Here in the ashram, we are encouraged to be true to ourselves as individuals, to value ourselves and accept other people and life for what it is so that we can grow into more balanced and more joyful human beings.
Meditation helps us to become aware of the divinity around us in everything – animate and inanimate alike. Even a rock is the divine which has fallen asleep. Like the Baul Mystics, Osho teaches that godliness is everywhere and we only have to open our eyes and see it. God is not sitting somewhere in the sky, but is all around us, and within us. This very Earth (in its natural state) is ‘the lotus paradise’ and this very body (each one of us) is ‘the Buddha’ – meaning ‘the awakened one’. How beautiful to see the world like this. To see the world like this is to wake up to a new way of being; to become conscious, to become enlightened, and to be respectful of everything in this wonderful universe.
So this is a lovely fairy-tale. I have become the disciple of a spiritual Master. It doesn’t even matter whether it is real or not – what is reality and falsehood anyway? As Osho says and as Indian philosophy teaches – everything in life and in this world is like a dream anyway – ‘samsara’ in Sanskrit − as every event slips away into the past, and only the present moment is real. And I am in it now. I love to listen to him speak and learn this new way of looking at the universe as a divine place and a divine play. It makes me appreciate my life and this present moment.
Osho has a sense of humour which is beautiful. He tells jokes sprinkled amongst the words in his discourse. In the discourse the other morning (which was a question and answer session), the last question to be read out was this: “Why am I so crazy about you?” He answered, “Because I am crazy. Crazy people are always attracted to me. Crazy people are beautiful. They are the only sane people in the world.” Everybody laughed.
In one discourse which I loved so much, Osho talked about the seven types of religion in the world. The lowest types are based on greed for Heaven and fear of hell – they are the religion of belief. Then there is the religion of the intellect, that of the scholars – mind-orientated – who study only the written word, become very knowledgeable but have no experience. The highest type of religion is that of the Mystics, based on intelligence, consciousness, meditation and bliss.
Tuesday, 13th July 1976
It was Gurupurnima day on the full moon; this is a festival celebrated all over India in July. On this day, Indians pay respect to their guru or spiritual Master, so many Indians came here for the day from all over India and the ashram was crowded. We had Kirtan – wonderful live Indian music and dancing, and lots of good food. There was an enormous celebration cake which was cut up into small pieces and everyone had a piece. Osho’s father was walking around giving out sweets to everyone. He is a lovely old man in his sixties who lives with Osho’s mother here in the ashram. There has been a lovely festive atmosphere in the air for about three days, because two days before the actual day, preparations were underway and decorations were being made. We all had a Darshan with Osho in the evening with live music played by the musicians.
I feel that here I can have a lovely time with so much dance and music and celebration, and also live my ideals of vegetarianism and meditation and spiritual longing. Here I can have both worlds. Religion does not need to be serious and sad and I don’t need to remain celibate. Osho is telling us not to repress our natural feelings and desires, but to live through them, to squeeze all the juice from life so that we live life to the full and nothing remains unfulfilled or unlived. He says that freedom of the individual is the highest value. We are free – but freedom means freedom for everybody, it does not mean that we should live irresponsibly or harm other people. We have to live as consciously as possible with awareness.
I have talked to some people who work inside the ashram. There are many types of work that people can do, including kitchen work and cooking, cleaning rooms and caretaking, gardening and construction work, typing Osho’s discourses which are recorded, office work, photography, silk screen printing for Osho’s book covers, and leading meditations and group therapies. When people have worked for a while and want to stay longer they are sometimes offered a room inside the ashram. There are not enough rooms for everybody though and many people rent rooms or bamboo huts outside.
Chapter Thirteen
Meditation and a Therapy Group
Saturday, 17th July 1976
I have just done a three-day therapy group called Intensive Enlightenment which I was advised to do by Osho. He gives this course to all newcomers. It was an amazing process.
In the ashram there are eastern and western techniques for spiritual growth. Meditation is an eastern method. There are many meditations that take place throughout the day in Radha Hall. Because modern man finds it difficult to sit silently, Osho has devised unique active meditations which release tension in the body and take us naturally into a state of stillness and silence. As well as Dynamic Meditation at sunrise and others I have mentioned later in the day, there is Gourishankar Meditation, the beautiful Prayer Meditation in the evening; Vipassana Meditation, which I did in Amsterdam; and Sufi Dancing which is almost like folk dancing in a circle set to beautiful devotional songs. Osho encourages us to experiment for ourselves and find the meditation techniques which suit us best as individuals.
