Niklank Bharti recollects two incidents around Osho
A Train Reversing
In 1960, Osho came to deliver a speech at a college in Itarsi, Madhya Pradesh. After the lecture, he was scheduled to leave for Jabalpur by train. On the way to the station they got held up and were running late. Some friends were accompanying him to the railway station to see him off.
Itarsi, being a major railway junction with many platforms, required passengers to use a foot overbridge to access those platforms. While Osho and friends were still on the overbridge, they noticed that the train he was supposed to take had already started moving. The group remarked that there was no point in rushing down now, as the train would have departed by the time they reached the platform.
Osho, however, smiled and calmly suggested that they should go down and see. He showed no urgency, and, walking at his usual pace, he descended the stairs to the platform. His friends followed reluctantly.
Just as they got there, the train unexpectedly stopped at the end of the platform and began reversing. The compartment in which Osho had a reservation stopped precisely where he was standing. The conductor stepped out and said, “Come, Acharya Ji.”
After bidding farewell to everyone, Osho boarded the train, and it resumed its journey.
His friends were astonished.
Later, when someone asked Osho about the incident, he laughed it off, attributing the event to coincidence. He suggested that perhaps some important items had been left behind, causing the train to reverse in order to load them, and it was just by chance that the coach stopped right in front of him.
Wrong Time!
The second incident is also related to a train journey.
In the 1960s, communication was primarily done through correspondence, and the Indian Postal Service was known for its efficiency. Letters typically reached any corner of India within 3–4 days.
Osho’s discourses and meditation sessions were held in different parts of the country, and he would inform the organisers 1–2 weeks in advance by letter, specifying which train he would be taking and at what time he would arrive.
For a meditation camp in Gujarat, Osho sent a letter to the organisers a week in advance, providing the name of the train and its expected arrival time. However, when the organisers read the letter, they noticed that the train’s name and the arrival time Osho had mentioned did not match its actual schedule.
Nonetheless, on the appointed day they went to the station at the scheduled time to meet Osho. Upon arriving, they learned that the train was running late and would be further delayed. To their astonishment, the train eventually arrived at the exact time Osho had written in his letter.
When Osho disembarked, his friends immediately asked him how he had known the train would arrive at that particular time. Osho laughed and said that he had no idea; he had simply written it by mistake – everyone makes mistakes!
Many thanks to Shailendra for translation – Featured image credit to pinterest.com
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