Sahaja’s personal reflections on facilitating an art-therapy workshop in Sweden, where nature, creativity and community converge (next retreat at Miasto in Italy: 26-28 September 2025)
From Tuscany to Sweden: A change of scene
We leave behind a sun-scorched Tuscany with mid-August temperatures and arrive in a dark green land. From the plane I see it drawing closer: tall conifers, endless meadows, little red houses scattered here and there.
Here we are. We’ve arrived. Fifteen degrees, a fine drizzle. We are definitely in the North: Sweden.
Ali, my ‘beloved’ and devoted assistant (it’s a totally creative-experimental relationship, ever-changing, at times furiously incredible), and I arrive at what appears to be the correct station, from where we somehow manage to catch a train to Avesta Krylbo. The train is an hour late because someone had attempted suicide on the tracks, Malin and Savya tell us on the phone. They’re the organisers of the group I’m about to facilitate.
I breathe in the cold air of frozen, distant people. When I ask for directions, they reply curtly, out of politeness rather than empathy.
A warm welcome
I’m ready to revise this sweeping judgement of this land when at the station we’re welcomed by two delightful people! They pick us up and drive us to the enchanted cottages of Oshofors, where steaming bowls of soup await us.
This is a huge community. I’m told that during WWII it hosted refugees from concentration camps, mostly women and children, from many countries. Besides its vast Buddha Hall and a restaurant for the group participants, there’s a guesthouse and numerous apartments, some rented by sannyasins who come here to spend the ‘summer’. Neat verandas with flowers and little tables, white-painted doorsteps contrast with the deep red wood.
I can’t understand why all the houses are painted this colour, but now I remember – I asked about it years ago when I first came to Sweden as Meera’s assistant. Faluröd red is a mineral pigment extracted from local mines, rich in iron oxide, mixed with linseed oil and rye flour – ideal for protecting wood from the elements and preventing mould and fungi. Necessity truly is the mother of invention.
Besides being so typical here, the colour feels very sannyasin too, resembling the maroon of the robes we wore in Pune. Likewise, the white trim evokes the white robe for the Evening Meeting. We are surrounded by endless stretches of grassy green, the perfect carpet for our upcoming plein air painting session.
“Oshofors is a modern ashram,” I read on the official website, “reflecting Osho’s philosophy of combining meditation with communal and independent living.”
At ten in the morning the founders and residents gather in a circle, seated on large cut logs, and hold their meeting. Wind-blown hair, red cheeks, some with indigenous features. Judging by their wrinkles and postures – an impression which is later confirmed – we are among first generation sannyasins, who met Osho in the body. Taking turns, they share issues that need to be resolved in the commune, as well as personal matters. Big decisions – like how and if to host a painting group in Buddha Hall – are put to a vote.
Thanks to a majority, I can hold my ‘Painting from the Heart’ workshop in Buddha Hall. Some people were opposed to it: understandably, because just the thought of messy, chaotic painters in an immaculate space is unsettling. But I’ll show them that a place can be left cleaner than it was found. I no longer have qualms about this, and offer immediate reassurance to reward their courage and trust. It’s like letting an elephant loose in a china shop, but with protective plastic sheets on floor and walls all problems should be solved.
Now that we have a green light, my helper team and I start preparing the colour sets, set up the colour station, prepare the boards, brushes, spray bottles and other painting tools, organize our storage place, and – last but not least – fix the plastic sheets, on floor and walls.
Then a lovely sauna which warms my soul. I slip into a night-that-isn’t-a-night, so bright that I need a sleep mask to let my pineal gland rest.
A community rooted in history
Noises wake me up – creaks, footsteps, I guess. I say to Ali, “I have the impression there’s a ghost in the house.” He laughs, offering a scientific explanation, “Animals, or the wood of the building shifting with changing temperatures.” But Sumito, well-known here (she also leads Vipassana retreats in the Himalayas), confirms the next morning that she saw a tall, thin ‘man’ on the doorstep. “He’s not dangerous. A Slav who once lived here and now ‘watches over’ the land.”
Her explanation touches me and opens the door to other stories. Later, when I go into No. 17, an empty, silent flat used as a temporary storage place – I see a large loom frozen in time (or secretly worked by no-longer-earthly hands?). I ask permission to walk through: “I’m Sahaja, I come in peace. I won’t disturb you. I’m just getting paper and paint for my group.”
