Category: From Lemurs to Lamas: Confessions of a Bodhisattva

An Inquiry in Being

Ordinarily, we exist in what we might call the outer body. Our identification is through the senses which include the mind. We think of ourselves as others see us. We picture a body and a face that we have met in the mirror. Because others have varying opinions of our ‘person’ality, our identity is somewhat confused. Sometimes we think of ourselves as kind and generous, other times we are mean-spirited. Some people perceive us as direct while others, as arrogant. Some people see us as strong, and other people see a weakling.

It is not that one perception is truer than another but rather that our real being resides on a deeper level than the personality. We know that our personality has been shaped in large part by our family, school, religious upbringing, social conditioning, and the interaction with the personality type that we are born with.

At some point, an inner longing to know ourselves on this deeper level arises, and this is the fuel to propel us on our quest. This inner longing wants to know itself. It wants to discover what is real and what is not. And so, the conscious journey begins. We look into psychology, we look into Yoga, we explore religion, we are pulled by the path of love, or alternatively, we discover meditation.

We can call meditation the conscious movement into the center. Meditation begins with an act of will. It begins with a desire to know oneself. In order to know oneself, we begin with mindfulness. We begin by bringing attention to each and every act we do. We observe ourselves eating. We eat with awareness. We witness the hand moving towards the plate. We watch the food coming towards our mouth. We pay attention to the tasting and then the chewing. We take note of how the food makes us feel. This attention to our acts can be extended to any of our activities when we remember and allow the time to do so.

Through this process, we are reclaiming our energy, our attention, which normally is being projected out into the world. It is because of this scatteredness of our energy that we have no sense of ourselves. There is no energy at home. We have scattered our energy by chasing dreams. When we begin the journey with mindfulness, we start reclaiming that dispersed energy. Now we have begun to reel in our attention, to bring home our awareness. We have begun the conscious journey home.

With this gathered energy, we can begin to direct the attention inwards. We enter the inner body. We feel ourselves from the inside. It is a more subtle form of sensing. It is not through the senses but behind sensing. It is a sensing in wholeness. It is undivided. We begin to sense a center to our being. We feel an inner flame.

With the help of meditation, we practice techniques that are designed to move us from the periphery into the center. These techniques are simply tools to help us make the jump out of the identification with our body-mind into the inner being, into the inner body.

So let us now in this moment, direct our attention to our interiority. Let us feel the sense of being in our interiority. Let us find that which is referred to when we say I. What is I pointing towards? When we point to ourselves, do we point to our head? no, we point to our heart. Let us feel from the inside that reference point, feel our center.

Following the breath is helpful in moving us towards our center. The breath is a link from the outer to the inner because it moves in both worlds. Watching the breath, following the movement of the breath, gathers our attention and starts focusing it inwardly. We simply observe the breathing. We are not interested in changing the pattern of breath but instead are interested in the observing itself. We want to strengthen the observer, and the breath is always available.

We feel our center, and resting in this interior space, we watch the breath. Incoming and outgoing. Incoming and outgoing. All the while our sense of well-being is increasing because our energy is resting at home. It is self-nourishing. It is self-healing. It is being in love. It is not love for something or someone; it is love, being love.

We notice that with this following our attention inwards, there is a feeling of energy moving down from the head and into the body cavity, into the torso. We may feel ourselves centered in the heart area or even in the belly, but we do notice a movement out of the head. It is through the brain that we project our attention outwards, through the senses including the mind, so when we redirect that energy on to its return journey, we feel that the energy moves back out of the head and down into the heart.

It is important to note that we are retracing the steps of the unconscious outer journey that we have made. We made that outer journey perhaps looking for ourselves or perhaps just in the spirit of exploration, but then we got distracted. We are now making the same journey but in the opposite direction. This means that at least unconsciously we know the way. We have already traveled the route.

