16/10/2022
Swami Satyatirth Bharti (aka Neebu Swami) was born in 1950 in Kolkata, while he spent his childhood years in Ahmedabad. He had no formal schooling as a child, and as a young man.
Satyatirth met Osho (then Acharya Rajneesh), in 1969. Osho was a frequent visitor to Ahmedabad to give discourses and lead meditation camps. Satyatirth (then Nebulal) was so overwhelmed by his presence that he attended all the camps and remained continuously in touch with Osho.
In 1978 Osho gave him sannyas. He was so spellbound by the experience that he said:
“Itni Khabar hai ki unse mili thi nazren meri,
fir kya hadsa guzra kuch bhi yad nahin.”
“I remember that he (Osho) looked into my eyes,
what happened then – is beyond knowing.”
When Osho established his ashram in Pune, he also moved there.
In 1987, Sayatirth moved to Japan and two years later, together with his wife Gyan Patra from Japan, opened the Osho Sakshin meditation centre in Tokyo and an ashram, Osho Prem, among a forest on the outskirts of Tokyo, where a big pyramid and 21 small pyramids were built for discourse and meditation.
Satyatirth regularly organised and facilitated meditation camps and many people became sannyasins. He also had Osho’s books translated into Japanese and published by their Shimin publishing company. They also started a few successful businesses like the famous Nataraj vegetarian restaurant chain.
In the late 1990s, on one of his visits to India, he also journeyed to Osho’s birthplace in . Seeing the plight of Osho’s birth house – he bought it, and a team of Japanese sannyasins protected the original structure of the house with pillars and fencing, and whatever was needed for maintenance.
By 2002, the ashram Osho Tirth Kuchwada, which can accommodate 200 people, was completed with a big pyramid, the Buddha Hall, for the meditation programmes. Many acres of land around it was procured for organic farming. He also opened a charitable hospital, Osho Nani Ma, in honour of Osho’s maternal grandmother. Kuchwada has by now become a pilgrimage centre for Osho’s sannyasins from around the world.
Satyatirth left his body on 30th January 2020 in Bhopal, and was given a celebrative send-off in Kuchwada on 2nd February.
