Category: Osho Sannyasins

Variations on a Theme

I offer the following story not to diminish, in any way, other’s experiences that may vary quite significantly from my own but simply to add mine to the mix.

Ma Prem Sagara, now known as Sumati, and I arrived at the ashram in Poona sometime in September 1977. I had first been to Poona in March of 1976 and was now returning with the idea of staying for as long as possible. Osho gave us both a series of groups to do. Mine were; Centering, Enlightenment Intensive, Tantra, Zazen and Awareness. On my previous stay, I had been given Tathata and Tao. During the Zazen group, one day Chaitanya Hari came and played his shakuhachi, and on another, Japanese Asanga came and led a tea ceremony. In the middle of one of those sessions, I don’t remember which, I had the realization that I would be going to Japan. It was just clear as a bell.

At this time in the ashram there was a lot of talk about a new commune that would be happening in Gujarat. Finally, this talk all came to a head when tickets were being sold for the train to Gujarat inside the ashram. Sumati (Sagara) and I were first in line. But it was not very long after this that the whole project came to a screeching halt. Apparently, there were objections raised by the military that the ashram would be too close to the Pakistan border, and so everything was put on hold while Laxmi tried to overcome their objections.

We got a refund for the tickets and decided to go to Japan to earn some money. The money that Sumati and I had arrived in Poona with was running out. I knew that Japan was a good place to teach English, and I had two-years’ experience teaching in Madagascar. Also, I had a friend, in fact the person that I travelled to Madagascar with, Peter, living in Tokyo, and so off we went.

We spent nine months in Japan. I taught English and Sumati proofread for the same company that Peter worked for. In Japan, we were very fortunate. Peter heard about a house that was owned by a journalist for the newspaper Asahi Shimbun, who for some reason preferred to rent his house to foreigners, and so we got a good deal. We worked hard and hardly spent any money other than living necessities and so managed to save. In fact, when the time came for us to leave and return to India, in those short nine months, we had saved more money than I had ever had in my life before.

We arrived in Poona with the intention of turning over all the money we had earned to the ashram. Back when the plans were being drawn up for the new commune, the idea to offer living quarters for a $10,000 donation was being floated. We had saved $12,000. We were ready to give our money and start working and living in the ashram. We met with Sheela, who at that time, was Laxmi’s assistant. We offered our bounty and said we wanted to work. Both Sumati and I were assigned to work with Deeksha in Vrindavan. Sheela then explained that we could donate the money but was very clear that it was a donation and did not give any guarantee for housing provided by the ashram. At that time, housing was at a premium with the many arrivals from the west. She suggested that we keep $2,000 for our living expenses.

We lived in a shared apartment across the river in Yerwada for some time before moving into what was called the Cornfield House. And on June 21st, 1979, after Osho’s first discourse on Buddha’s Dhammapada, Vidya stopped us as we were leaving Buddha Hall and told us to come see her. We were being moved into the ashram. From that day, and even really before that, from the time when we arrived back in Poona from Japan and our entire time living there, to the castle in New Jersey, through the years spent at Rajneeshpuram all the way through to the fall of 1986 in Boulder, CO, I was provided for by the commune, either directly or indirectly.

I am well aware that there are others who have vastly different stories concerning their money, Osho and the communes, many of whom had donated much larger sums, but for us it was everything we had. So, this was my experience, and I am eternally grateful for every minute of it. I suppose, because I never felt that the money was mine to begin with is why I never had any doubts or regrets about offering it to the commune.

I remember hearing Jean Klein say that the right relationship with money is to learn how to be good stewards; it doesn’t belong to us, and we have a responsibility to be neither hoarders nor wasteful. This is something I remain mindful of even today.

-purushottama

Be a Light unto Yourself

Recently Amido and I were in Playa del Carmen, Mexico on a 40-day working holiday. We spent our days working on editing and assembling the A Course in Witnessing, interspersed with walks on the beach and swimming in the cenote and the sea.

On one of those walks on the beach, the realization struck me while enjoying the show on display of suntans, tattoos and undulating buttocks that we seek attention in many ways and that it is natural to seek attention until we are ourselves giving attention to our true being in self-remembering or right-remembering. Once we begin to nourish our being with our own light of attention, the need for getting attention from others simply evaporates. This must be at least one of the meanings of Buddha’s statement, “Be a light unto yourself.”

-purushottama

Surrender to Existence – Kiran

I first met Kiran in Pune in November 1993 at a friend’s house. I was in town to visit Dadaji [ch. 8] and, while I was waiting to be admitted into Dadaji’s presence, a middle-aged couple arrived. My friend introduced me saying, “This is Kiran, an enlightened Osho disciple who lives in Pune, and his wife, Vinodini. Dadaji is an old acquaintance of theirs.” This seemingly casual introduction had an electrifying effect on me. An enlightened disciple of Osho! A gurubhai who had achieved what I had been longing for all these years! Could it be true? Kiran was the first Osho disciple I met who was said to be awakened.

I was intrigued. I wanted to hear the story of his spiritual quest and how it had ended. I wondered if he had practiced the same sadhanas I had performed under the guidance of our common teacher. Had Kiran become awakened while Osho was still alive? Had Osho perhaps given him an individual spiritual transmission and recognized Kiran’s enlightenment, unknown to anyone else? How does his realization compare with that of Osho? What could I learn from Kiran’s example and life? Such questions raced through my mind. Unfortunately, the social event that evening offered no room for us to converse. But the following evening, at Kiran’s invitation, I went to visit him at his residence in Mukundnagar,2 near the famous hilltop temple of Parvati [Lord Shiva’s consort]. I was excited and very curious to meet him. Four of his disciple friends and I sat in his garden—as friends. At least that’s how Kiran put it. With his permission, I videotaped the following conversation.

Madhukar: How long have you been with Osho?

Kiran: I was his disciple for more than fifteen years.

Madhukar: Up to a point, you and I both traveled the same path with Osho. As a brother seeker of yours, the most important questions I have are: What exactly happened to you? And what did you do or not do to bring about your enlightenment? I want to know if you practiced exactly the same methods and meditations that I did. And if so, why did realization happen to you but not to me and other friends of ours? If you practiced different or additional meditations and methods, what were they? What can I learn from you? Can you assist me and your brother and sister seekers and gurubhais on their spiritual path?

Kiran: For many years, I was traveling together with you all; we were fellow travelers on the path searching for something—searching for truth, searching for the reality of life. While we were traveling together with Osho, we did many things—meditation, therapies, groups, work in the ashram. We did whatever Osho suggested to us. We followed him totally. We surrendered to him totally.

Madhukar: We had the privilege of experiencing Osho’s guidance “live” every day, twice a day.

Kiran: Me too—I sat there right in front of him and listened to his lectures for many years. I was following his suggestions with the hope that one day I would reach my goal of enlightenment. My spiritual and worldly lives were absolutely secure and safe with him. I was absolutely satisfied with him. However, I fell asleep.

Madhukar: How could you fall asleep in the presence of your teacher?

Kiran: When I met Osho for the first time in 1967, I was on fire and my thirst for truth was very strong. But as I came closer to him over the years, I fell—slowly, slowly—asleep. For a long time, I didn’t notice it. Only when he departed for the States in 1981 did I wake up to this fact—and remembered the search. With great intensity, I took it up again.

Madhukar: What happened then?

Kiran: By and by, I began to understand that something was wrong with searching. I felt that it was wrong to be after something all the time. I woke up to the understanding that I was making a mistake by searching for something, somewhere outside. I came to know that I was making a mistake by going to somebody, by asking for the way, by sitting at somebody’s feet, by waiting for something to happen, or by desiring that realization may happen with the help of effort and spiritual practice.