It is in our interiority that we gather our attention. We feel ourselves. We experience Being. It is not the same kind of sensing as when we sense an object in the outer body, it is a more diffused sensing mixed with a knowingness. This we can call Being. We know that we are and feel that we are.

It is with this gathered energy, this increased awareness, that we are able to begin to witness all that passes before us. Up until this point, we had no being with which to observe. We had no one to witness. Now this attention has created the witness. It is because we have moved beyond or below the outer body that we are fully able to be a witness to it. We are now able to observe the workings of the body-mind because we have moved into the inner body. From this vantage point we are able to witness its comings and goings. We are able to watch consciousness emptying itself. It is from here that we allow our unconscious to see the light of day and dissolve into freedom.

Once we come to a knowingness of our being, we come to an individuality, we know ourselves as something quite apart from the outer body-mind. Then the real self-inquiry begins. It is from here we see that the inner body, the Being, is also an object in our awareness and let go into no-body, no-self.

-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.

From In a Thought to Out of Mind

In a thought.
Watch a thought.
Watch mind.
Out of mind!

In a thought.

Ordinarily, we live in thought. So even “in ‘a’ thought” is a step, because with ‘a’ thought there is already enough awareness gathered to recognize having been in ‘a’ thought. But when we are in thought, we are simply lost. But it is through this recognizing “in a thought” that we are gradually gaining strength of consciousness for the next step.

Watch a thought.

With this newfound seeing, we begin to witness; we begin with watching a thought. It is, however, very fleeting. Either we enter into the stream of the thought and are lost until we remember and are once again at the beginning, or by watching the thought, the thought peters out and vanishes.

Watch mind.

There is a big shift that happens when we move from watching a thought to “watching mind.” Watching mind means we are not getting into the separate thoughts but watching the energy of mind, the movement of mind. It is seen as an object, as a whole. It is in this seeing the whole of mind that we find ourselves in the next step.

Out of mind!

It is from this “out of mind” that we are able to let all the contents of mind unpack and still remain the witness.

The sages don’t talk of no-mind in order to create a far off goal to be reached, but rather, so that it can be recognized when we stumble into it.

-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 Journey from non-being to No-Being

We must first come to the recognition that we live outside of our center. We live outside of our body. We know our body from the exterior. We know our senses by sensing objects. Without objects we have no knowledge of ourselves. Through our contact with outside objects our body exists. If we had no contact, we would have no knowledge of ourselves.

Somewhere along the way, our center has been touched. We have become aware of its existence. It may just be a dim flame but we know deep down that it is there. We have the power to move into our center. It is only because of what interests us that we remain on the periphery.

We can move to the center by retracing our steps out. We make the journey out all day long. Our attention moves from our center out through the senses and chases dreams. Our mind is the sixth sense. By becoming aware of the outward movement of our energy and attention, it comes to a halt. When the movement is seen in awareness, the movement ceases.

From where does the thought of “I” arise? What is it pointing to? Is it pointing to this body that people see from the outside? Does it point to this collection of memories, thoughts, and dreams that are circulating and referred to as “mind”? Is it not pointing to somewhere deep inside?

Let’s make contact there. Let us feel what it is like to inhabit our body. We need not worry about reincarnation; let us first learn to incarnate this body here and now. We can move our attention to our interiority. We can feel our body from the inside. We can sense ourself behind the senses. We can find ourself behind the mind.

It is from this interior position that we are able to allow the unconscious mind to let go of all its content. By not getting involved, but remaining a witness, the mind lets go of all its collectibles, all of its memories, dreams, and fears. Without either rejecting or grasping, without judging, we remain a witness and stay rooted in our center, in our interiority, in our being.

It is in this center that the witness grows, that we create our soul. Up until this point, we have had no soul. We have had no center. There was no one home. Now the fire is lit, and we are tending the flame.

The next step will be to let go of this center, but we cannot let go of what we do not have. We must first become crystallized. We must first come into Being before we can let go into No-being.

-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.

