From My Window:
Gossip: from Bali and Beyond
by Na Anand Bhagawati
The people who have gathered around meare all misfits in the rotten society. Any intelligent person
is bound to hea misfit in a society that is dead, out of date, superstitious, based on beliefsystems.
F r o m Death to Deathlessness, Chapter 33
I dare say P r e m Leeladhar
was the first, and maybe
only, plastic surgeon who
became a sannyasin. Talk
about the original face... I
recall Osho speaking about
him and his work, some‑
times joking but also stating
that sex changes through
plastic surgery are a good
means for people to expe‑
rience both the male and
female mystery.
Leeladhar took sannyas in 1977 and was doing "end‑
less groups” before he stayed in Pune One “forever,”
working in the kitchen as a pot‐cleaner and a guard
at No. 70. He was in Rajneeshpuram from its earli‑
est days ‐ eating and living. at the ranch farmhouse.
The best job he ever had was working asa mem‑
ber o f the dam crew with A n a h a t t a , but “then
came Pythagoras under Puja: back to all the medi‑
cal obligations with an operating theater, exams to
be licensed in America, operating in Madras and
Redmond.”
Then followed a time of being a rather unsuccess‑
ful "Osho‐appointed ambassador” for Australia in
Fremantle ‐ Niseema, his then‐partner’s, home
country. The m a i n task was to do the promotion
of Osho's 1988 Manifesto. Leeladhar returned to
Switzerland and undertook additional training in
Psychoenergetics and Family Constellation with
H a r i s h a r a n , after having attended the counseling
course in Pune Tw o . Moving from the outer aspects
to the inner, he worked as a psychotherapist, which
resulted in writing the book Liebe und Schmerz: Ein
Schlu'ssel zur Gefu'hlswelt (Love and Pain: A Key to the
World of Emotions), published in 2002.
N o w retired in Switzerland, he enjoys hanging o u t
with his three grandchildren and is happily married
to P r e m Tarshita. Meditating on an "easy is right”
basis, wandering for long hours in the beautiful hilly
landscape of the Bernese Oberland, meeting old and
n e w sannyasins as well as some "straight people,”
and remembering what Osho told h i m , "Leeladhar,
you are a born misfit.” (The Hidden Splendor,
Chapter 21) [email protected]
P r e m Bhaven (aka Prem) from Australia took san‑
nyas in Pune in 1976; his brother became Vimukta.
In 1978 his mother, P r e m P u n i t a , took sannyas
and started a commune in West Australia, which
Osho called Soham. Later she managed Karri Valley,
the forest resort purchased by Jay H a r m a n , where
Sheela infamously created havoc.
In Pune One P r e m was one of the pillars of
Vrindavan enterprises, where he first worked as a
handyman. When he asked to be part of the kitchen,
he was paired with Yoga Videh to work the counter
for an entire year, and then he moved on to cook
with K u t i r. His Rajneeshpuram worship had h i m
first asa truck mechanic at Mahavira and then as
a farmer at Dadu. F r o m there Neehar sent h i m to
work in Osho’s garden, which came as a surprise
until he figured o u t the possible reason. He suspected
that he, A r p a n a , and Srajan, who all knew little
of gardening, had been placed there because "the
girls in the house didn’t trust the tough guys with
guns that made up the security for Lao Tzu House
and who had been p u t in place by Sheela. So they
arranged for their friends to be transferred to the
garden."
One day they were told to stay off the driveway in
the afternoon ‐ so they all sat on the roof of the
gardener’s hut and saw an airplane lifting off: Osho
had left. After leaving Rajneeshpuram Prem came
to Bali, which ever since has been a place of transit