I sense no aggression, only curiosity and consent. “They need someone with Latin blood, like me, to bring a bit of sparkle to this place,” I conclude. In that instant I understand that behind the invitation to lead an art therapy retreat lies a real need. It makes me feel useful, perhaps indispensable – in the sense that I am in the right place at the right time. I wonder what kind of karma has brought me here. I imagine the answer lies somewhere in my family tree, maybe among distant ancestors…
Facilitating ‘Painting from the Heart’
Unexpectedly, the next day dawns with blazing sunshine. Unwavering.
I’m in a foul mood after a lovers’ quarrel, but I can’t afford to nurse this for long. So I quickly turn the page, grounding all the stress and the momentary malaise. I firmly decide to let things flow – and everything is transformed.
While the participants start to trundle in during the day, my assistants and I give the final touches to our set-up and arrange the cushions in a circle in the middle of Buddha Hall. I switch on my laptop, open the first playlist and fit the microphone over my head. It’s now four in the afternoon. We are ready to start… But first I need to say a few things about the venue – there’s a lot to explain about how it works.
For me it’s very easy to lose track of time. This often happens – I struggle with rigid time structures. I like to just let the day unfold. Therefore I end up hurrying everyone through some icebreaker exercises before we dive into Kundalini Meditation. And so that we can have dinner before the Evening Meeting.
The participants already look completely different from when they arrived. Their expression has changed, their bodies appear more flexible, dynamic, alive. And we have only just started!
The group is made up both of beginners and veterans of meditation and painting. They immerse themselves fully in the leela – the play – that I have devised. Colours, music, interaction with the others and with nature are the ingredients of this proven recipe for vital awakening. Having experienced it repeatedly with my beloved teacher Meera, I can vouch that this combination is a true tonic for mental and physical health.
The group is colourful, though small. There are eccentric, typically artistic personalities in it, making each day a lively affair. We have a palette of fluorescent, iridescent, vivid, clashing hues – individuals who live on the margins, outsiders, people who feel uncomfortable in their skin, not belonging to any group, unconventional.
Art welcomes everybody. Even those who see themselves as bland, as ‘nothing special’. Facilitating a group is always enriching, but sometimes also a challenge.
I thank Osho for giving us Dynamic Meditation, such a precious opportunity for self-therapy. But I realise it might not suit everyone and could even be counterproductive. So I pull out my medley programme and suggest different morning meditations that change every day. I overthrow the order and embrace the unexpected. I create a ‘meditation camp’ within the painting retreat to meet everybody’s need, taste, and sensitivity.
This retreat has nothing to do with academic methods, chiaroscuro rules, or colour theory. It connects the right hemisphere of the brain (atrophied in today’s efficiency-driven society) with the heart. It means giving space to intuition without feeling inadequate. Anyone can paint with this approach.
Indeed, the more inexperienced and innocent we are, the more open we are to experimentation. The less we know about art, the less we are conditioned. I only give brief technical pointers at the right moment to help build a personal way, for e.g. how to paint spacial depth; the rest is about dismantling restrictive education and limiting ideas.
We begin with becoming aware of the creative blocks that have formed during our childhood and which have compromised our creativity – without us even realising it. These blocks have forced us, as adults, to choose jobs we dislike, relationships that don’t suit us; to live in places that don’t feel like ours, and to live lives we have never really chosen.
I ask my participants to recall a childhood memory: “When you were having fun and felt completely one with what you were doing.”
That’s where we need to begin.
Otherwise painting could be just a frustrating exercise in virtuosity and training. That’s if we’re still trying to fit into a society full of labels, and manipulated values formed by commercial, political, and religious interests.
“There are toys next to you. Try them out, as if you were seeing them the first time!” I encourage them, referring to the set of paints and brushes.
I play music-box tunes and cartoon themes. People smile. The ‘children’ in Buddha Hall begin to move with innocence and curiosity, drawing fresh, carefree stroked. We become children again, freeing ourselves from judgements – not only from those imposed by others but, above all, from those imposed by ourselves.
Judgements that clip our wings: “There’s something wrong with you; you don’t have the right to express yourself freely.” That ancient belief, which is rooted in our cells, begins to dissolve with the spray bottles dispersing colours in unpredictable ways, leading us into unexplored realms of creativity.