 

Meditation is the Bridge Between Yoga and Advaita

Hakuin begins his Song of Meditation, “All beings are from the very beginning Buddhas.” Nisargadatta Maharaj tells us to take as a hypothesis that we are the “absolute” because it is not yet our experience. Osho begins his discourse series on The Heart Sutra with these words, “I salute the Buddha within you. You may not be aware of it, you may not have ever dreamed about it – that you are a Buddha, that nobody can be anything else, that Buddhahood is the very essential core of your being, that it is not something to happen in the future, that it has happened already.” But he goes on to say, “But you are fast asleep, you don’t know who you are. Not that you have to become a Buddha, but only that you have to recognize it, that you have to return to your own source, that you have to look within yourself.”

This paradox, that we are already Buddhas but that we do not recognize it, is at the heart of much confusion today. It is here where those who are professing a neo-advaita philosophy clash with the gradualists, with the yogis. But there should be no conflict. It is just that each side is only seeing half of the situation. We Are already enlightened but it is Not yet our experience. We have not Realized our enlightenment, and until we do Realize our natural state, the work continues.

It is important for the neo-advaitins to understand that just intellectually knowing we are already enlightened does not a Buddha make. And in order to uncover that sleeping Buddha, there is a transformation yet to take place. And it is also important for the yogis to understand that we are from the very beginning Buddhas, and that our work is not to make us into something that we are not already, but to uncover our already existing true nature. Hence, it is not a question of becoming but of uncovering.

So, what is the bridge between this gulf in understanding? What is needed for the transformation from the potential to the realized to take place? When Nisargadatta Maharaj was asked what he did before his enlightenment was realized, he said that he accepted the words of his guru “that he was the absolute” and he meditated on the “I am” for three years. J. Krishnamurti has said that “seeing is transformation.” He says that it is the observation of the mind itself that is the transformation. And Osho’s entire life’s work is to illuminate “meditation” as the bridge between our current state of living in the mind and the awakened life of no-mind.

So, if my enlightenment is only in words, only in concepts, and not in my daily life, then perhaps it would be best to continue on the journey back to Self and that journey must pass through no-mind. On the other hand, if I see enlightenment as a goal in the future of becoming, then too it would be good to come home to Being and out of the goals in the world of mind.

Meditation is the way in.

-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.

Living in Consciousness

Consciousness has been at the center of my life for almost 50 years, as it has for so many of us. But I am a practical sort of guy and so am not much interested in conceptual “consciousness.” On the contrary, the consciousness that I am interested in is the “being consciousness.” There are many neo-advaita teachers around who tell us that we are always consciousness. And, since we are always awareness, consciousness, there is nothing to be done. Osho is much more compassionate. He too tells us that we are already Buddhas, but he also reminds us that the difference between us and him is that he is aware of his Buddhahood. He is experiencing his Buddhahood, and we are unawake to its splendor.

In his compassion, he introduced us to Shiva’s 112 meditation techniques (The Book of Secrets). He created active meditations to prepare the ground for meditation to take root, and he distilled all meditation techniques down to the key element of witnessing.

For me personally, I have found that the best way to become aware — to awaken the witness — is to begin by being aware of my unconsciousness, my unawareness, my dreaming mind.

Most every morning I wake up around 3:30 a.m., meaning at around that time I become aware that I am no longer sleeping. Immediately, I begin to look at the activity of the mind, the tail end of the dreaming cycle. I find that it is this seeing the unconscious that enables becoming more conscious, or we could say, less unconscious.

As I continue lying in bed, looking directly at the tail of the dream, this awakeningness becomes more pronounced. I find this to be the best time to get up and sit in meditation.

This sitting in meditation is more of the same but now I am sitting erect and perhaps more attuned to the watching.

At first, while I am watching I catch thought streams, some thought about this or that, but as I watch without grasping the thought and without rejecting the thought but just looking directly at the movement of thought, it becomes less defined, more opaque.

