Paul Lowe
Presence is our natural state. Just being. Very rare.
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Obituary for Swami Ananda Teertha
by Vikrant Sentis
Teertha was born Paul Graham Lowe into a working-class family in Warwickshire, England on March 16, 1933. Nothing dramatic happened during early childhood. At school, he shone in a few subjects. He did not join gangs and spent most of his time alone in the countryside. He had an exceptional singing voice, so he joined many choirs and was devoted to singing. He left school and took employment as a stockbroker. He joined many part-time and evening classes studying various subjects. Paul was conscripted into the Air Force, and was later discharged when a scar was discovered on one lung. He spent months in bed inactive while the scar was observed. He got married and took jobs as a photographer, interior designer, and travelling salesman. He enjoyed amateur motor racing, skiing and his evening studies. In 1963 he separated amicably from his wife and moved to London where he became the UK Customer Relations Officer for an international company. There he met his future wife, Patricia. He left his job and decided to hitchhike around the world with her. They travelled through France, Spain, Gibraltar, Morocco, the Sahara, Algeria, Tunisia, Italy, Greece, Egypt, Aden, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Egypt, Cyprus, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Israel, India, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Taiwan. His career as one of the most prominent humanistic psychology group leaders in Europe began in 1970 when, together with his wife Clare (Patricia then), later Poonam, opened Quaesitor, the very first growth centre in London (and in the old continent), after having spent almost a year training and working with the foremost psychotherapists and group leaders of the Esalen Institute and the US West Coast. These therapists included Fritz Perls, Ida Rolf, Jacob Stattman, Mike Murphy, John Bell, Alexander Lowen, George Leonard, among others. They had landed in California after travelling the world, working in humanitarian programs for various organizations, including the YMCA in Nairobi, and the administration of the Kenya Charity Fundraising, before settling in Hong Kong. While living there, in 1968, Paul saw an article in Life Magazine by Jane Howard about the Esalen Institute and the possibilities of expanding the human potential. The phrase that particularly struck Paul was in the heading: “A new movement to unlock the potential of what people could be but aren't.” (Howard, 1968) Paul heard the call. He felt that there was more to life than what he already knew, and in Esalen something seemed to be happening which he wanted to explore. Patricia felt suspicious and believed that her husband was mainly attracted to the pictures of the naked women in the Esalen baths… Without looking back, Paul left a very well-paid top position at Hong Kong’s most important advertising agency. Had he stayed just two more years in that position, he would have had the option of never having to work again. The Quaesitor Growth Center was a seed that sprang into many other growth centres, both in England and across Europe. Hundreds of therapists and wannabes flocked to Quaesitor to train in Encounter, Bioenergetics, Body Psychotherapy, Radix, Massage, Marathons, Tai Chi, Gestalt, Pychosynthesis, Psychodrama and other innovative approaches which had come out of the Human Potential Movement. William Schutz, John Pierrakos, Gerda Boyesen, Denny Yuson, Betty Fuller, Arthur Janov, Moshé Feldenkrais, George & Judy Brown, Charles Kelley, Roberto Assagioli and many others lectured and taught at Quaesitor. Paul helped introduce humanistic psychology and set up the first Humanistic Psychology Association in Europe. He was a visiting lecturer at Oxford University and many others. He was well-known and sought after. His groups were booked months in advance, and long waiting lists preceded the possibility of working directly with him. Michael Barnett’s Kaleidoscope and Community Growth Centre in the UK; Gestalt Institute in Holland, established by May Kortenhorst (Garimo) were one of the many such flowers which had come out of Quaesitor’s work. In 1972, Paul went to India to meet a spiritual master who advocated active, cathartic meditation techniques, instead of quiet traditional ones, and stayed. Osho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, as he was known then) was such a man, who would then become his spiritual teacher and mentor for the next 13 years. He was absolutely committed to Osho and his work. The perfect devoted disciple. Under his support, and with a new sannyas name, Swami Ananda Teertha, Paul innovated, developed and consolidated his place as an internationally renowned group leader and spiritual therapist (his encounter groups became legendary). Teertha led and counselled thousands of people from all over the world, while at the same time dwelling in the realms of meditation and the oceanic experience beyond the mind and its attachments. Unsurprisingly, at around that time, he was often referred to as the best Humanistic-Transpersonal therapist in the world; while, inside the Osho movement, it was rumoured that he would be the alleged successor. If there was an Ouspensky to Gurdjieff, a Vivekananda to Ramakrishna, an Alexander Lowen to Wilhelm Reich, a Mahakashyapa to Buddha, or a Jung to Freud; Teertha was that to Osho. Their intimate connection and collaboration were both admired and envied by many of Osho’s disciples. Such affinity became apparent when Osho designated him as the person in charge of initiating disciples, conduct energy darshans and counsel the flock when he went into an indefinite time of public silence. In 1981, Osho left India and settled in the US. Paul, quickly followed in a world tour that took him from England to the Netherlands, from Australia to Argentina and Chile, and from Brazil to the United States, where he participated in the therapy institute called Geetam in the Californian desert. Geetam Therapy Institute introduced the latest methodologies of Humanistic–Transpersonal Psychology, blending therapy and the exploration of consciousness. A select group of the most experienced therapists from Europe and America, who had been