Madhukar: What did you do then? Did you stop practicing?

Kiran: I started to simply watch myself, to watch my mind. I was watching all my inner processes. And—ever so slowly—I began to understand that the desire, the effort, the doings and practices, were the actual disturbances of my peace. The seeking was the obstruction to realization. Osho had told us many times that we had to drop all our doings and efforts. He said that we had never lost our enlightenment—that it was already our nature. Sitting right in front of him, I had heard him say that so many times. But I could not understand him because I was sleeping and dreaming. I believe that’s what happened to all of us—we fell asleep and therefore didn’t hear him.

Madhukar: How did dropping all efforts and practices affect your life?

Kiran: I just became an ordinary man. And slowly, very slowly, I began to awaken. I worked in my business and I looked after my family. I did not desire anymore to achieve something spiritually. I was not after anything any longer. I said, “It’s there, it’s there. Let it happen, let it happen. I am not bothered.” The thirst was still there—inside me. That longing remained. But I was not doing anything about it. That’s why I stayed away from Osho’s physical presence for the last ten years of his life, three of which he lived here in Pune right around the corner.

Madhukar: What happened for you when Osho returned to Pune?

Kiran: I didn’t feel a pull to go to the ashram. There was no energy inside me that made me go and see Osho, because in my aloneness everything had started settling within me. Then one day it dawned on me that the search had ended. All my searching just dropped away by itself. I started accepting Existence. I found I could accept myself as I was. I did not desire any change. I was not even asking to become something.

I found myself saying to myself, “It’s okay. It’s fine.

I don’t want to become somebody. I don’t want to get anywhere.” I was not asking for enlightenment anymore. I was just relaxing with myself. I was happy, peaceful, and relaxed with how and what I was in the present moment. All questions had dropped. All questioning and searching were simply finished.

Madhukar: Let me ask you, “Are you enlightened?”

Kiran: For many years, I just sat quietly alone at home on this chair here. I was enjoying nature and myself in silence and aloneness. I did not bother whether this was enlightenment or not. I could feel the silence descending on me. I was feeling close to Existence and to everything and to everybody. Slowly, slowly I was dissolving. In my silence, I was becoming one with everything. Nothing could disturb the peace inside me. From January 1993 onward, people started coming to see me. This was a surprise for me, too.

Madhukar: So we practiced the same sadhana—except perhaps the most important one: Did I understand you correctly that the only additional spiritual method you applied was basically not doing anything? Your blooming and awakening happened only after all doing was left behind and “just being” remained. Is that correct?

Kiran: That is correct.

Madhukar: Was there anything that triggered your blooming? Was there any kind of cause and effect relationship? Usually we believe that practice leads to the goal. Please, tell me as much as possible about the blooming process and its workings. By describing your process, you may help me to understand my own. Furthermore, through your description, I may come to know where I am in my search.

Kiran: There is no cause-and-effect relationship in the awakening process. That is my basic understanding of the whole spiritual journey. Awakening is not an event that is going to happen because you are doing something with your mind—be that meditation or whatever. Awakening is uncaused. It cannot be achieved through effort, because you have never lost it.

Madhukar: Were all of our practices and our efforts in vain then? What was missing in our search for enlightenment with Osho?

Kiran: We forgot the main point: We have to seek the seeker. We always seek somewhere outside. We are always after some goal: We seek enlightenment. We seek buddhahood. We seek so many things. Because we are so busy with seeking, we have forgotten to ask who it is that is seeking. Who is it that wants to become enlightened? Who wants this enlightenment? Who wants to become a buddha? When we forget to ask this question, we go on trying in all directions. We go on making all the effort to seek outside of us.

Who is the seeker? We must go on asking, “Who am I?” And who is asking this question? You are asking this question! You are asking these questions because you want to know who you are. But it is a contradiction. How can you find yourself somewhere when you are not lost anywhere? All efforts and all doing are taking you away from yourself. Therefore, anybody who has awakened could come to “know” only after dropping all doing and all effort.

Madhukar: Please, explain further why, in your understanding, meditating is a mistake?

Kiran: We all were making this basic mistake of undertaking goal-oriented actions. Intentional and purposeful actions are initiated and done by the mind. The mind understands only the language of doing.

I can tell you, “Sit silently, do nothing, the spring comes and the grass grows by itself.” Osho said this so many times. We heard him say it again and again. But we don’t understand what “sitting silently, doing nothing” means. We keep asking, “How to do nothing?” We always want to know what to do, how to do it, and how to reach it—even when the “it” is “do nothing.” All these questions come from the mind.

Madhukar: And what we are—or rather, who we are—is beyond the mind.

Kiran: That’s right. In our quest, we are searching for a space which is beyond the mind. It is a space that the mind cannot reach. That space can only be reached when the mind has dropped. Actually, that space remains when the mind is dissolved. The mind is a wrong instrument here; it is of absolutely no use. How could you reach that space by using the instrument of the mind? The mind is actually a hindrance to reaching that space.

The practice of meditations, the undergoing of therapies and groups, and all such nonsense are done by the mind. We all were committing the same mistake. We were even doing meditations sitting right in front of Osho. These practices are actually the obstructions to awakening.

Madhukar: Are you saying, “Don’t meditate!”?

Kiran: Yes. I say, “Drop all your efforts! Drop all your doings! Just stop and see! Watch! Simply look at what is happening. Just drop all desire to become.” And when you drop all your doing, the doer starts to dissolve immediately. The doer is the mind. The more the doer dissolves, the more Existence expresses its own doing. And, in one fine moment, you’ll find yourself to be free. “Oh God! Is it so? Is this it? This is it!” you will say to yourself. And you just laugh. You just laugh at everything. It’s so simple, so easy. But we made it so complicated!

Madhukar: Your teaching seems to hold that Osho gave us a wrong teaching. He requested us to meditate and practice.

Kiran: As I said, if I tell you to do nothing, the mind will not understand it. What you really are is beyond the understanding of the mind. As long as you are using your mind, the master must give you something to do. He gives you something to do until you become frustrated and exhausted by all your doings. But at some point, you will be finished with all doing. At that time, you will know and feel that you have done everything possible, and that in spite of all your efforts, nothing has happened. Then you come to the point of total frustration. This will lead to total surrender. At that point, you say, “Oh, I can’t do anything anymore. I am finished.” This surrender will take you to total acceptance. You will start to accept Existence and yourself. And acceptance will cut all the roots of the mind that was nourishing all doing. Without nourishment, the ego will dissolve.

By witnessing what is happening around you and by not doing anything, this state of acceptance will start to come—slowly, slowly. Then you see that everything is just happening. When you come to that point of being the witness, you are “there.” You are at the end of your journey.

Madhukar: Okay, you seem to be saying, “Nothing can be done, no teacher can help, no technique or method is useful, and no meditation practice can cause enlightenment to happen.” On the other hand, I see seekers coming to you for advice and guidance. And I even notice people sitting and meditating in your meditation room. Did you teach a meditation technique to those people?

Kiran: No. I don’t give any techniques. I stick to what I am saying: “Nothing can help!” Sitting with me is not of any help as long as you’re not awakened and as long as you have an urge to do something.

I don’t claim to be a master. I am just sitting here as a friend helping you. I am not helping you in the sense that I teach you something or because I know something you don’t know. It is as if you were just closing your eyes and crying, “I can’t see the light.”