At this point, it is the energy of the mind that is being seen rather than individual thoughts. At the same time, I am now aware of the watching itself rather than that which is being seen. With my awareness of the watchingness, the previous objects of consciousness begin to slip out of view.

This is not a permanent situation. At some point, some thought appears and either I am dragged off until I remember again or I am awake enough to catch it at the beginning, and again, without grasping or rejecting there is the remembrance of watching and the watched subsides.

I find that the unconscious stream is in an inverse relationship to how conscious I am in that moment. The more conscious, the less of the stream. The less conscious, the more present the stream. So, it is by seeing my unconscious that I become more conscious.

My understanding of Ramana Maharshi’s method of inquiry is a thought appears, one inquires to whom does the thought appear, and the answer is to me. Then one inquires more deeply, “Who am I?” I see that as another way of saying what I have described above.

Osho’s method is even simpler; it is watching, witnessing. Watching without judgement, without jumping onto the back of the thought, and without pushing it away in rejection. Just watching, and as we watch without reaction, the other steps that I described above happen naturally. As thought becomes less, I automatically become aware of my self, provided I haven’t fallen asleep.

“Meditation starts by being separate from the mind, by being a witness. That is the only way of separating yourself from anything. If you are looking at the light, naturally one thing is certain, you are not the light, you are the one who is looking at it. If you are watching the flowers, one thing is certain, you are not the flower, you are the watcher. Watching is the key of meditation:

Watch your mind.

Don’t do anything — no repetition of mantra, no repetition of the name of God — just watch whatever the mind is doing. Don’t disturb it, don’t prevent it, don’t repress it; don’t do anything at all on your part. You just be a watcher, and the miracle of watching is meditation. As you watch, slowly, slowly mind becomes empty of thoughts; but you are not falling asleep, you are becoming more alert, more aware.

As the mind becomes completely empty, your whole energy becomes a flame of awakening. This flame is the result of meditation. So, you can say meditation is another name for watching, witnessing, observing — without any judgment, without any evaluation. Just by watching, you immediately get out of the mind.”
-Osho, from The Invitation, Discourse #21

So, this has been my experience. By understanding and seeing my un-consciousness, un-consciousness is transformed into consciousness, from unconsciousness to consciousness. This is how I come out of mind. This is not enlightenment; it is an awakening before enlightenment. It is nothing special; we are all capable of coming out of mind. It is just a question of seeing the identification with what we are Not that we discover that which we Are.

Along the way, a couple of points have become clear, and perhaps they may be helpful to someone else.

Number one, and this is of course obvious but nevertheless important to state. In order for the transformation of consciousness to take place, we have to look directly at the mind. It is not enough to know about meditation, we have to meditate. We have to get to know intimately how we perpetuate unawareness. We have to meditate; did I already say that. We have to meditate.

A second point that one day became clear is we are not to do anything with the mind, or any content of consciousness. Transformation happens but not by anything we do. Our job is to become conscious, and again we do that by watching our unconscious. It is through watching the unconscious that the energy becomes conscious. I used to feel that it was the content that was important in the watching. Somewhere along the way a shift happened so that it is the watcher that is of importance not what is being watched. We watch our unconsciousness simply to become conscious.

And thirdly, it is by watching without reacting that we begin to become aware of being conscious, of awareness itself, not as an object but as a living, existential experiencing.

Finally, these awakenings, this watchfulness that arises in meditation, has to be taken into daily life. With this watchingness, there are more moments of action and fewer of reaction, but when reaction appears, it is watched without judgment just like the watching of thought. And, it is here in this daily life that the watchingness is crystalized into Being conscious. And that truly is a splendor.

-purushottama

This has been published in the Viha Connection Magazine, March/April 2019, Volume XXX II-Two and also in Osho News.

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.

 

 

 

Don’t Fight the River

The first indication my life was about to change was the engine in my Cadillac El Dorado blowing up in Shreveport, Louisiana. I was at the end of a road trip taking orders for waterbed products. I took a bus back to Kansas City.