associated with Osho, taught there. Not too long after that, Paul moved again, and the next four years were spent in an agricultural commune in the high desert of Oregon. The Rajneesh International Meditation University was the place where he conducted groups and performed his duties as Osho’s representative. The Commune and later City of Rajneeshpuram became a media sensation because of the clashes with the local population regarding matters concerning land use laws and opposition of Christian religious fanatics. Early in 1986, after the Commune in Oregon had closed, Paul and a team of the foremost therapists from the Rajneesh International Meditation University in USA set up an international meditation academy at Villa Volpi right on the banks of Lake Maggiore in Italy. The place was supposed to work in alliance with the Rajneesh International Foundation, as an extension of Osho’s work. Late in 1986 such an alliance broke, mysteriously for many, inevitably for others, and sent him on his own path and work. As he mentioned years later, as total and committed as he was to be a disciple and spread and support Osho’s work, when he felt that it was no longer his path, he left it completely, without ever looking back. In fact, it is almost impossible to find anywhere a public statement about his time with Osho. An attitude which brought much criticism from the sannyas community. After the brake-up with the Osho movement, still in Villa Volpi, Paul and a group of 66 people devoted for 6 months to an intense residential experience to awake to new levels of consciousness. Known as The Six Months Project, it became a landmark in the exploration of awakening in the later part of the twentieth century. Such an experiment was repeated for a period of six weeks in the Black Forest of Germany. At the end of the Villa Volpi period, Paul was interviewed and video recorded for an international conference of Humanistic Psychology in Spain. In the video, Paul invited his former colleagues to abandon the usual ways of working with people, telling them that therapy was over as far as a way of exploring the realm of consciousness was concerned. He suggested that therapists were part of the problem, that they were in the same trap as their clients and that something new was needed, but for that to occur, they had to let go of any need for security and predictability. As may be easy to understand, it was not well received by the therapeutic community. Neither was it even considered. A similar message which he delivered at a Humanistic Transpersonal Psychology conference on the Canary Islands resulted in an identical reaction from the attendees. At another Humanistic Transpersonal Psychology conference, this time at the Universidad Católica in Chile, where the audience was composed mainly of psychology students, he urged them – to the astonishment of fellow speakers – not to believe what the other panelists or he himself were saying, but to find out for themselves what psychology was all about. This was the last time he was invited to an official psychology conference. For the following twenty years, he travelled all over the world holding seminars and conferences; in New York, London, San Francisco, California, Chile, Bali, Germany, Spain, Mexico, France and other locations. Many celebrities came to him for counselling and mentoring. Many of them disappeared as soon as he gave them feedback. Sting, Annie Lennox, even Robert Downey Jr. were among the well-known people who had come to him for counselling. Even Oprah Winfrey’s producers had approached him with the opportunity of being featured in her show. He would have taken the offer if they had accepted his condition to be allowed to give her direct feedback. They declined. Behind the curtain, he remained a counsellor to many famous Osho therapists, who would visit him to get advice on personal matters. All through this time, Paul’s work would place him as one of the most controversial, talented, well-trained and respected western spiritual teachers, although he refused to be considered a teacher or generate any kind of following. Despite his consolidated place as an international coach of consciousness, Paul was no Deepak Chopra. His uncompromising views on sexuality and relationships set him apart from the hordes of teachers who appeared in the early nineties all over the world. He was confrontational, ruthlessly honest on what he saw in people’s behavior, while advocating for people to explore their sexuality, express and live their truth without conditions. Paul invited his audience to understand that the ways monogamous relationships have been set up simply don’t work and that they represent the major hindrance in the path to awakening. Perhaps it was precisely this understanding that prevented him from becoming a celebrity in the new age media, leaving the space for less controversial, harmless teachers like Eckhart Tolle or Andrew Cohen. However, for the sincere seeker, Paul was often referred as “the next step”. Out of the hundreds of hours of talks, conferences and interviews three books were published to his name: The Experiment is Over (translated to German and Spanish), In Each Moment and Visionary Inspiration (in Spanish). Apart from the countless mentions of his place and work with Osho, and the development of Humanistic Psychology in London in hundreds of other books, papers and articles, Paul is extensively referred to, and his work analyzed, in Through the Labyrinth by Peter Occhiogrosso, My Life as an Artist by Gilda E. Meyers, Close Encounters by Ian McNay and Fire of Spirit: Notes from Transpersonal Psychology and Life on Earth (in Spanish) by Alejandro Celis. Also, a documentary was made of one of his long residential seminars in the US, called The Workshop. The film generated quite a lot of media attention at the Tribeca Film Festival. Paul retired to Australia in 2007. He stopped travelling and leading seminars around the world. From time to time some audio talks or transcriptions of them would surface on his webpage or were sent to his mailing list, recorded directly from meetings with close friends at his residence in Rosebank, New South Wales. Paul died at 4:04 this morning at the age of 92 due to complications of a general bacterial infection. He was surrounded by his beloved Sabine and his dear Friend Kira. |