I say, “Just open your eyes and you will see that the light is here.” This is how I can help. I am telling you, “Just open your eyes!”

Madhukar: This sounds so simple!

Kiran: It is. But for many of you, even “open your eyes” may seem to imply some doing. How can I convey to you that “open your eyes” is not a doing? I have to use the words. Awakening is not even the effort to open your eyes. It is just a waking up. It is like when you wake up from sleep. I see you all asleep, dreaming, and crying. I am just shaking you and waking you up. I say, “Please, wake up! Don’t cry! No dreams!” This is what I am doing here.

Madhukar: So why, then, do those people meditate in your cottage over there?

Kiran: I allow the people to sit in the meditation room because for many, many years they have been in the habit of meditating. As long as they still want to enjoy their dreams, they can sit in meditation. I want to keep them with me. I let them sit in the hall so that they don’t escape. [laughter] But I am waiting for the opportunity to hit them and shake them again and again and shout at them, “Please, wake up!” This is what I am doing. [laughter] I am not proposing any method or any doing whatsoever. So if they enjoy sitting there, fine. I know I don’t sit there.

Madhukar: But you sit here as a teacher.

Kiran: When they come out of the hall, I hit them again. I ask them, “What are you doing there?”

Madhukar: What are they doing there?

Kiran: I am providing a space for them to sleep. When they come close to me, I shake them again. I try to wake them up in the hope that they will awaken at some point.

Madhukar: Can you do it just now? Please hit me! Please, wake me up once and for all!

Kiran: I am doing it. We are doing it now. That’s what we are doing in this conversation.

Madhukar: I know.

Kiran: But you are enjoying the dream. What can I do?

Madhukar: What would you do to me if I came out of the meditation room at this moment and sat down opposite you?

Kiran: I keep telling you this is a dream. You are enjoying it. I am sharing my awakening with you, although I know it is of no use to you. It has no meaning at all. If I try to wake you up all the time, I become your enemy. I want to remain your friend. That’s why I can’t keep on hitting and shaking. Once in while I have to be friendly to you.

Madhukar: Is that why you share dinner after these “friendly meetings” in your house? [laughter]

Kiran: Yes. Sometimes it is difficult for you because I must beat you hard. I know you want to run away from here. But there is no other way.

Madhukar: You claim not to have a teaching. On the other hand, you are suggesting three points to the seeker: One, accept Existence as it is; two, accept yourself as you are; and three, be totally aware of everything you do. For me, these suggestions imply that something actually can be done for enlightenment to happen. To whom are you talking? Who is the listener?

Kiran: This question is asked by the mind. It’s a logical question. You know who I’m talking to and who is listening and who is ready for this acceptance. You know it very well. What I really want to say I cannot convey with words. But when I speak to you, I have to use words. That’s why I give the three suggestions to enable people to stop their efforts: Surrender to Existence with total trust; accept yourself as you are, with love; do everything with total awareness.

You think that I am giving you a method or a technique when I share my suggestions. If you simply live my suggestions in this very moment, you will find that you are instantly being brought back to your own self. Those suggestions are calling you back to your own home.

A mother is calling her children from the window of the house: “Come children, the meal is ready.” The mother wants the children to come home. To make them come home, she tempts them with foods or chocolates. I am doing the same thing with you. I want you to come back to your own home. My suggestions are temptations with which I try to coax you home.

Madhukar: Why is surrendering to Existence so important?

Kiran: When you surrender to Existence, all your efforts drop automatically. For a long time, you have tried to achieve something through the ego. You wanted to mark your place in this world. When you surrender, you come to realize that you are nothing in relation to Existence. You are just a tiny dot. What can you claim as yours in this vast Existence? In it, everything is just happening. You think you can go your own way just because you want to. That’s ridiculous!

Madhukar: Well, the human being has reached the moon.

Kiran: So what! It has reached the top of Everest. So what! It has reached the bottom of the ocean. So what! Great achievements! What you are calling great achievements by the human being have no value at all in the spiritual realm. They are like the climb of an ant from the ground to the top of the microphone. The ant’s climb means nothing. The achievements of the human being mean nothing as well. But for the ego they mean a lot. Remember, you are nobody in this vast existence. The whole Existence has been working for billions of years. What impact are you going to have on it during your short life of sixty, eighty, or a hundred years? Basically no impact!

You must have trust in Existence, which has given you life on this Earth. Let God decide what is going to happen to you. Why bother? Listen to Existence, which speaks as your own inner voice, and follow it. Trust that He knows what is best for you. Let Existence decide your destination. Don’t you decide it.

Madhukar: What does your second suggestion, “Accept yourself as you are,” accomplish?

Kiran: Your surrender to Existence in the outer world cuts short the outer journey of worldly achievements. Accepting yourself as you are cuts short the inner journey. You give up all demands for inner growth and inner achievements. You step inwards. When you are no longer focused on an inner journey and spiritual growth, you start to love yourself. Hate is rooted in the nonacceptance of yourself and in the desire to become somebody else. Nonacceptance and hate go together. But acceptance brings love.

Madhukar: Total acceptance is difficult for me because I want to be a better person, inside and outside.

Kiran: Yes. You want to improve yourself, not only on the outside but also on the inside. You want to get rid of all the diseases of the mind like anger, hatred, and jealousy. You keep doing therapy groups and all such nonsense. You keep cleaning the mind. All these activities are part of the inner search. I say, “Why waste time? Just accept yourself as you are. Cut off your inner and outer search altogether!”

Madhukar: If a seeker can follow your suggestion, what is supposed to occur next?

Kiran: Then a miracle happens, a miracle nobody can believe. Surrender and acceptance bring you to the point of witnessing. And no doing, effort, practice, or method was necessary!

By accepting yourself, you are cutting the roots of the mind. The mind survives only as long as you desire to become something. When there is no becoming, there is no goal. Without a goal, where is the mind? It becomes just a beautiful instrument. The moment you accept the mind —which was fighting all the time to become something—the problem is finished. Then you are not fighting with the mind. You aren’t trying to win over the mind. You are not cleaning the mind.

This mind is the mud. When you leave it alone, the mud starts settling by itself. Because there is acceptance, the mud settles. Through acceptance, without any effort or any doing, the mind starts to become quiet. This is a miracle. Your mind will not accept it. It will ask, “How is this peace, silence, and joy even possible without doing and effort?”

Although you were searching everywhere, you couldn’t find peace and joy. That’s why I call it a miracle. The moment you accept yourself and you listen to the inner voice of Existence, you become a witness. The doer, which is the mind, dissolves. The ego dissolves.

Madhukar: For that to occur, witnessing needs to be cultivated.

Kiran: Correct. When you keep simply witnessing, you will slowly, slowly begin to realize that you are “just looking” and everything is “just happening.” The sudden recognition and awakening arise that you are not part of the whole worldly rut of problems and sorrow and misery, but instead are part of the whole beautiful Existence.

Madhukar: You mentioned the inner voice. Where does it come into the picture?

Kiran: While you are witnessing and watching everything that happens, you can hear your inner voice and guidance. Now you are just following that inner voice and your inner force, wherever they take you. You got rid of all your bondage, bindings, and clingings by surrendering to Existence. You let things happen and you float in the current of events. You don’t swim. You float in the acceptance of What Is and what you are. When you just relax in the water, the miracle occurs—the current takes you wherever it wants, and you accept it. The current has no destination.

This current is the force that comes through from inside. You keep floating according to the inner voice and the inner current. They are tuned with the life force that is moving them at all times. Floating in this manner is so beautiful. You just keep floating without any effort or any fight. You just keep watching and witnessing. Now you are enjoying the whole Existence.