The second was when I learned while away, my friend Charlie, my parakeet, had been killed by the cat that belonged to my friends who were house-sitting.

Charlie was a real character and he used to fly out of his always-open cage and land on my nose to wake me up in the morning. That’s what did him in. Charlie had been given to me by Scottie. Scottie was my oldest friend, not that I had known him the longest, but he was over 60. I was in my early twenties. He had named Charlie after Charlie Parker, a personal friend of his. Scottie was into Jesus, jazz, going to the horse races, and smoking pot.

The final straw, however, was that my apartment was broken into. The thieves took my stereo and speakers but fortunately left my album collection. I could either fight, or let go and go with the stream. I decided on the latter and endeavored to get ahead of the curve.

Soon everything that had any value, which wasn’t much really, had been sold. It mostly consisted of the records and two Chinese rugs. The money was going to Europe with me. I was leaving behind my interest in a business I had built up over the past two years. I wasn’t even going to tell the other principals involved; they could have what was left. I was concerned I might be persuaded to change my mind.

We had been applying for an SBA (Small Business Administration) loan in order to take our waterbed frame manufacturing business to the next level. We were getting orders, I had brought back plenty, but we needed capital in order to produce at a level that made money on our sales. When the SBA loan fell through, I knew that meant we would have to drop back and punt. But I was burnt out. I had had a nervous breakdown at 21. I was drinking 10-12 cups of coffee a day and smoking three packs of cigarettes. If this was life, I wasn’t interested. I was ready to chuck it all in and go to Europe with whatever cash I could assemble and see what happens.

Six hundred dollars is what I would be landing in Luxembourg with after buying a cheap Icelandic Air flight. The last ride I got hitchhiking to New York was with the equipment truck for the rock band Seals and Crofts. Here was the first sign of what lay ahead. Seals and Crofts were into Baha’i and the driver of the van was a devotee of the young Guru Maharaji.

Soon, I was lying in the grass on the side of the road waiting for the sound of a car so I could jump up and stick out my thumb. The destination for the day was not known only the direction; in the meantime, I was feeling the ground beneath my back, smelling the green grass and listening to the sounds of the birds flying nearby. I was reminded of Saint Francis.

Here, in stark contrast, was the difference between becoming and being.

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.

Kopan and Kathmandu

It was the most amazing New Year ever, crossing into Nepal in a bullock cart at sunrise. The sky was ablaze, the haze and dust in the air heightened the reds and oranges of the sun. It was New Year’s Day 1976, sure to be a super year, and as it turned out, it was.

During that last term in Madagascar, I had heard from my friend Peter. He was now in Nepal studying Tibetan Buddhism with Lama Yeshe at the Kopan Monastery in Kathmandu. Randy Dodge, who was still living at the house, was attracted to going to India and Nepal. He had been practicing Yoga for several years and was also interested in Buddhism. I was interested in Nepal but somehow fearful of India. I knew deep down that it could grab me and not let me go. By this time, Voahangy had gone to Brussels to join her U.N. boyfriend. Rickey was making arrangements to go to university in France. Randy and I were busy changing Malagasy francs into U.S. dollars with the Indian money changers and making preparations for our trip to the sub-continent.

Randy and I had discovered there was an Indian passenger ship that traveled from Mauritius to Bombay and so made plans to go to Mauritius and leave for India from there. I said goodbye to my home for two years and a people that will forever hold a special place in my heart.

Thirty-three years after first arriving in Madagascar, I finally made a trip back with my wife Amido in 2006. She loves the place as much as I do. Many things looked the same, although Tana was a bit of a shock. In 1975, the population of Madagascar was around eight million; in 2006, it was sixteen million and most of those are now in Tana. I have never seen so many kids.

