Category: Prem Purushottama

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

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.

 

My Deepest Secret

What to do when my heart and mind are in the midst of tremendous turmoil, confusion, anger, disappointment?

I find a not uncomfortable place to sit and in that sitting just give a little space and time for all of the turmoil to completely reveal itself, the swirling thoughts, the clouds of despair, the murkiness of confusion, the fire of anger, and without turning away, I remain staying with it all. And the key, the most important key, is that I do not try to end any of this. I do not engage in thought to rationalize, I do not push away that which is uncomfortable, nor judge my feelings, I do not analyze why all of this is happening, nor jump onto the bandwagon and go for a ride into the maelstrom, but simply allow all of the thoughts and even more importantly all of the sensations and feelings that come along. And these too are allowed without judging, without hanging on to those that I like and without pushing away those that are uncomfortable. There is no spiritual bypassing of anything that arises. It is all welcome.

But of course, this is not true, I do, do all of those things. I do judge, I do push away, I do grasp, I do analyze, but by seeing that I am doing them, a little space opens up for love. And again, I am back to watching the whole drama but with just a little bit more awareness, a little bit freer of the grasping clutches of mind and emotion. But once again, the cycle repeats itself, not just once or twice but many times. But with each return to center the gap has widened.

And sometimes, there does come those special moments when the thoughts subside completely, when the hot feelings turn into “a peace that passeth all understanding.” In those moments there are no conclusions, just a remaining in a vast unknownness, and there is a gratefulness to all that has preceded, all that has contributed to creating this opportunity, to all that has led to this moment and I bow down to existence.

This secret is the art of watching, the art of witnessing, and it is the greatest gift that I received from Osho, but it is not unique to him. Below is a post where the Zen Master, Charlotte Joko Beck, who lived for some time in Prescott, AZ, describes a similar process which she names, get “a bigger container.”

-purushottama

A Bigger Container – Charlotte Joko Beck