Amlas and Atmo – facilitating magical mysterious meetings with dolphins

An enduring memory I have of Amlas and Atmo is watching them nimbly, fearlessly and very gracefully traversing the roof of Croydon Hall in its early days when it was still a construction site. Gave me vertigo just to look at them.

They are such a multi-talented couple it would take a book to chronicle just a bit of their lives so writing a short profile is not so easy. Amlas is well-known to sannyasins as a bass guitar player with Milarepa‘s band. She has travelled all over the world with our master musician. The great love of Atmo‘s life – besides Amlas – is Africa. In the early 90‘s, after the Czech Revolution, he conducted tours in Europe, Thailand, India and finally Africa. Now they are being majorly entrepreneurial in taking over the beautiful WildQuest project – communing with dolphins – started by Sandesh and Daya in the Keys in Florida, continuing now on the island of Bimini in the Bahamas).

Rather than turning in his grave, I imagine Osho must be dancing in the universe to see sannyasins such as these two straddling the inner and the outer so beautifully and successfully. Amlas connected with Osho in the early 70‘s and lived in communes with sannyasins on numerous occasions. Her independent spirit rejected the idea of having a master, however, and it was not until 1987 that she was hit by the realisation that actually Osho was her Master whether she liked it or not! She took sannyas within the next few days.

So many of our newer sannyasins who lived behind the Iron Curtain with threats of invasions and revolutions have amazing stores to tell of how they came to Osho. Atmo is no exception. With the Russian invasion in 1968 the borders of Czechoslovakia were closed but one man, Anubodha, had escaped to West Germany and taken sannyas. When the Wall fell in 1989 he collected as much money and as many Osho books as he could and rushed back to the now Czech Republic to teach Osho meditations and disperse the books. Atmo read the first book translated into Czech – The Orange Book – did some meditations and joined American Sam in the first Czech meditation centre/commune in Prague. He became a sannyasin in 1990.

The two met in Poona and after travelling in various parts of the world, working and playing music, Amlas ended up in Costa Rica playing for Miten and Premal. There she reconnected with Sandesh and Daya who were running WildQuest and who invited her and Atmo to join their project. Amlas and Atmo worked with them for the next few summers, finally buying into the project when Sandesh and Daya found health problems were making it difficult for them to continue. Last summer was the first season Amlas and Atmo worked on the project alone and, although it was pretty intense, they loved it and are looking forward to the up-coming season.

Since Osho left the body it has been a real sadhana for sannyasins to find ways to earn a living in the marketplace which do not detract from, rather which hopefully enhances, our inner spiritual growth. Sandesh and Daya were originally inspired to create WildQuest to create a place to nurture the space a person gets into when connecting closely with dolphins. Amlas describes these experiences as similar to those which sannyasins experience when meeting Osho. Both she and Atmo feel deeply touched and inspired by the mysterious transmission of something inexpressible that happens when people in a loving and open space meet the dolphins. Bimini itself is one of the 7 major power points in the world and Amlas and Atmo feel the experiences which happen for the visitors and the team working there are life changing, hence affecting the consciousness of the world as a whole.

They both express the feeling that they are not doing this just to make money but to create a space where they themselves can flower in a very intense demanding life while helping others to experience something of the mystery of existence. Atmo says this is not work, it is his life.

WildQuest is largely a summer project and so the intrepid couple are now working on 3 other projects! Firstly they are developing an African project which they have named Zenfari. In his excursions to Kenya, Atmo met up with a German sannyasin, Gitanand, who has lived in Nairobi for many years and who can provide them with the very practical support they need eg land rovers and luxury tents! Secondly they want to organise week-long trips to see humpback whales and their babies in a very protected area off the Dominican Republic. And thirdly Amlas wants to produce a beautiful ’coffee table‘ book of the stunning photos of the dolphins that they have taken, accompanied by quotes from letters and emails people have sent to them which try to express their feelings of the mysterious experiences they had during their WildQuest visit. Amlas says she is deeply touched, and is often in tears, as people try to express the inexpressible. She likens it to sannyasins trying to articulate their experiences of Osho and meditation.

A stunning, awe-inspiring story!

Text by Veena - March 2007