The ship we took had several classes of travel. I think Randy and I took the next to last. It was not too bad really, dormitory style with bunk beds. The food was good. There was both a vegetarian line and a non-vegetarian line. We used the vegetarian line for lunch and dinner and the non-veg for breakfast because we wanted eggs. The trip took several days, and on the way, we were treated to Indian movies. That was the first time I had ever seen a Bollywood production. Treated is probably not very accurate because the sound system was terrible and it was way too loud. The days were spent on the deck watching the sea go by and reading Hermann Hesse’s The Glass Bead Game. So, after another trip across the Indian Ocean we arrived in Bombay, India.

In Bombay, we stayed at the Salvation Army Hostel. On the streets were quite a few wasted westerners wandering around. We didn’t really expect that to be our fate but it was a good heads up. We were both interested in getting to Nepal as soon as possible and decided to take a train out to a good place to begin hitchhiking from. We didn’t see any reason why we couldn’t hitch in India. On our very first ride we had a surprise. A truck stopped. It was open in the back and we just needed to climb up and jump in. We threw our backpacks over the rail and climbed up and landed in a truck bed of manure. It wasn’t very wet so we just shrugged our shoulders and we were on our way.

After a couple of days travelling, we were ready to enter Nepal. We had arrived in the border town too late to be able to cross that day. We would have to wait for the next day. It just happened to be New Year’s Eve. I don’t think we participated in any festivities but just awaited our trip into Nepal in the morning.

After arriving in Kathmandu, we found our way to Freak Street where I knew Peter was staying in a guest house. Randy and Peter had never met. Peter had already left Madagascar by the time Randy showed up. Peter was very much into his exploration of Tibetan Buddhism. He was involved in a course that was being offered at the Kopan Monastery on the outskirts of the city. One day we went with him to visit and had a short chat with Lama Yeshe over a cup of tea. He offered his cup which we shared. He was a very kind man with a boyish grin. There were many westerners involved in the meditation teachings at the time but for some reason I wasn’t drawn to joining.

Randy and I went on to Pokhara in order to do a trek. In those days Pokhara hadn’t really become a big scene like it is today. On the edge of Lake Phewa were a few guest houses. Nearby was a Tibetan refugee camp and so a few Tibetans would set up on the paths and sell their goods. I bought a Tibetan mala and some pieces of coral with holes drilled in them for stringing on a mala. The guest house was very simple but I remember a nice garden and of course the views were incredible of both the lake and the majestic Himalayas, a truly idyllic scene. There was a Japanese couple staying in the guest house that I noticed. She was very sweet and soft and he was intense with the stern look of a samurai. I would meet this couple again and they would get new names and become Geeta and Asanga.

-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.

 

 

 

Witnessing Without a Center

Perhaps this may be helpful to someone. I have noticed recently that when I watch thoughts (content), there is a container (me). But when I watch the activity (not content), there is only witnessing.

This is important because it means that as long as I am engaging in the content, the “me” remains. And if I take one step back and watch the movement, witnessing is, without a center. And this witnessing without a center is delicious.

This “take one step back” is really a misnomer. It is not a question of doing anything but simply “not doing.” Engaging in the content is “doing.” To watch without either grasping or rejecting is not doing, and it is by watching without engagement that one finds oneself first witnessing the movement without content, and when that movement is also witnessed without engagement, then one is Not and only awareness Is.

-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 Footprint in Consciousness

After watching the entire seven-hour documentary on Netflix, Wild Wild Country, the following poured out. Pranam to ALL. 

Does anyone really believe – after hearing directly from the U.S. Attorney; Oregon State Attorney General; Bill Bowerman; those who we did not hear from in the series but whose opinions have been documented by Max Brecher in A Passage to America such as Edwin Meese, (U.S. Attorney General); Pope Benedict before he was pope (Joseph Ratzinger); and many more – after hearing from these people, does anyone really believe if we had just been a little more ‘good neighborly’ they would have allowed us to continue? Perhaps if all we had wanted to do was have a communal farm for a couple of hundred friends. Maybe. But I am doubtful even of that.