The western techniques are the many therapy groups which people can take. They sound very exciting. Most of them have been introduced from the West by westerners who trained as therapists there. Psychotherapy is becoming popular, especially in America. The therapy groups involve techniques for human growth and consciousness. I was reading a book called The Primal Scream by Arthur Janov when I was in Amsterdam, and here in the ashram we have Primal Therapy to help people to resolve issues and dissolve traumas from their childhood. I think the participants also have to write a short autobiography so they can look at their life objectively. There are also Hypnotherapy, Vipassana, Tao, Tantra and Encounter groups (courses) which people can pay for and participate in if they want to.
However, Osho says that therapy groups are only a preparation for meditation, and meditation is the really important thing. He says that therapies can be helpful, especially for western people who need to be able to let go of repressed emotions and tensions in a supportive group setting. People really love the therapy groups. I think that Indians are more naturally able to go into meditation as it has been part of their culture for thousands of years.
I never knew that anything like these therapy groups existed anywhere. I think it is very exciting. I feel that I know nothing about myself and I want to learn. I would like to have the opportunity of exploring my own inner being. Osho says: ‘love thyself’ and Socrates has said that the most important thing is to ‘know thyself’. Osho says that in order to love others, we have to learn to love ourselves first.
I think I have never really loved myself. We are usually taught by all the religions to deny ourselves. Because of this I have never really thought well of myself.
It was very exciting to do the Intensive Enlightenment group. It has just finished. It was residential and food was included. We slept on mattresses at the top of Krishna House on the roof where there is a mosquito net all around.
It was a very structured process. From morning until night we sat with a partner (changing partners every few minutes when the bell sounded) and asking each other, “Tell me who you are.”
Each of us spoke for five minutes about ourselves and then we changed over. The other person was told to sit and listen in a mirror-like way making no comment and using no judgment. We exhausted the outer information about ourselves – our name, family, country and friends and then we found deeper insights: we started to talk about our feelings and emotions.
After a while I realised that personality seemed to be superficial – that perhaps these things I felt about myself are not really true – that there are deeper, more unconscious layers. W
e talked about our childhood – our experiences as we were growing up. I feel now that I have always somehow been acting a part and suppressing my real self.
We did Dynamic Meditation in the morning at six o’clock and Kundalini Meditation in the evening. We were not allowed to converse with the other participants at all in any other way so it was a very intense process and very tiring – it stretched us to our limits.
I have never talked about myself before so intimately to anybody, and I felt that I could go on talking forever. I have always thought of myself as stupid and weak. I found it wonderful that the other person should put so much trust in me by telling me about themselves. When the person looked into my eyes I felt immensely embarrassed at first. I felt that I was not worthy to be told all these personal secrets.
On the second day I uncovered some deeper layers of myself and I broke down in tears. I was embarrassed and I told the therapist in charge that I had better leave the group because I could not stop my tears. She took me aside and told me it was all right to cry, that previously I had been theorising about myself – asking and answering the question, and that this was not the way. She said that I had to go directly to my feelings in the present moment and learn to be in touch with my real feelings – not interpret them and put them through a sieve and sort them out as I have been doing all my life. She added: “There are a lot more tears where those came from.”
After that I was able to go a lot deeper into my feelings and I felt that I was uncovering layer after layer of myself, digging deep and finding feelings that I had hidden and pushed down – feelings that were crying to be released. It was wonderful to see that everybody in the group seemed to be going through a similar process, that everybody had hang-ups and fears and emotions they have suppressed – none of us were alone in that. As time passed we all seemed to be able to let go more and more and go deeper and deeper.
Now that the three days have finished, I still feel that I have only just scraped the surface of my inner being. I feel that I really do not know anything about myself at all any more.
I have always been afraid that other people will not think well of me. In this process I have learned to feel more and more at ease with people and to feel more trust in the other than I have ever felt before; I can see how vulnerable everybody else also is and that we all have the same problems. I would like to participate in this group process again another time.
After the therapy group, we had group Darshan with Osho. We were sitting in front of him and he asked the group leader, Amida, how the group was. She told him that a song was playing in her head, so he said, “Sing it,” and she did. I loved the song and so did everybody. This is what she sang:
‘I’m busy doing nothing,
Working the whole day through.
Trying to find lots of things not to do.
I’m busy going nowhere.
Isn’t it just a crime?
I’d like to be unhappy,
But, I never do have the time.
I have to wake the sun up –
He’s liable to sleep all day,
And inspect the rainbows,
So they’ll be bright today.
I must rehearse the songbirds
To see that they sing on key.
Hustle, bustle,
And never a moment free.’
Everybody laughed. I admired her spontaneity. Afterwards, we, the group participants – less than twenty of us – sat in front of Osho one by one and spoke about our experiences in the group. I told him that a lot had come up for me, especially about my childhood, and I said I could afford to participate in one more group, perhaps ‘Encounter’ or ‘Hypnotherapy’. He suggested ‘Hypnotherapy’ – a softer group.