Madhukar: At this stage, witnessing has become constant and natural. Is that correct?

Kiran: That’s right. When you don’t let yourself be pulled down by any burden and you stay relaxed, you will notice a lot of joy springing up. Silence begins to arise because there is no hindrance of any kind. And Existence starts expressing itself through your personality. Without any effort, you become quiet. You become joyful. Love starts flowing from you. Energy starts flowing from you. Fragrance starts flowing from you—the fragrance of Existence. Joy, love, beauty, and fragrance are the qualities of Existence.

When you are still, you are in oneness with Existence, which is your own space. Then you have come back to your own home. You have come back to your natural state and you remain there for good. To be in oneness, joy, and love becomes your way of life. You simply live moment to moment. You celebrate each moment with joy. For you, there is no fight anywhere. You enjoy whatever comes your way. This is what I want to share.

Madhukar: I have heard you say that realization is a gradual blooming process. On another occasion, you said that waking up from a dream is always sudden. How do you reconcile these seemingly opposing statements?

Kiran: It is very difficult to express this “happening” with words. Usually one uses a metaphor to explain it. Often the metaphors of flowering and of waking up from a dream have been used. These metaphors are not to be taken literally. Flowering indicates a slow process or a growing. Waking up stands for a sudden event like lightning. These metaphors are indicating what cannot be said with words. They are only hints. Flowering and waking up are experiences known and understood by everybody. That’s why they are used as indications.

Madhukar: Are you saying that awakening occurs outside of time and space and therefore doesn’t happen either due to a gradual process or a sudden event?

Kiran: Realization has nothing to do with an event—whether it is a slow process or a sudden awakening. Realization means just coming back to your natural state. What is this natural state? When a flower blooms, it is in its natural state. In this natural state, its fragrance starts flowing. The flowering of a flower is not a slow process during which—at some point of time—you observe that it flowers and starts giving its fragrance. It is the state of becoming a flower. The flower experiences being in the state of flowering which is its highest peak.

That flowering is the flowering of the human consciousness, its highest peak, at which you start to give out fragrance. Actually, the fragrance of Existence starts flowing through you. The fragrance is not of the flower. The joy which flows from Existence is expressed as fragrance. This fragrance and this joy start bubbling up in a totally silent space. Silence— the quality of Existence—starts to come up in you.

Madhukar: If you will, Kiran, please explain the meaning of the second metaphor: “Realization is like waking up from a dream.”

Kiran: The whole mind game is similar to a dream. When you wake up, you have total understanding and knowing and clarity. The first understanding is that you were living in the mind, which took you for a ride. When you wake up, you realize that the dream has no reality anymore. At the moment you wake up, the pleasures that you enjoyed in the dream are gone. Thus the enlightened state is similar to the feeling of having woken up.

As I said, these are all metaphors. Don’t take them in the literal sense. What really happens is not a slow growth or a sudden enlightenment. Coming back to your natural state means just accepting yourself. When you start to accept yourself—slowly, slowly—you are cutting off the roots of the mind. And at some point, you come to the total understanding. You come back to your own natural rhythm. You become one with the whole Existence. Trees are in that natural rhythm. The birds are in that natural rhythm. You too, you come back to that natural rhythm. Free from all effort of becoming, you are just relaxed. This is what freedom is. Freedom means arriving back at your own home.

Madhukar: One can be told, “Be!” or “Be aware!” or “Accept yourself!” or “Accept existence!” But is it something we can “do”? I believe that acceptance and awareness are actual and existential expressions of an egoless state.

Kiran: These suggestions are the expressions of the enlightened state reflected in words. When you awake from your sleep and from your dreams, you say, “I am awake.” You describe the state of waking with those words. Similarly, you use the words “acceptance” and “awareness” to describe the state of spiritual awakening. To really know the inner awakening, one needs to be awakened. The expressions “acceptance” and “being aware” are merely words describing that inner state.

Madhukar: When I talk to my friends about you, they often ask me, “Who is this Kiran?” Let me ask you, “Kiran, who are you?”

Kiran: You just tell them that I am an ordinary man. I live like everybody else. There is only one difference between you and me: You are still in the dream and I am awake. I understand that the whole manifestation and life is nothing but a dream, a play. I am playing the whole game. While doing anything, I keep myself detached. I am simply witnessing what is happening. I am simply accepting what is happening. I am simply enjoying life. I have no complaints of any kind. I have no goals or aims to reach or to fulfill. I returned from spirituality to an ordinary life. I am back in my own natural space.

Madhukar: Outwardly, you appear to be ordinary. What is the difference between you and me?

Kiran: Outwardly, I am just ordinary like you. Inside, I have no frustration, no misery. I have total clarity. The more I understood, the more ordinary I became, because I came to understand that I know nothing at all. I am just stunned by this mystery. I am not exerting any effort in order to know or understand something. Who would understand it? From where do I have the knowing and oneness that do not demand any knowledge or understanding? I have it because of the “tuning” that is part of Existence itself.

Madhukar: So what can you claim?

Kiran: I don’t claim anything. What is there to claim? When you awaken in the morning from your dream do you claim, “I am awake! I am great!” Is it an achievement? It is a feeling of freedom. You feel freed from all those dreams of suffering. You feel you are coming back home. You are relaxing, enjoying, and celebrating life.

Madhukar: If you have no teaching, and you are not a teacher, what function do you have?

Kiran: I am not teaching anything. Teaching implies some knowledge. Teaching is a demand from the mind for someone to understand something. When you are asking me questions, I am not giving you answers which add to your knowledge. I am just sharing what I have.

Madhukar: What is the difference between sharing and teaching?

Kiran: Sharing is sharing your joy, silence, and understanding. Because I am awake, I share my awakening. Because you cry in your dream, I shake you and try to wake you up.

You may ask someone in your dream, “Please give me some method or some technique which will awaken me!” If that someone answers you and gives you some techniques, he and his methods are also part of the same dream. In fact, you only can be shaken and woken up by someone who is outside the dream. What technique can be applied in a dream? There is no communication possible except to hit you hard and wake you up—shaking you so much so that you wake up. We can share no other thing. When you wake up, you just laugh and I laugh. There is nothing to understand, nothing to know, and nowhere to go. All is a dream. Your practices of methods and techniques for awakening are part of the dream. And the one who is suggesting methods for waking up is also taking part in the dream. You are dreaming about him and he is dreaming about you. No communication is possible.

Madhukar: How do you handle people who make you their guru and become attached to you?

Kiran: At all times, I am very alert that I don’t become part of somebody else’s dream. When I realize that somebody is clinging to me, and he is making me part of his dream, I create a device which forces him to return to his normal waking. If he doesn’t wake up, the device forces him to leave me. On the other hand, if I let him dream and cling to me, I create a situation which compels the seeker to get hooked to me. Then I am not helping him, I am harming him. This may sound contradictory. But it is the bitter truth. That is why a real teacher does not allow the student to hang on to him. Rather, he hits him, shakes him, and wakes him up. Therefore, one always hates the person who wakes one up from one’s dream—more so when the dream was very beautiful.

Madhukar: Are you a guru?

Kiran: I share what I have understood. I don’t claim “I am enlightened” or “I am awakened” or “I am a free bird.” I have come to my home, to my own natural space. It is so beautiful there. I invite you all to partake. I want to share it. I don’t want it all for myself. I don’t want it for my own exclusive enjoyment. It belongs to you too.