Osho wanted to build a city/commune, a place where thousands could gather and meditate together. In order to create that space, a lot of work needed to be done, but this work was to be done with awareness, with love. This was only possible because of someone like Sheela and her “gang” who created a protective shell around the community for the meditators/workers to carry on. Her job was to keep the forces that colluded from day one to close us down at bay long enough to for us to finish the job. You see, I do not subscribe to the belief that Osho ever intended Rajneeshpuram to be an ongoing, permanent community. It was as Osho has said about his community, “an experiment to provoke God.” We were creating a “footprint” on the Earth. A footprint of consciousness. Just the effort to create such a community was an opening in the consciousness of the world. It has been attempted before to lesser degrees and with each attempt the ball has moved forward. But this attempt was not scorning the use of science and technology. This attempt was not renouncing the world; it was an attempt that would bring Zorba and Buddha together in harmony. It would ultimately bring 10,000 meditators together in a city they had created for themselves. And in that work of creation, the effect would be that many of those who had worked on the project were transformed.

But in order to create this Buddhafield, someone was going to have play defense so the work could continue. Most of us inside the Ranch did not know the extent of the opposition to our very presence until the bombing of Hotel Rajneesh in Portland. And this event was a wake-up call for Sheela too. If we were going to survive long enough to complete the experiment, we would have to be able to protect ourselves. And the best protection was in showing the outside world that we were willing to protect ourselves and had the means. That was a language they could understand. We very publicly displayed our resources and even filmed our abilities at the shooting range. This was enough to create doubt. And in my mind, this is why nobody was ever shot at, no one was ever hurt by firearms.

In the Wild Wild Country series, you hear Shanti B. describe what it was like to be in the meetings with Sheela and crew. They would gather around and problem solve. For example, we weren’t allowed to have commercial activity at the Ranch; okay we’ll do it in Antelope. We weren’t allowed to do it in Antelope; okay we’ll buy up properties in order to control the decision-making. We weren’t allowed by Wasco County to carry on our activities; okay we’ll bring in more voters to the county. Where can we get more voters? How about the homeless people? Good idea, and then we can do two things, we can help the homeless and elect out representatives too. They were just problem solving to the best of their abilities. All the while “running interference” so that the work at the Ranch could continue.

In life we have projects that we are working on, and if we are very determined, we try every avenue to success, but sometimes we just have to recognize “the jig is up” and let go. In hindsight, it appears that being about to lose the Wasco County Commissioner election was one of those times. Many will say that we shouldn’t have tried to affect the election with the Share-A-Home program, and that is probably true. But just as it is one-sided to talk only of the benefits of the program (bringing the homeless off the street, exposing street people to meditation, giving a sense of self-worth to those who felt abandoned, etc.) without talking about the well-known ill effects, so too is it one-sided to ignore these benefits. By the way, yes, there were some who were forcibly removed, but there were also some who remained to the very end, long after many of us had found new homes.

But clearly, when we were not able to affect the election with our newfound comrades, that was the time to realize we had done all that we could do. And Sheela should have been willing to let go of her position if that is what it meant. It is interesting that Osho decided to begin giving discourses again the very night we had a voter rally with the homeless. I think he knew “the jig was up.” We would be able to continue with the momentum created for just one more year.

Now, how to unwind this experiment that many had mistakenly thought was a permanent utopian dream?

Fortunately, Sheela provided the answer for most of that too. It was her own unwillingness to accept defeat, to let go of power, that would be the means for unwinding the commune. The crimes that were committed in order to hang on to power were the means that allowed the external forces to extinguish the experiment. But the experiment had already succeeded. We had already created a city of 10,000 meditators. We had created a beautiful eco-friendly community in the desert. And in the process, all of us were transformed to varying degrees. It was time to let go.

