The Road East to India

by Devika A. Rosamund

  One place called Radha Hall, which is part of Krishna House, is used as a meditation hall. It has only three walls and looks out into the open air. Here I did Kundalini Meditation this afternoon to a background of torrential rain. There are four stages, all fifteen minutes: the first three are set to music. The first stage is shaking the whole body to loosen it up and get rid of all tensions; the second stage is dancing alone with eyes open or closed; the third stage is sitting down on the ground with eyes closed listening to beautiful music, and the fourth and last stage is lying down on one’s back with eyes closed in silence. I love this meditation – it is good for both body and mind and is so relaxing.

  After this, my new friends took me home with them in a rickshaw. The River House is very big. There are at present fourteen people living here, ten men and four women – all seem to be in their twenties or perhaps early thirties. I was taken upstairs to a kind of dormitory where mattresses are laid out. The people here all share the cooking and cleaning and shopping. Downstairs is the kitchen and a living room where many of the men play instruments at night and make music. The windows and doors open out onto the river bank where we can sit.

  The atmosphere here is lovely but everything appears quite mad. All the people here in the house wear orange clothes all the time – they have become sannyasins, disciples of Osho − and they meditate every day and attend his morning discourses.

  What kind of strange place have I come to?! In India you never know what kind of unusual adventure is going to happen next! However, I love all these wonderful adventures! Surely, in almost no other country in modern times would I find anything like this – disciples (western and Indian) dressed like monks living around a living spiritual Master as people did in ancient times!

  Tuesday, 29th June 1976

  I have been to one of Osho’s morning discourses.

  This morning I was woken up at six o’clock as the other people in the dormitory wanted to do Dynamic Meditation. They taught me how to do it. It is an hour long like all the meditations. There are five stages to it, all done standing up – first stage is chaotic breathing, second stage is catharsis (you can go completely mad, shouting and jumping, releasing all pent up emotions), third stage is jumping and shouting ‘hoo’, fourth stage is ‘freezing’ – standing quite still watching the body until the music starts, when the last – the fifth stage – dancing, begins. This meditation is amazing but quite exhausting. I have never done anything quite like it in my life! In these meditations we are not allowed to touch or disturb anybody else.

  Afterwards I felt very refreshed and wide awake. I was then lent a bicycle and one of the other women in the house, who is also English but has taken the Sanskrit spiritual name of Veetrag, took me for breakfast to a cafe called Cafe Delight which is on the way to the ashram. From there we cycled to the front gate of the ashram, left our bicycles outside and went in.

  Everybody was going into Lao Tzu House. Lao Tzu House also has its own gate and a winding path leading to a very large, round, white marble veranda which looks over the garden of many young trees. It has pillars around it and looks like a white temple that I saw once in a dream years ago. (In the dream I went into the temple and lay down on the floor in bliss, surrounded by white candles.) Here there are no candles but I love the peace and silence of the place. It is called Chuang Tzu Auditorium. (Chuang Tzu was an ancient Chinese Taoist Master, as was Lao Tzu.)

  We sat cross-legged on the floor. There were a few people like me, not dressed in orange, but many people wore only orange clothes. I was wearing my black sari top and my long wrap-around skirt which has a cream-coloured tartan pattern on it. I have been wearing this all around India. There was a chair at the front of the auditorium and a door in the wall. After a while Osho came in and greeted everyone. He wears a long white robe and his hair is black, nearly turning white. He turned slowly, looking into all our eyes as he put his hands together in ‘Namaste’ – this is an Indian greeting with both palms together, as though in prayer.

  He has such charisma and wonderful eyes. I was sitting a few rows from the front but he looked at me immediately, perhaps because I am new. Then he sat down and started speaking.

  I studied Religion and Philosophy at college as my main subjects, and he used to be a Philosophy lecturer, a professor in an Indian university, but I have never heard a lecture like this before. The words were so beautiful, so meaningful, and spoken with such authority and love, that tears came to my eyes almost immediately.

  He was talking about the Baul Mystics from northern India who are wild devotees of the Divine and who travel from place to place, village to village, dancing and singing their love for the Divine Spirit they call the Beloved. They have thousands of devotional songs that come straight from their hearts. They do not belong to any religion or tradition or creed. They celebrate life and this existence here now, and make no distinction between this world and the next. They believe that the Divine is everywhere around us and in everything. Everything is holy – whole – we are not to search for Heaven anywhere else, nor beyond death, but to discover it here now on this Earth.

  Sitting here, listening to Osho speak, I felt the truth of these words – that this celebration and gratitude for life and this beautiful world is the only way to live; that Heaven and the present moment is a dimension that you can step into, and here I am stepping into it. Sitting here, it seemed to me that religion came alive for me as it never has before. I feel now that I am seeing the world for the first time, differently and positively through different eyes.

  The thought came to me as we were all sitting there in spellbound silence – all of us who might be thought of as hippies and drop outs by some in the outside world – that this is what it must have been like in the times of Jesus. Followers gathered around Jesus in the same way and were not respected by the society and the religious leaders of the time.