I am not afraid of any comments. If somebody misunderstands me, it is his problem. In spite of misunderstandings, I go on hammering and pounding until somebody wakes up and laughs with me. If it was possible for me to wake up, why should it not be possible for you too? Existence is speaking through me.

Madhukar: You say that enlightenment has no cause and that no effort can help it to occur. Why then do you give satsangs and take us out on picnics with you?

Kiran: I am just making all the efforts to wake you up to the understanding that there is no effort to be made and nothing to reach. To tell you this, I need some excuse. Therefore, I create the excuse with the name “satsang.” Because you understand only your language, I have to speak in that language. That’s why I call our meetings satsang. I am not doing any bhajans in satsang. I am just calling you to come to me in the name of satsang. When you are here, I am talking to you. I am simply waking you up to the fact of my understanding, which is: There is nothing to do. You must only understand the whole game of the mind. I repeat myself endlessly every evening in our meetings which are called satsang. There is no sat—there is no sang!

Madhukar: I like your term, “friendly meeting.”

Kiran: Yes, this is just a friendly meeting in which a friend is speaking with another friend. I am just standing at the corner of the street, telling people that this road doesn’t lead anywhere. If I stood on the street silently, you wouldn’t listen to me or understand me. Therefore, I create a small shop, a guide shop to which you can come to ask for directions. When you visit my shop, I can tell you, “Please, don’t take the path of doing and effort. It doesn’t lead to enlightenment.” The purpose of the signboard “Guide” is to attract the people so that they can be told the truth.

Madhukar: You could put up another sign that reads, “No way!”

Kiran: Once the people come to my shop, I tell them, “There is no way!” [laughter] The signboard “Guide” gives the impression that there is somebody who is able to show the way. I am sitting in the shop playing the guide. The seekers are attracted to the guide. When they enter my shop, I show them that there is no way. Therefore, satsang is just an excuse. A picnic is also an excuse. In your language, to picnic means to be together in nature and share some food. I use the occasion to tell you that there is no way to reach enlightenment through effort. I say, “Just eat, relax, and don’t expect anything.” Is that difficult?

Wherever I am, I say the same thing: “Just go inside yourself! Look within and wake up!” I am using all these tricks to make you listen to this simple understanding.

What touched me most about Kiran was his friendly, innocent smile, as well as his humor. His almost fatherly love came right from his heart. Being in his presence was naturally uplifting. Joy and kindness beamed from his eyes. Kiran extends his deep affection and love not only to his wife and family but to everyone he meets. He referred to each spiritual seeker as “friend.” Besides sharing his caring attention during the Sunday afternoon picnics in the forests surrounding Pune, he often invited us for dinner in his home after satsang.

Kiran cared about everyone. He wanted to see everyone happy. He even visited seekers at their homes or in the hospital when they were ill. In short, he was as much a loving householder as he was a teacher. Once a year, he took his “friends” on a week-long retreat to Goa, a small state on the Indian west coast. Here he emphasized a type of spiritual vacation. He had all who joined him focus on getting deep rest, letting the psyche unwind and taking time to withdraw from life’s usual activities as well as one’s mental activities. He invited us to let go and sink into the vast simplicity of just being.

Kiran’s guru, Osho, had emphasized the practice of meditation, communal work and the power and transmission of the teacher’s direct physical presence. In contrast, Kiran taught that any effort toward enlightenment is actually detrimental to reaching that goal.

Between 1993 to 2000, I had frequent meetings with Kiran. We became dear friends. And very slowly I began to understand that I was making an error by searching for something somewhere outside of myself. I came to feel how important it was to connect with my own truth and became less consumed about finding the perfect teacher.

Kiran’s five-step teaching, “Become completely frustrated, surrender to Existence, accept yourself as you are, witness everything that arises, and what remains is your true home,” was profound. It helped me enormously. However, I wondered what Kiran suggested to all those who hadn’t yet reached what he called the “boiling point of frustration.” He seemed to have created that beautiful meditation cottage in his garden especially for the type of student who needed to keep meditating in order to reach maturity. At times he sent selected students to other teachers whose guidance in severe austerities and sadhanas facilitated the boiling point of frustration for them.

Without a sampradaya [lineage], Kiran—like his guru Osho—is a Vedanta mystic teaching his own singular path of surrender. Once surrendered to the ordinariness of life through the renunciation of all seeking, what else is to be done other than celebrating moment-to-moment experience, and attending friendly picnics and spiritual vacations with fellow nonseekers? However, Kiran’s joyful sadhana of celebration seems fitting only for those students who have already moved through their frustration, their “dark night of the soul.”

Under Kiran’s guidance I still did not yet experience a consistent disidentification with my ego. Consequently, I kept practicing the self-inquiry process that I had learned from Sri Ramana’s direct disciples. A knowing that was somehow beyond my mind compelled me to continue my odyssey.

-Berthold Madhukar Thompson

Excerpt from The Odyssey of Enlightenment, Chapter 9

See the post from chapter 5: Practice Until Stillness Becomes Permanent.

See the post from chapter 8: You have to Work for the Fulfillment of Your Destiny.

Here you can watch a video of Kiran speaking: Kiran-ji Talks About the Nature of the Self.

Valid to Travel by Air Only

I had been traveling through Europe and Africa for 3 months on the $600 I left the States with, when I arrived in Wadi Halfa, Sudan, at the southern end of Lake Nasser. I had taken a boat from the Aswan dam in Egypt down the lake to its southern end at the Sudanese border. 

After a few days in Khartoum, I took a train to Kassala, a jumping off point to enter Ethiopia. On the train I was joined by a couple of other travelers who I had met at the hostel in Khartoum. One of them had some smoke, either hash or grass, I don’t remember which, and we climbed on top of the train and enjoyed smoking while getting some relief from the heat in the carriage. It was a delightful experience riding on the roof of the train, with the wind blowing as we traveled down the tracks at a steady, but not fast, pace. 

When it was time to go back down into the carriage I stood up. The next thing I knew I was slammed down on to the top of the train and was stunned. I was lucky that I landed on the top and was not thrown off. My head, my face, my eye were throbbing. Unfortunately, probably somewhat due to the state I was in after smoking, when I stood up, I didn’t see that we were approaching some kind of cable hanging across the track. Seated we were out of danger, but once I stood, I was in its sights, and whamm! 

Later on, when I was in front of a mirror, I could see that the cable had hit me on the side of my head from just below my ear, above my neck (fortunately) and across my cheek just beside my eye leaving a heavy black line. I suppose it was not a cable but a power line, something that was covered in black rubber. I sat on the roof for a few minutes gathering myself before climbing down and into the train car. 

After settling in at Kassala, I went to the Ethiopian consulate in order to obtain a visa to enter the country. At the consulate I was told that although there was a land border crossing, I would only be able to travel to Ethiopia by air. This was a major bummer because it meant that I would need to return to Khartoum and arrange a flight to Asmara, Eritrea, Ethiopia (Eritrea was part of Ethiopia at that time) and my money was running low. I just couldn’t afford to spend the money on an air ticket. Regardless, I went ahead and got the visa anyway on which the officer wrote in ink, “valid to travel by air only.” 

Transportation was available from Kassala to the Ethiopian border for the locals going back and forth. On the spur of the moment, I decided to take the risk and ride to the border. I hoped that the border guards would not be able to read the English written on my visa. As an extra precaution, I crossed out the words that the officer had written. 