Osho saw the situation and very wisely left the Ranch which avoided the confrontation that the Oregon National Guard, FBI, State Police, and local law enforcement feared.

Osho returned to India with a few stops along the way. Many sannyasins joined him to listen to his talks for a couple more years. (He still had a few things to say.) Others took whatever light had been ignited in “the experiment” and went out into the “marketplace.”

Do you really think that if it had been someone different in Sheela’s place the result would have been better? Personally, I doubt it.

It goes without saying that none of this would have taken place without Osho. I bow down. But perhaps, what is not so obvious, is that each and every actor is essential in this play.

So, I bow down to everyone who participated in whatever way you did, and I don’t exclude anyone. Everyone played their part which includes the residents, the RHT workers, the festival workers, all of the visitors, those that stayed and those that left, those who never managed to make it to the Ranch, and those that stayed to the very end. And how can I bow down to Sheela and her crew without also bowing down to the residents of Antelope and Wasco County, the government officials, and the Rajneesh Hotel bomber because without any of you, there may not be that “footprint in consciousness” in the Oregon desert.

-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.

After Awakening Before Enlightenment

Back in 2011, the essay Awakening Before Enlightenment came gushing out onto the computer screen. I was very reluctant to edit it much at all because it didn’t feel like my writing. It just poured out.

Now almost seven years later, it seems like perhaps it is time for a checkup.

In the last paragraph it was written:

So here we come to the point that has been the fuel for this inquiry all these years. Without exposure to the presence of an Enlightened Master, and unfortunately for some even with, it is very easy to believe that the “awakening of the witness” is the end of the journey, is itself enlightenment. Some fellow travelers might very well believe that there is no ending of the mind because that is the limitation of their own experience.

What is the landscape now at this time? What has changed?

Through these last years, I have spent even more time exploring coming out of mind. I have experimented with many of Shiva’s 112 Meditation Techniques explained by Osho in The Book of Secrets. And with each I have discovered that same core that Osho points us to again and again, witnessing.

And it is from here that the mind is witnessed, that one sees all the ways to get entangled, and these are not just seen once or twice but again and again. But each time that seeing happens, the strength of the proclivity lessens. It becomes easier to come out, easier to let go of grasping, easier to remain with that which may be uncomfortable.

And yes, more moments do come, and longer in duration, where one is without thought.

When thought subsides, one is capable of exploring the region of feeling. Not feeling with a tour guide who is naming all the sights but feeling, just feeling. Feeling the very sensation of moods, and sometimes the feeling of burbling, gushing, raw emotion of some long forgotten happening.

And yes, moments also come when all thoughts and feelings subside, and one is left with only a sense of being.

And this sense of being, this wavering in the belly, is witnessed, is seen, and in that very seeingness when the seeing is total, even that sense of being, that ripple comes to rest. In these moments there is “an ending of mind.”

Surely this momentary “ending of mind” is “samadhi with seed.” It is with seed because the seed remains and because the seed remains it invariably re-sprouts. Nevertheless, in this moment I am refreshed.

So now I can revisit the post and still say yes, for me, it is true that “awakening of the witness” is not “the end of the journey.” In fact, it is the real beginning. The beginning of the end of “me.” And in this witnessing, there is a “knowingness” that exists without any support. It is self-evident.

It is also important to emphasize that “the ending of me” does not come about by any doing on my part. I am not dissolving or evaporating my mind. Any such activity would only strengthen the doer, the “me.” The mind does dissolve, it does evaporate not because of any doing on my part, on the contrary it does so because in those moments I am no longer contributing to its survival. My energy is with that “knowingness.” And because I am residing at home (in those moments) there is no energy feeding the “me.” And I am perfectly happy to let all of the un-entangling, all of the exposing, all of the evaporation proceed without any interference and bask in the moments of “now-here” that appear on their own.

And still the refrain, “Charaiveti, charaiveti.”

-purushottama

Here you can find  Awakening Before Enlightenment.

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.

 

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