ‘How is the garden, sir?’ Bhagwan said, ‘It is good, but it could be better.’”

The devotion of the gardener could not be hidden from Osho for long. He called the gardener and initiated him into sannyas, and named him: Deva Mali. The divine gardener. That erased his real name and he became The Mali for everyone.

On 13 January his village, Kodhapuri, paid homage to him (see flyer below).

Death Celebration Mali

Thanks to Pratap, to posts on Facebook and Keerti on X

Mali playing garbage bin

Drumming in Buddha Hall

by Punya

Now that Arjava sent me this beautiful photo of Rupesh, our Mali and Nivedano playing in Lao Tzu Garden during their tea break with Mukta, I need to tell a story. The Mali had the habit of playing on the empty garbage drums, when he was carrying them on his shoulder in and out of the garden. When Nivedano spotted that and heard his drumming, he invited him to play for the music before White Robe. Mali-ji came and he played in Buddha Hall.

More Tributes

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