 The terrain to the border was rough and extremely dry. I don’t remember exactly what kind of transport it was that went to the border, taxi or pickup with seats in the back, but I do remember looking out at the landscape and hoping that I don’t get stuck out here not being able to cross the border. We arrived at the border and the officer looked at my visa, turned it one way and then the other and stamped me through. I spent the night at the town of Teseney just inside the Ethiopian border and made my way to Asmara the following day. Arriving in Asmara I was rewarded with a cold beer and a plate of pasta, thanks to the Italian Eritreans. 

Three years later after many more adventures on this same trip I arrived in Poona. 

-purushottama 

To read more about the continuing journey see From Lemurs to Lamas: Confessions of a Bodhisattva.

Unconditional Forgiveness

Nearing completion of my 72nd year on this planet, I find it ever more important for me to keep as clean a slate as possible. And yet, with so many years having passed, it would be impossible for me to find all those who I may have harmed in order to apologize and ask for forgiveness. I also would not require anyone who feels that they may have harmed me to need to ask for my forgiveness.

I have always been a fairly independent guy and do not like to be beholden to anyone. For this reason, I feel it would be terribly cruel to make a condition upon forgiveness to be only granted by the transgressed. And I certainly would not want anyone who I have harmed to have to wait for my apology in order to make themselves whole.

I am reminded of a line from the very first prayer I learned. It is from The Lord’s Prayer, and there are numerous translations, but the one I learned, said, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

The apostle Mathew explains further in Mathew 6:14-15:

“For if you forgive men their trespass, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”

Personally, I would exchange “your heavenly Father” for “existence”, for “the whole” but I feel there is much truth being conveyed here. Even if you eliminate any reference to “your heavenly father” or even “existence”, it seems clear that you will never be able to forgive yourself if you are not able to forgive others. They seem to be glued together, and inseparable.

Flight 93 National Memorial

Now here is the hard part, but it does seem to be the case. My wholeness, my at peaceness, is not dependent upon anyone else’s forgiveness, but it is wholly dependent on the unconditional forgiveness that I, myself, give. That means, it is entirely possible, for someone who feels they may have hurt me some time in the past to still be feeling the guilt of that, even if I have forgiven them completely. It also means, that it is possible, that someone who I hurt in the past is still feeling the pain of that hurtfulness even if I have forgiven myself in the act of forgiving others. And then it follows, that the only way for the one still feeling pain to be whole even though the transgressor has healed, is for them to unconditionally forgive those who trespassed.

If on the other hand as some suggest, that I can only be whole if there is a reckoning with those who have hurt me, then I am giving complete power over my own well being into the hands of those who have already shown a propensity to harm me. No, I chose not to hold myself captive, and so, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

-purushottama

A Way Out

Not long ago, I wrote a piece describing some of my childhood events; parents separating, sometimes harsh disciplinary tactics employed, the benefits of having multiple parents, early rebellion, etc. and then received a message on FB from a longtime friend. He wrote about how his parents had shielded him and his brother from the reality of African American life of the 1950’s and 1960’s and how he felt he had been left unprepared to face adversity. So I started considering the situation of our conditioning.

What arose is that all of us come through our lives with various flavors of conditioning; there does not seem to be any way to avoid it. Some of us have endured the conditioning of the post-World Wars, some of us the conditioning of the effects of the Great Depression. Some of us were conditioned by the effects of the Holocaust, some by fascism, some by communism. Some of us were conditioned by democrats, some by republicans, some of us by life in the suburbs in the 50’s, some by the upheaval of the 60’s. Some of us may have been conditioned by the Ku Klux Klan, and some by the Civil Rights movement. Some of us were conditioned by Baptists, some by Jews, some by Catholics, some by atheists, some by Hindus, and some by Buddhists. Some of us were conditioned by shielding, and some by exposure. Some of us have been neglected and exposed to some terrible circumstances, and some of us have been crippled by lack of exposure to the elements. Some of us have even been conditioned by those who were escaping all of the conditionings above and so were conditioned by communal life, by new age thinking, by borrowed Eastern thinking. In fact, it is probably true that we have all been conditioned by all of the above, more or less.

Some of us, through recognizing the degree of conditioning that we had been subjected to, might have even tried to formulate a different way of raising children to try and minimize the amount of conditioning that is passed on from one generation to the next. Regardless, in the end, there is no way to escape being conditioned, being impressed with ways of thinking, beliefs, ideas, philosophies. And we continue in our lives to gather new conditionings. We appropriate new ways of thinking, new philosophies of living, but still, these too are conditionings. They are all part of what makes up the mind, the “me.”

There seems to be no way out of this quagmire.

And yet, there have been those who have gone before, all of the mystics; the Buddhas, the Christs, the Zen masters, the Sufi masters, the Krishnamurtis, the Ramanas, the Oshos, who have proclaimed that there is a way out.

Having heard this news, it becomes incumbent upon me to look for myself, to explore, to experiment and see if what they have said is true or not.

So I embark on an experiment to discover for myself.

And what I discover is that there is a way to come out of this conditioning. The way is not out, but in.

By in, I mean meditation.

For me, meditation is not about bypassing anything I wish to avoid, and it is not about imagining some fantasy world. No, for me, mediation is just giving a little time and space to have a look at what presents itself, what arises in my inner landscape and to stay with it totally, not by thinking about it, analyzing it, judging it, but by being with unconditionally, by staying with, without saying no and rejecting that which is uncomfortable, and by not clinging to that which feels good, just watching without prejudice. And I have found that in this watching without prejudice, slowly, slowly, the procession of the stream of consciousness begins to lessen, begins to lose steam, and I begin to discover that which is bigger than this small “me” conditioned by all that has come before.

This is the transformative power of meditation. This is how conditionings, impressions, memories, and desires are transformed from dense matter into spaciousness.

And it is clear to me it is not enough to have an intellectual understanding that there is a way out, that it cannot remain just another belief, just another conditioning, it has to be discovered in my very own experiencing. This experiencing is meditation.

Perhaps someone has found another way “out,” other than “in,” but it would be negligent of me not to share this personal discovery.

By the way, I do understand that there those, in fact most, who have no interest in discovering a way out of conditioning, a way out of mind, a way out of the “me,” because our entire identity is wrapped around it tightly. In many ways, the end of conditioning is the end of me. For those who have no interest in coming out of mind, then I truly hope that you are able to find love, peace and happiness in some other way. But for the rest of us, let’s get cracking until the goose is indeed out!

-purushottama

Arigato Nippon

Sumati and I arrived in Tokyo in December having come from India by way of Thailand and the Philippines. The cold was a shock to the system. Not long after arriving, I came down with pneumonia. We were staying in my friend Peter’s apartment, and as is customary in Japan, there was no heat. However, we did use to snuggle up to the kotatsu (table heater) during dinner. After dinner it was time for a jump into the very hot Japanese bath, out into the unheated room, and under the futon covers on the floor. All of these things, combined with a probably depleted immune system from traveling and living in India for several months, created an opportunity for the pneumonia to set in.

Peter was working and so had a state medical card which provided very inexpensive medical care. Because we were both blonde haired gaijins we thought that I could just use his picture ID. It worked. The only problem was I never found a doctor who could speak English, and I did not speak Japanese. The breathing problems became so severe I had to sleep partially sitting up.

I knew that Peter’s girlfriend was not happy we were staying. We felt it would be best if we found somewhere else. We met a Japanese sannyasin named Adinatha who offered us a room in his apartment. Very soon after leaving Peter’s, I started getting better, but what finally healed me was acupuncture. Adinatha knew a sannyasin acupuncturist and suggested that I go see him. I really don’t like needles, which probably saved me from more serious drugs. So, the thought of someone sticking numerous needles into my skin did not appeal. But I saw him, had a session, and still I could not say that I enjoyed it, but rather endured it. Very soon after having the session I was healed.