  I came out of the discourse in a dream. Osho’s words rang with a truth I feel I have known all my life: that we really can step into Heaven in this life. I felt ecstatic and blissful and amazed. Today I talked to other people here and I have found out that many people came here by accident like me and love the discourses so much that they have prolonged their stay.

  This afternoon I did Nadabrahma Meditation which is a humming meditation in three stages set to beautiful music and then silence. Later, at about four o’clock I did Kundalini Meditation again, which is my favourite meditation.

  Afterwards I came home here to the River House, where I am now. I helped peel the vegetables and cook the dinner. Of course, we eat all vegetarian food here and the ashram restaurant also serves only vegetarian food. In it you can also buy tea and coffee, snacks and meals, but I will eat most of my meals here.

  This evening some of the men are playing music again with various instruments – their music is spontaneous – and the rest of us are sitting around in meditation and drinking lemon grass tea. The lemon grass grows wild around the house. We pick it and put it into the tea pot!

  I am longing for the discourse again tomorrow morning.

  Friday, 2nd July 1976

  What kind of madness am I in? I don’t know. At the moment I am caught up in a whirlwind, so that I feel drunk. I am enraptured in a kind of bliss and happiness, full of apprehension and excitement. It is evening and again I am sitting on the floor of the downstairs room of the River House and people are playing music, while some have thrown off all their clothes because it is hot, and they are dancing. People dance by themselves in meditation.

  Yesterday I went to the office and told them I have done three days of meditation, and to my delight the woman there booked me a Darshan for the evening. (Darshan is a word meaning ‘meeting with the Master’.)

  I was very excited all day. The evening before, the Scottish girl in our house helped me to dye my wrap-around skirt orange. I decided that I was going to wear an orange skirt and my
black sari top. I was going to go in to see the Master half in orange and half in another colour! I decided I was also going to keep on my silver cross and chain that I have worn all around India – not for protection – but because I have been wearing it all the time on this trip.

  In the morning I went to the discourse – it was as beautiful as ever. Still he is speaking on the Baul Mystics in this series of talks. At the beginning of the discourse, a sutra is read out. These are words taken from religious songs of the Bauls, I think. I have been told that each series of talks he gives is about different enlightened Mystics the world over. He has also spoken on Jesus.

  I did some meditations during the day. There is another meditation that I love which is all dancing, called Nataraj: forty minutes of dancing with eyes closed to wild Indian music, then ten minutes of lying down in silence, flat on the floor, then another ten minutes of dancing.

  I showered in the evening before going into Chuang Tzu to see Osho. He is allergic to smells and perfumes. I saw a woman sitting cross-legged on the roof of one of the houses (there are steps going up) and I went to ask her the time but she did not answer – she was deep in meditation. I should have realised!

  When I came to the gate of Lao Tzu House some women sniffed me to make sure I had no perfume on me. Then I was allowed to go up the winding path to the round white veranda called Chuang Tzu with about twelve other people. As there are quite a lot of people here now, as many as fifteen people go in together every night to speak to Osho, but we can still speak with him individually one at a time.

  There were two rows of us and I sat at the back. I could hear everything that was being said. People were asking questions and some were taking sannyas – receiving a necklace of beads called a mala and a spiritual name from Osho. Everything he was saying sounded so beautiful and so compassionate. He accepts every person just as they are. There was no judgement or condemnation in his words. He listens to what the person says and then responds. People were asking advice about personal issues. It seems to me that he sees beauty and godliness in every soul and helps them to see it for themselves − that is the main thing.

  Suddenly unexpectedly, he looked across to me at the back and said, “What about you?” There were tears in my eyes which had started falling while I was walking up the winding path into the garden. The path reminded me of another recurring dream I used to have when I was at school, about a winding path leading to a secret garden where I loved to go.

  I was called to sit in front of Osho by an Indian lady sitting next to his chair. She told him I am a teacher.

  I don’t feel that this is the right way to describe me really, as I have only taught in a primary school for one year.

  I knew Osho was asking me whether I wanted to take sannyas and receive a necklace – a mala. I had already said ‘no’ to the woman who had asked me at the gate if I was going to take sannyas.

  Immediately I told him that I did not understand what sannyas meant. Earlier, some woman I met outside who seemed fanatical had told me that she thought he was Christ or the Buddha come back. This upset me, so I said to Osho, “I’m not sure exactly what it means. Wouldn’t it be putting you before Christ?”

  He was looking into my eyes. I wanted to look into his but they were so deep.

  He said to me: “I understand. If you understand Christ, there is no problem. If you don’t understand him, there will be problems.” He continued, “To love Christ has nothing to do with being a Christian. It is a deep understanding of a certain state of consciousness. Christ is a state of consciousness, of silence, peace, bliss, of purity, innocence.”

  I feel that he is a great spiritual Teacher as Jesus was. I wanted to go on talking with him, so I asked, “If I accept you, am I accepting you as being the same? Is it not accepting one and rejecting the other?”