‘Painting from the Heart’ is the title of this retreat. It means trusting our natural talent, as we did when we were small. We spread our wings to fly. We rediscover our voice, authenticity, uniqueness, and beauty. We learn to recognise and communicate our true nature – first to ourselves, then to others; creating relationships that are real, nourishing, and conscious.
Together, we walk the path home, have fun, and celebrate life’s miracle. There are so many ways to create something new, unique, and inimitable!
The three stages: Camel, Lion, Child
Like a DJ at the mixer, I draw from my repertoire a quote about Nietzsche’s three metamorphoses of human evolution: the camel, the lion, and the child. Osho describes them to illustrate the stages we pass through to reconnect with our spontaneity.
I ask the participants to pair up.
The camels carry out the authority’s orders with total obedience: “Draw a red square in the middle of the paper!” or “Draw a blue diagonal line!”
The energy in Buddha Hall becomes heavy. The paintings look forced. The camels act on command, mechanically, without passion. The authority, the sovereign, abuses power because the person in front of them behaves like a slave.
I strike the bell. The camels now transform into lions. Nobody follows any requests! All commands are defied! Acrylics splash into the air; defiant laughter erupts. The authorities raise their voices but are ignored. The paintings are chaotic, explosive, out of control. The lions pour a lot of energy into being rebellious. They paint off the paper sheets. Drops of black paint even land on my overalls! I love this phase – it reminds me of adolescence, and of moments – even today – when my own ego comes out on top.
I strike the bell again. Now the lions transform into children… and the miracle happens. The paintings become authentic, beautiful, wondrous. The instructions are questioned, moment by moment. Sometimes the children follow them, sometimes not, depending on their feeling. The authority interacts with the child playfully. From tyrant they become a loving figure, almost forgetting their role of being in charge. The children live in deep connection with their truth and freedom. This is exactly what I aim to convey to my participants.
Now I strike the bell for them to swap roles so that everyone can experience each stage of evolution. I want to contribute towards a healthy, joyfully spontaneous society, and painting is an excellent mirror to make our behaviours visible.
The exercise bears fruit: the painters share with each other how their awareness has expanded. The final stage, the child, is almost utopian. Perhaps only enlightened beings fully live it. But it’s a good direction if we want to end the senseless struggle for dominance.
Time to share
After everybody has gone through all three stages, loud laughter echoes in Buddha Hall. Some realise that they are camels in their daily lives, some that they are lions, and some are lions disguised as camels, or vice versa.
We then continue painting. After having experienced these extremes, after having found the space of the child, the paintings begin to flow effortlessly, as if they were painting themselves. I take a cloth and swirl it through the colours on my sheet of paper, forming a spiral – it makes me smile.
“This is paradise on earth,” I think. When everyone is in touch with their true nature, when everyone says yes to themselves, Buddha Hall breathes a magical, suspended, enchanted air. No one speaks. Each one is immersed in a dimension beyond time and space. It is true meditation.
I play a quote from the discourse series on Zarathustra:
“The child is innocence. It is not obedience, it is not disobedience; it is not faith, it is not disbelief: it is pure trust, it is a sacred yes to existence, to life and all it contains. The child is the peak of purity, sincerity, authenticity, receptivity and openness to existence.” 1
Portraits and self-portraits
Then, while we sketch each other’s portraits, I play ‘Colori’ by Angelo Branduardi, a song from the late 70’s. I usually avoid Italian music, but here it feels just right.
The song goes:
È il volto tuo che ho disegnato
Chino per terra io l’ho dipinto
Ho usato il nero per i tuoi occhi
E bianca sabbia per la tua pelle
Quando la pioggia l’avrà lavato
E i tuoi colori confuso
E quando il vento sarà passato
Sarò alla fine guarito.
And here is my translation:
It’s your face I drew
Bent down on the ground I painted it
I used black for your eyes
And white sand for your skin
When the rain will have washed it away
And blurred your colours
And when the wind has passed
I will finally be healed.
It’s not about capturing a likeness, but about meeting the other. My bell beats alternating rhythms – to pose and paint. Each person is the painter and immediately afterwards the model. From the inks we slowly move on to defining, with acrylics, the close-up features of our painting partner.