One day Peter called us to tell us he knew of a Japanese house that was being offered by a Japanese reporter who for some reason preferred to rent to foreigners. It was being offered for a very reasonable rent, fully furnished with everything we would need. It was also located closer in to the city on the Marunouchi subway line which was very convenient.

Sumati had started working for the same company where Peter worked, proof reading advertisements in English and instruction manuals for Japanese companies, such as Nikon, Panasonic, etc. Teaching jobs were coming my way and I was getting a full schedule. I had one job I traveled three hours each way for and taught for two. But the pay made it worthwhile.

The combination of a long-haired sannyasin dressed in orange and wearing a mala proved the perfect antidote for the serious Japanese mentality. These were very serious students, and I found the most important aid to their learning English, was creating an atmosphere in which they felt comfortable being a little crazy. They knew that it was okay to make mistakes and have fun in my classes.

When I was in Nepal, before going to Poona, I had met a Japanese couple at our guest house. Later on, I would run into them again in the Ashram. They both took sannyas around the same time as I did. Her name became Geeta and his name was Asanga. I remember seeing Asanga during some of the meditations, and he seemed to be one of the most focused people I had ever met. In my Zazen group on my second stay in Poona, Asanga was the one who performed the tea ceremony.

The rumor had been going around the sannyas community in Japan that Asanga had become enlightened while in Poona. He was returning to Japan soon. One night, Satchidanda, another sannyasin living and working in Tokyo, invited a few people over including Asanga. That night, I recognized something had changed with Asanga. It was as if his being occupied the entire room, whereas previously he was the most contained person I had ever met. In that small apartment room, he was a wide presence.

Asanga was Chinese Japanese from Chinese parents and lived in Yokohama. Sumati and I visited him one day and had lunch at a Chinese restaurant. I visited Asanga once more before leaving Japan. This time it was with my travel buddy Narayanadeva, who by this time had come to Japan. He was taking over our house and some of my teaching jobs as Sumati and I returned to Poona. By this time Asanga had opened some kind of a night spot in Yokohama called, if I remember correctly, Samadhi. The three of us just spent time sitting together in silence.

-purushottama

This is from the collection of stories, essays, poems and insights that is compiled to form the book From Lemurs to Lamas: Confessions of a Bodhisattva. Order the book Here.

 

My Beloved Bodhisattvas

On June 21, 1979, nearly nine months after arriving from Japan and beginning work full time in the Ashram, Vidya stopped Sumati and me as we entered Buddha Hall. She told us to come see her after discourse.Osho began discourse on this day with the words:

My beloved bodhisattvas . . . Yes, that’s how I look at you. That’s how you have to start looking at yourselves. Bodhisattva means a buddha in essence, a buddha in seed, a buddha asleep, but with all the potential to be awake. In that sense everybody is a bodhisattva, but not everybody can be called a bodhisattva – only those who have started groping for the light, who have started longing for the dawn, in whose hearts the seed is no longer a seed but has become a sprout, has started growing.

You are bodhisattvas because of your longing to be conscious, to be alert, because of your quest for the truth. The truth is not far away, but there are very few fortunate ones in the world who long for it. It is not far away but it is arduous, it is hard to achieve. It is hard to achieve, not because of its nature, but because of our investment in lies.

We have invested for lives and lives in lies. Our investment is so much that the very idea of truth makes us frightened. We want to avoid it; we want to escape from the truth. Lies are beautiful escapes – convenient, comfortable dreams.

But dreams are dreams. They can enchant you for the moment; they can enslave you for the moment, but only for the moment. And each dream is followed by tremendous frustration, and each desire is followed by deep failure.

But we go on rushing into new lies; if old lies are known, we immediately invent new lies. Remember that only lies can be invented; truth cannot be invented. Truth already is! Truth has to be discovered, not invented. Lies cannot be discovered, they have to be invented.

Mind feels very good with lies because the mind becomes the inventor, the doer. And as the mind becomes the doer, ego is created. With truth, you have nothing to do . . . and because you have nothing to do, mind ceases, and with the mind the ego disappears, evaporates. That’s the risk, the ultimate risk.

You have moved towards that risk. You have taken a few steps – staggering, stumbling, groping, haltingly, with many doubts, but still you have taken a few steps; hence I call you bodhisattvas.

-Osho
From The Dhammapada, Vol.1, Discourse #1

After discourse, Vidya told us that we were moving into the Ashram. Up to that point, we had been responsible for our own housing. We had food passes which meant that the Ashram provided our meals but we took care of our rent (mind you in India rent is not much). But we were very happy to be moving into the Ashram. We were moving into a new bamboo structure that had been built at number 70 Koregaon Park. This was a very large house two blocks from the Ashram proper, which the Ashram had acquired and in which different facilities as well as living quarters were being housed.

By this time, I was working at the bakery and given the responsibility of being one of the drivers for the bakery. This job entailed driving a large Mercedes-Benz van with left-side steering through the streets of Poona, in a right-side steering world. I also delivered fresh hot croissants stacked on metal trays in an Ashram rickshaw. The croissants had to arrive before discourse ended because it would be very difficult to deliver them with everyone filing out into Vrindavan. Of course, you never knew when Osho would complete his discourse. It could be one hour or two hours in length, though generally they were around ninety minutes long.

Arriving during discourse would require turning off the engine, pushing the rickshaw through the front gate and down the drive to the kitchen, taking great care not to upset the stacked metal trays, all the while being as quiet as possible. With all the possibilities for mishaps, it is amazing to think the worst that happened was occasionally misjudging the ending, and having to navigate through swarms of blissed out sannyasins.

-purushottama

This is from the collection of stories, essays, poems and insights that is compiled to form the book From Lemurs to Lamas: Confessions of a Bodhisattva. Order the book Here.

The Tale of a Ring-Tail

When I returned to Madagascar from Mauritius, I encouraged Andre, a Malagasy guy who had run the reception at the Cultural Center, to leave Madagascar. He was a fine musician and I encouraged him to go to La Reunion and join up with the jazz family. I knew it was very difficult for someone to leave their native land, especially the first time, so I encouraged him as much as I could. In fact, eventually, he did make the jump. The only thing I ever heard about him was from Ginger, the guy I went to Fort Dauphin and traveled on to La Reunion with. I received a letter from him telling me that he had run into Andre in Bombay. I don’t know anything more about what happened to him. I wish you the best Andre.

I had made plans to teach one more term at the Center, after returning to Madagascar and making a trip to Tulear in the southwest of the country. This was a solo trip for me, and on this trip, I met one of my best friends in Madagascar. I traveled to the south by my usual means of transport, hitchhiking. While waiting for the next ride out of a small village, I was offered a ring-tailed lemur for sale. He was a young male that they had on a rope leash. I paid not more than a couple of dollars, if that. Still, that didn’t make me any less annoyed when shortly after buying him he got away and went up a tree. Eventually, he was retrieved. I was sure that his fate with me would be better than it would be staying around that village. When the next truck came through town, Maki, which is what I decided to call him because that’s the Malagasy word for this kind of lemur, and I headed out. I kept hold of his leash and he kept hold of my hair, perched on my shoulders, his back feet on my shoulders and his chin resting on the top of my head with his little primate hands holding my hair.

This could be Maki.

Ring-tailed lemurs also like to sit in their own yoga posture. They sit up straight with their arms outstretched and palms facing outwards, as if they are warming their hands. I saw Maki do this in front of a fire made to keep us warm while traveling with the trucks and I also saw him do it many times as the sun was setting.