  He replied: “There is no rejection in religious life. Religion knows no rejection. The very idea of rejection is non-religious. If you accept me, you have accepted all those who have ever walked on the Earth and have been religious – not only Christ, but Buddha and Krishna also. There is no conflict between Buddha, Christ and me. The conflict arises because of the churches and the organisations and the politics that go on in the name of religion. Then there is conflict and even the Christ of the Protestants is different from that of the Catholics.”

  Then, because I know that taking sannyas means that people wear orange like Hindu or Buddhist monks, I asked why we have to wear orange, and he replied with a twinkle in his eye, that it is because he is whimsical, eccentric about orange. It seemed to be a joke, and everybody laughed. I said that I would not know what to reply if people asked me about it and he said, “One does not have to explain everything in life. All that is deep is always unexplained.”

  I said I was afraid of making a commitment, afraid of breaking the promise, as I might want to get married in white. He told me: “I am not trying to dominate your future – not at all. I am not saying that in the future you have to wear orange.” He continued, “Who knows what the future will hold. The future is not predictable. I am not talking about tomorrow. I say, be in orange now and the next moment will come out of it. Who knows what you may decide later on. There is no need to worry about it.”

  I felt that he could see into my soul. He said more which made it all seem very light-hearted and non-serious, just a game – I could receive this gift of a necklace now if I wanted it and it was just that, a gift for the moment. I decided that I would like to have it – I did not want to miss out if gifts were being given away! So I let him put the mala around my neck and then he gave me a spiritual Sanskrit name – Anand Devika – which he said has the same meaning as my birth name, Angela. He said: “Angela means angel, doesn’t it? Devika also means angel – a goddess. Anand Devika means goddess of bliss.”

  He wrote my name with his pen on a piece of paper and signed it with his own signature in Hindi.

  I then told him I have studied the subjects Religion and Philosophy at college and I asked him whether I should go back and finish the last year of my university degree course. He replied, “Yes, it is good to continue and finish it. It will be helpful. Philosophy cannot give much, but it can give you a framework. It can give you a certain language to understand things, a certain clarity about concepts.”

  I went back to my place in the second row clutching the paper with Osho’s signature.

  I sat there trying to hear what he was saying to other people, but I was so overwhelmed by what had just happened.

  When I came out of the garden I saw the moon up above and people were standing around. The only way I can describe that moment was that it felt as though the moon’s light with all its beauty had fallen all around me. I felt so much bliss.

  I feel now that I am walking on a spiritual path – but I think I have always been – perhaps this is what I came to India for, just to acknowledge it.

  Saturday, 3rd July 1976

  Osho mentioned me in the discourse yesterday morning, after I had taken sannyas the evening before. He said, “Last night a young girl came to me who was very afraid. She said she was afraid to take sannyas because, she said, ‘It would be putting you before Christ’.” He did not say my name but he was looking at me over the rows of people.

  This afternoon I started to sew myself a Tibetan robe. An American woman called Sushila who works in the kitchen has given me a robe but it is too big for me so I have taken it in. Also, I bought some orange cotton material and I have drawn around the Tibetan robe belonging to Ritambhara, the Scottish girl who lives in the house. It is a simple pattern and ties around the waist.

  There is a sewing machine in the house which I can use. It is great fun to wear a robe. When I was in my teens I had a secret desire to be a nun which shocked and upset my mother. Now I can fulfil all these secret childhood desires in this lovely dream-like game! Many people wear robes here but some me
n wear only orange lunghis around their waists, or long pants.

  I will go back to the ashram to do Kundalini Meditation later this afternoon. I’ll stay in the evening for the music in Radha Hall which is played freely on instruments by the musicians – anybody can join in and play music on their own instruments, but the harmony and beauty of this spontaneous music is amazing. The rest of us can dance – everybody who is not playing instruments dances in the Hall. I love dancing. I have always thought that this is what religion should be like – with so much dancing and music and celebration. This is meditation as it should be – sincere but not serious. It is so joyful.

  Wednesday, 7th July 1976

  I am so happy here. Suddenly I have found a new freedom, a new joy in life. Now I can live in the present because the present is beautiful. There is a river outside which keeps on flowing. I want to be like this river and flow with life. For so long I have struggled to keep up with the world. For so long I have been trying to play a role – always rushing from one thing to another because I felt that I had to have a role, a part in society. I was a teacher. I had to be a certain person to fulfil other people’s expectations of me at the expense of my own true self. I had to be an actor in the play of life. Now here I can stop acting. I can be myself. I can let go.

  I love getting up early in the morning to go to the discourses – every one is so beautiful. I wish I had written about every discourse. I will try to recapture a few of the truths that Osho speaks about.

  He gives talks on all religions and philosophies, and all the spiritual Masters the world has ever known. He tells us to ‘surrender’ to life in all its fullness and beauty in the present moment – not to be always chasing after the future. He teaches that as the divine is within each one of us, at our central core, we are therefore already perfect – but since early childhood we have been conditioned by society not to see good in ourselves but to see bad, and we have suppressed so many of our natural feelings like anger and sadness that we were made to believe are wrong. Suppressed feelings are not lost – they are released in other ways such as violence, or else they stay suppressed and people become nervous, neurotic and tense.