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.