The death of Pandit Birju Maharaj marks the end of an era however his love for dance, art and music will continue to reverberate in our hearts. He has been and still is an enormous influence for people who value art and beauty. A synonym for Kathak, an artist par excellence and a Padma Vibhushan awardee, who blurred gender norms was a lover of Osho, the enlightened mystic. He visited Osho World Foundation (Osho Dham) a few times and graced the occasion with his dance. The Osho Dham team pays homage and remembers Panditji with gratitude and love.
Most of the meditations introduced by Osho include dance. His perspective on dance is distinct.
Osho says “If people can dance a little more, sing a little more, be a little more crazy, their energy will be flowing more, and their problems will by and by disappear. Hence, I insist so much on dance. Dance to orgasm; let the whole energy become dance, and suddenly you will see that you don’t have any head — the stuck energy in the head is moving all around, creating beautiful patterns, pictures, movement. And when you dance there comes a moment when your body is no longer a rigid thing, it becomes flexible, flowing. When you dance there comes a moment when your boundary is no longer so clear; you melt and merge with the cosmos, the boundaries are mixing. Watch a dancer — you will see that he has become an energy phenomenon, no longer in a fixed form, no longer in a frame. He is flowing out of his frame, out of his form, and becoming more alive, more and more alive. But only if you dance yourself will you know what really happens. The head inside disappears; again, you are a child. Then you don’t create any problems.”
He adds, “God is a dancer. That means he has not painted the world; otherwise, he would have become separate from it. It is not his poetry; it is not his music. It is his dance. He is in it, he is it.”
Many of panditji’s disciples are in pain because of his demise and deep reverence for what he taught them. One of them remembers, “He would light a candle and practice till it burnt. He always said that you go beyond the realms of the body and enter the uncharted path only when the body is tired. So, continuous practice is the key.” Another student fondly remembers how Panditji would recite a tihai tukda co-ordinating it with a child’s play, a bird song or even someone arguing. The kathak maestro saw the divine dance in everything.
They say dance reaches where words fail and that dance is more articulate than anything else. The Osho Dham team and all who watched him know that wherever existence takes Panditji, he will be understood. Dance is a language recognized by all.
