Gibberish lessons: practicals first

It was January 2000, the beginning of another millennium (of course, it’s counting only), my
first visit to Osho International Meditation Resort, Pune. Many celebrations were happening
all around. So many small stickers and photos and other items had been in display for free
pick up and distribution, in front of the bookshop. Buddha hall was see through, music and
silence were always spreading in the air from there, as part of the meditations. Wearing a
loose robe, I am also, part of a maroon flock. For a few moments, I found myself that I am in
an altogether different universe. But very soon, I felt that it’s an ancient space and so
familiar to me.

It was next day only, I just participated in a meditation called Gibberish. That word was not
at all strange to me, as I had read it many times in a few Osho-books, and had felt that I
know Gibberish. But when started doing only, I understood, how different everything is
from experiencing directly and thinking of experiencing by words or by imagination.

Even though Osho has said ,that these nonsensical sound making is quite common in
everybody’s childhood, only after that one hour meditation, I understood that, it was not
just a childhood habit, but Gibberish had been effectively adapted into our daily activities
and living situations in many ways. The only difference was, we were not conscious of using
it. Because of that, even though the result was there, it did serve a very shallow purpose
only, otherwise a very wonderful opening into a realm of silence and awareness would have
been possible.

All such situations of ‘practical gibberish’ I had gone through, descended from the memory
and automatically found their places in the ‘jigsaw puzzle’ of understanding. I would like to
share two such lessons here.

1
I remember, when I started my job as a site supervisor in electrical engineering projects, I
had a freaky ‘JABBAR’*, a technician in our team of workers, who did magic with Gibberish.
In those days, I hadn’t heard this word. Even the boy who was doing this trick was not aware
of anything like this. They were doing this habitually, whenever many difficulties arose in
material moving, cable laying, panel board installations etc.

One day when I came back to the office in the evening, after finishing that day’s duty in a
far away factory site, I was instructed to go immediately to another site and carryout the
breakdown jobs which were already been started. It was a coconut oil factory. Fire was
broken out in one of their cable alley, and one unit of the factory was cut off from the
production. Those cable alleys were chocked up by oily coconut waste, and when some
short circuit happened, fire caught up very easily to all the electrical cables. Our job was to
replace all the burned cables and reconnect them to the main panels.
But when the time was about 10 o’ clock at night, everybody felt exhausted. All those
people were working hard since early morning. Now nobody was in a mood to continue.
Some people said, they are not well. Somebody has some urgency to go home. Somebody is
sleepy, somebody is very hungry and many such reasons. After listening them carefully, I
told them, “but we will be able to go home after laying three more cables only.” They
understood that no excuse is going to work. Then two people from the group came to me
and whispered, “Call that boy. Without him nothing is going to work in this late night. He
will do the magic.” It was an advice from their side, seeing that I am a new supervisor who
doesn’t have enough experience.

I accepted their suggestion and called that boy to lead the cable laying. His name was MANI.
On a promise that once all the three cables are in place, we could retire today, they were in
hurry to finish it as early as possible.

Mani came forward and appointed all the people in different locations along with the cable.
It was a heavy cable of around two hundred and fifteen meters’ length. All the twenty
people stood in line from one end to the other end, and MANI in middle. MANI just made a
clap. Everybody became silent immediately. No laziness, no tiredness, no urgency to go
home, no hopelessness about the difficulty of the task, no different ideas, nothing. All of
them (me too!), were utterly receptive for something to happen. Then MANI started doing
Gibberish like, ‘SHASHTATATATUTTA PASHETUVITITTA TIHURIITARAE LUKUSSITTUAEREERE
SUTUTU TSUTUTU VIKICHUCHU TATTATA TATTATA……..’ and its speed and tone went on
increasing. May be after 40 or 50 seconds, he made a loud shout, “LIFT”. It was like a ‘silent
explosion’. Such a heavy and long cable was lifted immediately and was carried by 21
people, quietly. It had to be taken through a very narrow chamber and many hurdles were
there. But none of them did make any unnecessary noise or disturbance. A clear cut
communication was happening among them naturally. After some time there arose a big
applause, to celebrate the reaching of the cable on the other end.

I was in an awe like a small kid watching a magic show. All the cables were placed in their
position without any hustle bustle, and we all retired soon. From that day MANI became my
special friend, and as a supervisor I used to give him many privileges as gift for Gibberish.
Actually it was a gift exchange for something unknown, but felt magical to me.

2
That evening, some of my doubts, about one of our childhood games, got a clarification very
immediately. It was just like a sheath of sunlight glittered through a cluster of trees and fell
on my face. I said to myself, ‘games are not just games, but the game of encounters (of
consciousness)’.
We understand that the ‘games’ are a kind of milestones in the evolution and growth of
human culture and civilization. They show how intelligent the civilization was, vibrant with
imaginations, interactive, creative, mature and receptive towards individuality.

One of the fascinating games of our childhood (in Kerala) was ‘KUTTIYUM KOLUM’- Boy and
Cane. All over India, this game was played under different names, like ‘Gilli-danda’ in north
India. According to Wikipedia, this game was originated around 2500 years ago. And it is
said, that a similar game called Lippa had been played in Italy too. Main structure of the
game is like cricket only. Instead of the ball, a small cane was used, and batting was done
with a longer stick.

As a grown up child, I had noticed that there is something foolish about this game. Because,
in the end, both the teams had to undergo a punishment: one representative of the looser
has to run a distance, which is fixed by the winners, shouting ‘pachilapazhukila
pachilapazhukila’, in a single breath, as fast as possible. Once the breath is broken, from that
point they had to run another distance. The foolishness I felt was, along with the looser, one
representative of the winners also had to run the entire distance, in order to check whether
the runner breaks the breath or not. Sometimes two or three people will run with the looser
to check the breaking of breath. In a way both are punished!

But there was a wonderful thing happened in the end; all the enmity, discords and conflicts
were immediately dissolved and both the teams were ready to have a fresh beginning. We
used to interchange the participants too. In many other type of games, the enmity used to
sustain till the next game won, may be till next day.

Now I feel, or I understand, that all antagonism was dissolved through a kind of Gibberish.
All friction and rivalry must have been emptied through Gibberish. Bypassing the language
region in brain, those emotions were not allowed to take manifestations. Everybody else
was almost holding their breath to find out whether the runner is breaking his breath. When
the runner shouted ‘pachilapazhukila pachilapazhukila’ so fast, all participants also were
going through the same Gibberish. Only after many years I could understand that the
mantra ‘pachilapazhukila’ was actually two words- pacha ila, pazhutha ila. It means, green
leaf- yellow leaf. Apparently, doesn’t have any relevance or meaning to the situation. Just a
gibberish exercise.

That evening brought a clarity that, it is not that the game was foolish; rather, I was foolish,
not able to understand the inner games, the inner games of Gibberish. Perhaps, not only
about Gibberish, about most of the meditations, we must have gone through the practical
lessons first. Then only, it seems, it becomes significant with the ongoing life, and makes it
to a meditative technique.

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 JABBAR- a Sufi master who used this as a technique, and it says, the word Gibberish
came out of his name.