We then move from portrait to self-portrait, using a technique devised by Meera. It inexorably destroys our old idea of ourselves and tears down our masks. With anthracite alone, we paint our original face, and watch as it gradually emerges from the darkness. I play an audio recording of Osho saying, “The moment you accept yourself, you become beautiful.” 2
En plein air and the magic of Smultronställe
After experimenting with some techniques for forms and shading – essential before venturing into nature – we lose ourselves in the meanders of Oshofors. I see blurred, colourful dots in the distance like in a Seurat painting. But, focussing, I realise they are my participants who have merged into the landscape.
The Open Studio has begun: two days in which participants are free to paint en plein air. I am moved to see how much passion they put into what they do. Their hearts overflow with the desire to paint. The dialogue between their inner landscape and the outer one comes alive. The season is kind to us, gifting us with sun and gentle temperatures.
One of the participants has chosen the seemingly desolate place of an old platform on a marshy lake. She tells me of Swedish legends: “When you see mist, it’s actually the fairies dancing. If you hear a melody on the lakeshore, beware of the naked man playing the violin. He lures people and drowns them.”
Then she tells me that among many things, she is also a botanist, and takes me down a path with tiny wild strawberries (called smultron in Swedish).
“As a child I always went looking for them,” she says with moist eyes.
Smultronställe in Swedish literally means ‘a place with wild strawberries’, but in its deeper meaning it refers to ‘a special, perhaps secret place where one feels in harmony with the world, a place of the heart’, she explains.
I eat one and instantly feel blessed.
With the taste of smultron in my mouth, I go and visit everyone in their chosen spot, in their own special open-air studio.
The final exhibition
“Now I disappear. I will leave them in peace,” I think, as I start painting by the stream, amidst ferns and mosses. A dragonfly appears. There are reflections I cannot describe with my colours. The sound of the river relaxes me and encourages me to find my own ways. A tick, maybe intrigued by my Latin blood, buries itself in my right leg, but I notice it only when it’s time to inaugurate our final exhibition.
We’ve invited everybody staying at Oshofors. There’s gluten-free cake. The small tool manoeuvred by Dhyan, an Oshofors member accustomed to solving such problems, unfortunately doesn’t remove the swollen arachnid completely, so Ali – with his veterinary training – resolves to ‘operate’ on me on an improvised stretcher in the ping-pong room. Having survived, I receive an applause from everybody present.
The organisers are happy with my work, I get paid and am asked to come back next year. The fee will go towards funding my next journey – to India. It will be an adventure to travel there in August during the monsoons. Ali and I already have our visas and a contact at an artists’ village called Devrai Art Village in Panchgani, so it means we’re definitely going.
What can I say about the paintings in the exhibition? Just that they are painted from the heart. Beautiful, steeped in love. From my professionally-deformed and perfectionist eye, some appear naïf, others more evolved in perspective and painting technique. Some have applied what I had taught, others are totally anarchic. I wonder whether, for the painter, it was a choice or a failure. Either way, it is good news that some individuals put into practice their freedom of spirit, unconditionally, without trying to please the facilitator. The paintings from the heart are sincere and authentic. They shine in their own light.
The paintings made by both of the organisers, on the other hand, are breathtaking masterpieces, ready to be framed. I could easily see them exhibited in a gallery or printed in an art history book. A woman asks me whether my painting at the river is for sale. I stammer my reply, unprepared, and realise how much I still have to learn about marketing…
Ali and I leave with a roll of paintings, smuggle it onto the plane, and suddenly realise we are back in the South. Florence airport feels like an absurdity compared to the Nordic organisation: noise, delays, chaos, sweat.
I am returning to my roots, from where I can set out again. Those roots that allow me to be myself, the roots without which I would not be able to fly.
This article is simultaneously printed in the August 2025 issue of the Italian Osho Times (many thanks to Marga!). Translation by Osho News
Links
Sources
- Osho, Zarathustra: A God That Can Dance, Ch 7
- Osho, The Tantra Vision, Vol 2, Ch 7
Upcoming Creativity Retreats
- 26-28 September 2025 – MAP Creativity Weekend at Osho Miasto, Italy
- 13-15 February and 2-4 April 2026 – ALT: The Art of Living Together, at Osho Nirvesha, Italy
- 15-17 February and 5-7 April 2026 – AAA: Art Art Art, at Osho Nirvesha, Italy
- 17-22 March 2026, Shakti Shiva Painting, at Osho Risk, Denmark
- Summer 2026, Into the Wild – Shamanic Painting, at Oshofors, Sweden
Excerpts from Meera’s book, Dancing into the Unknown: Osho Painting and Art Therapy
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