Written by: Madhupran
I first encountered Sagarpriya in the therapist training at the Rajneesh International Meditation University in Oregon in 1983. She was one of many Osho therapists who contributed to a rich and transformative experience, infused with the fragrance of Osho speaking to us again each day. I was a young lad of 22 and wasn’t that impressed with the diminutive, quietly spoken American lady. My ego was more attracted to the therapists who were attached to their own egos and the ‘power and glory’ type therapy groups were more to my taste.
What I remember most about Sagarpriya’s contribution was her teaching us how to end a session, particularly when the client did not want to leave. Using a massage table, she asked for volunteers on whom she could demonstrate what to do. After a couple of people had been demonstrated on and, in my judgmental view, had dutifully got off the table when required, I volunteered myself, thinking, You won’t get me off the table. I’ll leave when I’m good and ready. Of course that isn’t what happened and I got off the table as the others had.
It was years later that I realised it was the ‘power’ of presence that had brought this about. Power isn’t really the right word as it certainly wasn’t will power. It was more that she was completely relaxed about whether we got off the table or not, yet her spacious intention made it impossible to stay. I never forgot the experience.
It was 18 years before I experienced her again. I was in a fairly new relationship that I felt had come to an end after a huge and dramatic argument. My partner and I were on holiday together in Slovenia and I didn’t want to go on, so I decided to leave. She said she was going to go to Milan to see Sagarpriya, who she worked with closely and always turned to for support and would I come too? To start with I thought you can forget your Sagarpriya, I’m going back to England, but then I thought I can’t really abandon my partner in Slovenia and what harm could it do to go to Milan? The relationship had felt like an important step in the process of rediscovering my life after a difficult few years, during which I travelled alone in the Australian desert and then drove around Spain in a campervan, ending with a 21-day meditation retreat in silence and isolation. I had felt very lost after the ending of a significant personal and working partnership and needed all that time to process what had happened, as well as the previous ten years of my life.
The first steps towards finding a way forward had perhaps begun with a Star Sapphire session I had in Pune, during which I was shocked to discover that my controlling female side didn’t even know that my male side existed.
Now in Milan I thought we were going to have a relationship session. No, Sagarpriya said, she’d give me a session on my own and in the session all she talked about was work. At the end I said ‘but what about the relationship’ and her answer was ‘oh your relationship is fine’. I was confused for sure but somehow it felt
right. She also invited me to participate in the Energywork training which was due to happen just a few weeks later, I didn’t have the money for it but I did that too.
So Sagarpriya’s work, and Sagarpriya herself in person, played a significant role in the rediscovery of myself. Twenty-five years later, that same relationship is still flourishing, as are my work and my life, and I have a very different view of Sagarpriya.