Lemurs are unique to Madagascar. This is because they developed before Madagascar split off from the African coast and also before predators evolved. This left them in relative safety on the island of Madagascar, whereas on the African continent they were wiped out. I always describe them as part dog, part cat, and of course, part monkey. The monkey part is obvious: the tail, climbing in trees, jumping from tree to tree. Their fur is soft like a cat, not at all coarse and they make a sound that is quite similar to purring. As to the dog similarity: they make a kind of dog bark and their heads are more dog like. Ring-tails have an elongated snout much more like a dog.

We made friends right away. Well not right away, first we had a crisis. We were walking down a dusty trail and he kept holding onto my hair. This was a habit that I was trying to break. In a moment of unawareness and annoyance, I pulled on the leash and almost threw Maki to the ground. The entire world came to a halt. I was shocked and he was shocked. He remained still and I prayed that he was okay. After what seemed like a few minutes, but was probably no more than a few seconds, he revived. After that I never lost my temper with Maki again and he never pulled on my hair.

When it was time to return to Tana, I took a train from Fianarantsoa. I had to hide Maki under my clothes because one was not allowed to travel with a lemur. He was very accommodating. He just snuggled up and no one knew about the secret passenger. At our house in Tana, he was not kept on a leash and was free to roam the neighborhood, much to the dismay of some of our neighbors. He did like to go in through their windows and help himself to fruit. But mostly the neighbors were quite fond of Maki. In general, the Malagasy respect their forest friends. The endangering of the lemur population is not due to a direct threat from humans but the indirect threat of loss of habitat. At night Maki slept with me, lying above my head on the pillow.

One day Maki went missing. Voahangy and I walked the neighborhood with her asking everyone if they had seen him. We could follow his path with one person pointing us on to the next that had seen him. We eventually found him. Some Malagasy had become too fond of him and had tied him up. He was happy to be liberated. When I left Madagascar, I entrusted Maki to the lady who shopped and cooked lunch for us. She had grown very fond of him. Unfortunately, Maki used to like to tease dogs. They would charge him and he would jump straight up in the air about four feet high and they would run through where he had just been. When he landed the dog would turn around for another go. Apparently, he did this once too often and a dog got hold of him by the back and gave him a pretty good bite. He died from the wound. Rest in peace, Maki.

-purushottama

This is from the collection of stories, essays, poems and insights that is compiled to form the book From Lemurs to Lamas: Confessions of a Bodhisattva. Order the book Here.

A Divine Abode

In my leaving darshan I told Osho I wanted to open a meditation center in Kansas City and he gave the name Devalayam. Devalayam means ‘divine abode.’ I bought a couple of series of discourses on cassette tape and several books and the center was on its way.

It was difficult at first returning to Kansas City. I was seeing friends I had passed through so much with and yet I felt myself to be in a very different place than when I had left three years earlier. Of course, there was a bit of the missionary in me who wanted to share as much as possible. I didn’t find much interest in hearing about Osho, even from my good friend that had first heard about Meher Baba with me many years ago on the Country Club Plaza.

I remember very clearly saying to myself, “Okay Bhagwan, I give up, you take over.” Very soon after giving up, I was sitting at some kind of spiritual gathering outdoors on grass in my orange clothes and mala when this guy sat down beside me. He was interested in whatever it was I was into. He was in a therapy group and had heard of Osho.

I found a house, or I should say a house found me, for a center. The house had some orange in it. I don’t remember if it was in the wallpaper, paint, or carpet, but it spoke loud and clear this was the house for Devalayam. Soon afterwards this fellow I had met moved in. We were holding meditations both at a local church gym and at the house. A small group was forming. In the daytime I drove school buses with a Yogi Bhajan Sikh.

One night around midnight the doorbell rang. Mark had forgotten his key. I opened the door stark naked. He had brought an older woman home who was interested in listening to some discourses of Osho. They came in and I set her up with a few discourses and she stayed through the night until sunrise, listening. Her name was Joyce Schlossman. She was the ex-wife of a very successful car dealer in Kansas City, Schlossman Ford. Joyce was in the same group as Mark and wanted to be a therapist herself.

Soon after I got the house, I was on my way to visit another old friend and passed by the Nelson Adkins Museum of Art. I saw a Chinese girl teaching Tai Chi on the grass. When I passed by again on my return trip she was still there, so I stopped and asked if she was taking students and she gave me the details of a new class that would be starting soon. Before long, Mark, myself, and another member of the Sikh community, who by the way had their center just two blocks up the street from Devalayam, were learning Tai Chi from Pearl. Pearl was nineteen at the time and a student at the Kansas City Art Institute. I had been smitten the first moment I saw her flow in Tai Chi.

Another therapist called to find out about the meditations. He had read Only One Sky (Tantra: The Supreme Understanding) and was very impressed. He had a practice down on the Plaza and was into the Baha’i movement. Soon there was a growing group which I tended to. I would go down to the Plaza once a week and have a raw vegetable lunch with Cliff the therapist and counsel him. Rather ironic really – me, this high school dropout twenty-six-year-old dressed in orange clothes counseling this white haired, highly respected psychologist during his lunch hour.

Mark took sannyas pretty early on and was making plans to go to Poona. Joyce soon became Ma Prem Kaveesha and I gave her a mala at Devalayam. Kaveesha had other friends that would come to the center and buy books and tapes and sometimes I would make house calls and deliver the goods. Kaveesha’s best friend was Joyce Price. Coincidentally, Joyce was the mother of Donna Price who had visited me in Madagascar. Joyce did not, however, like Osho and in fact resented the fact he had somehow taken her best friend away.

Soon another young fellow started attending the meditations regularly, and before too long moved into the house when Mark (now Prakash) left for Poona. He also took sannyas and became Sanmarg. Sanmarg left for Poona just a short while before I left in the spring. I never saw him again, but years later I saw news of his father. He had been estranged from his father when he was living at the house. His father, John Testrake, was a TWA pilot and in 1985 was the pilot of Flight 847. There is a famous photo of him being held hostage by terrorists with a gun to his head on the tarmac at the Beirut airport.

I continued my Tai Chi lessons with Pearl for months and gave her a copy of one of Osho’s books No Water, No Moon. She had it for months and never said a word about it, so finally I asked her if she was enjoying it, and she was. I had not talked to her about Osho in all that time. Finally, after months of my surrendering to her Tai Chi tutelage, I asked her out. Our first date was to a performance by Marcel Marceau, which was interesting because she said she felt comfortable with me speaking very little. We enjoyed the time mostly in silence.

Kaveesha had gone off to Poona, and while there Osho had told her she would be his Tantra leader. When Kaveesha returned, she shared her energy and her presence with many others, and a few more of her people took sannyas.

Spring happened and Pearl and I were living together. Pearl took sannyas and was given the name Ma Prem Sagara* (ocean of love). We made plans to go to India together. It would be an overland trip through Europe, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and into India.

Cliff, the psychologist, had decided to go to Poona to take sannyas. We hoped to meet up there but I had no idea when Sagara and I would actually arrive. Prakash had come back from Poona and would take over the center as well as my car.

So in a little less than nine months, and after letting go of my own ideas, a center was flourishing in the heartland.

*Many years later Sagara would receive a new name, Sumati (wisdom).

-purushottama

This is from the collection of stories, essays, poems and insights that is compiled to form the book From Lemurs to Lamas: Confessions of a Bodhisattva. Order the book Here.