Monday, 19th July 1976
By now I should have left Pune and been on my way up the west coast of India to meet my bus in Delhi to return overland, but I don’t want to leave here. Even though the monsoon rains have got worse, still I am enjoying it here so much. I have made so many new friends and I feel so close also to the people with whom I participated in the group therapy Intensive Enlightenment because we shared so much together. It is fun staying in the River House also. The water in the river has risen with the falling rain. In the evenings when it is not raining I sit on the river bank and meditate.
The morning discourses were in English until 10th July and then Osho started speaking in Hindi as there are so many Indian people also here. I do not go every day to hear them, but when I do it is like a meditation as I cannot understand the words and it is so peaceful and silent, sitting listening to him, and he looks into all our eyes as he speaks. The English and Hindi discourses are recorded and printed in books and sold in the bookshop here.
He says that in every age there are enlightened people on the Earth, and that there are many paths to the Divine – the closer we get, the more the paths at their heart become similar. He has talked much about Jesus and also about the gospel according to Saint Thomas who reputedly came to India. Not many people know about that gospel. He has talked much about Buddha whom he says is the greatest Master who has ever lived, and Zen which he says is the only living religion. He tells stories of ancient Zen Masters and Sufi Masters, of mystics and poets like Kabir, of devotees and singers like Meera, of saints like Saint Francis of Assissi, and sages like Zarathustra, and Mahavira of the Jain religion; also philosophers like Socrates. He loves Lao Tzu especially – the founder of Taoism who wrote The Tao Te Ching in ancient China.
The book, My Way, The Way of the White Clouds, which I saw in Amsterdam, is a book of the Tao. I love the teachings of Taoism which tell us to live in harmony with nature and to be at ease with ourselves, and, as I have written before, be like a white cloud floating wherever the wind takes us, in a let-go with life, rejoicing in freedom and living in gratitude, trusting in Existence and in whatever happens in this beautiful world. That is how I want to live my life. I think I wrote this in my diary when I was in Amsterdam, before I had even found this place. Then life becomes such a great adventure, such a relaxation and is a beautiful game.
There are only four of us women in the house, and two of the women have a boyfriend living with them here. I think they came here to Pune with their boyfriends. I have fallen a little bit in love with one of the men here who is about my age and is very good looking. His sannyas name is Shanti which means ‘peace’ in Sanskrit. He tells me he went to boarding school. I spend a lot of time with him when I am in the house.
Monday, 26th July 1976
I sat on the riverbank and wrote this poem:
The river flows,
the river flows and floats,
goes on forever –
but time stands still
and everything is moving
round and round in endless circles.
Tuesday, 27th July 1976
I am now feeling quite ill and I think I have got dysentery. In this season which is so damp, it is easy to get ill and two of the women in the house have got hepatitis. Their boyfriends are taking care of them. We do not have any fresh drinking water as tap water is not safe to drink. I usually drink boiled chai, or lemon grass tea all the time. Sometimes I have bottled drinks like lemonade. We wash up in the cold tap water though and perhaps that is why I have got dysentery. I might have got the dysentery through eating fruit or drinking the sugar cane or orange juice from carts in the street. It is poured into glasses that are often washed in dirty water in buckets under the table of the street barrows and stalls. It is so delicious though that I can’t resist it.
I have not booked for the Hypnotherapy group because I feel so unwell.
Saturday, 31st July 1976
In the afternoon I was feeling ill and lying down on my mattress upstairs when suddenly the police came bursting in. I think no one else was in the house. I did not know why the police were there, but I was friendly to t
hem and invited them in as I would have done in England, even though I was wearing only my nightdress! When they saw me at the door of the dormitory upstairs dressed like that, they were embarrassed and immediately turned to go down again, saying, “We are very sorry, Madam.” They then left the house.
When I related the story to my house mates later they told me that the police were probably searching the houses rented by westerners in the area for illegal drugs as they think that all westerners come to India to obtain drugs, like marijuana. Some western travellers take drugs in Goa. The ashram is against drugs as they are harmful to the body and destructive for one’s meditation. There is a notice outside the main gate saying that no illegal drugs or weapons of any kind are allowed inside.
Chapter Fourteen
Monsoon Floods and Inner Treasures
Sunday, 1st August 1976
The water in the river has flooded its banks! The river water came right into the house and flooded the living room and kitchen on the ground floor. Everybody had to help in rescuing things that were floating away – everything on the ground floor, including kitchen equipment such as saucepans and plates. All the cushions are soaked through and our clothes are wet as no washing dries in this weather. My dysentery is worse and I feel very weak. I hardly had energy to help rescue the things floating away. It is not possible to bail out the water as the river water is quite deep and we just have to wait for the water level to go down. We have to wade in and out of the house. It is not pleasant as the water is so dirty. This is horrific. Most of the time I lie on my mattress feeling ill as I don’t have energy to get up.
The Road East to India Page 16
