The moon and the sun are travelers....A Primordial Voice experience

“The moon and the sun are travelers through eternity. Even the years wander on. Whether drifting through life on a boat or climbing toward old age leading a horse, each day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.”

― Matsuo Bashō

This story starts with a Heart Circle. It was the end of our weekend retreat and we had all gathered in a circle, to share our experiences of the wonderful weekend retreat we enjoyed during the last three days. It was Irina's turn. Irina, a lifelong clairvoyant as she introduced herself, who had as colorful a personality as her garments and always had interesting stories to share, from past life incarnations to mysteries of Tibetan bowls to auras & body chakras said that this circle wasn’t meeting for the first time, the meeting was not incidental, and she was in a way right. Every time I go to meditation retreats I see my fellow travellers travelling through time, and this time it was, again, a unique experience. After dwelling on the idea to host a primordial voice retreat camp with our dear friend Lada for almost a year, we finally decided to gather friends on the 20th of June and go amidst the serene Catskills mountains of New York for a weekend retreat.

 
Upon arrival at the Xenia Resort in Hunter, NY the beauty of the place amazed us. But it wasn’t just the serenity and the calm energy of the mountains: the resort had a beautiful river by their back door, and the whole atmosphere was enchanted by bird songs, and a big lawn hugged by huge green trees for us to meditate under. It was the first Primordial Voice retreat ever upstate NY, and I was happy that Lada was kind enough to give me a chance to share my master Osho’s dynamic meditation technique every morning during the camp. 

Our retreat had around 20 participants and many have already been practicing Yoga or some form of meditation for a couple of years. It was very tough to introduce Osho meditations into their knowledge system that seemed pretty much saturated with preconceived notion of what meditation is. The first day was hard. It’s very easy to recite 5 stages of dynamic meditation and play an hour long music but it’s also painful when you see people not following steps or not opening up because their mind would constantly question why the need for the chaotic meditation. So I had to take a difficult way and to talk for almost an hour - first on meditation, then on dynamic meditation stages. Certainly I would have been heavily judged and condemned by a regular Osho disciple for talking so long, but the reality was that the talk was needed, for them to trust the technique, to give their totality to it, to console the questioning mind and set it aside for an entire hour.

The first day of dynamic was a success: many had unexpected emotional releases, some found new silent space within themselves and some were amazed that the same Osho dynamic meditation they were explained and had practiced some time in the past was different: this time it gave them the experience of an inner change that never happened before. 

During our free time we hiked around the beautiful mountain and the Hudson river. It was amazing to see an old Ukrainian church. Nestled amidst the mountains, the church was different from usual churches; I felt an urge to go in and chant ‘aum’, remembering how Osho was explaining the hidden mysteries of temples and churches in his book “Hidden Mysteries” and how they reverberate the sound and were built for the purpose of meditation. 

We also hiked up the trails to have a view of the rolling Catskills Mountains. Some friends decided to sit by the Hudson river, sunbathing in total relaxation, and some decided to pamper their bodies in the sauna of Xenia Resort where we stayed. 

Many of us who never met Osho in his physical body always feel the absence of his physical presence. There is a sense of completeness and feeling of gratefulness whenever we get to see and meet people who have imbibed his energy and meditated
in his presence. I have met many Osho disciples who have been meditating for many years, listened to and read Osho their whole life and have decided to spread Osho’s message to the whole world. Each disciple has a different taste, different flavor and we get to see a different aspect of Osho’s teachings through them. Rarely we come across someone who has never known Osho or his teachings and would be teaching what he taught his whole life. It was amazing to find those teachings in Lada's Primordial Voice practice.

It was indeed a beautiful evening, the sun was still up slowly on his way to hide behind the mountains, and the birds were enjoying their singing flying from one tree to another, those tall huge trees that surrounded us. 

We sat in a big circle and Lada started her Primordial Voice practice with the words, “All our emotions are energy”, and soon along the hour long practice I found myself using sound to hit the energy centers, have spontaneous body shaking, and finally releasing the emotions through cathartic shaking and sound...it was beautiful to find a friend who through her own journey of meditation found what my Master Osho was teaching his whole life.

Lada’s technique used the primordial sound to release the tensions in the body and mind to help the energy descend to the heart. It was a blessing for me as it prepared everyone in the camp for the jump into dynamic meditation the next morning. The evening culminated with a beautiful night meditation in silence with the deeply penetrating sound of the tremendous gong.

When we were coming back to the city on Sunday afternoon, I was driving, looking constantly into the back mirror at the mountains going further and further away, and the memories of who I was started coming back.

Suddenly I remembered I just graduated, the
graduation ceremony was a day prior to our journey to the Mountains, and for many of my friends it was ‘the moment’ of their lives, and then I remembered there was a soccer whim in my entire Facebook friends feed, and I wondered: it was so different up there, with no internet, with trees, with birds, with the river and with people and their hearts, some open, some closed but all gathered together to meditate and share their energies. The weekend was an experiment, and we all knew that soon we would all go back to our everyday lives, usual stressors of life and constant friction of energy to deal and solve them, but we were ready to experiment and see if we can open up to new space within us, silent and loving space which we can carry back home.

As I look back at the beautiful retreat, I feel like expressing my heartfelt thanks to Alex who had dedicated his life to learning the quantum healing & understanding the energy channels and gave us a taste of Su-jok therapy, our hosts at Xenia Resort who catered to all our needs, gave us healthy vegetarian meals and a space for our meditation practices.......

              

....to Lada who shared her beautiful technique of Primordial Voice and to all the beautiful fellow pilgrims of love and peace who dedicated their time and made commitment to come to the camp to open their hearts to a new dimension, new journey in their life, and to the yoga teachers Yogi Anna and Laxmi who dedicated their time to help us learn new yoga postures and balance the energy flow.

I have heard, it is the disciple who is desperately seeking and running around but it is finally the Master who finds the disciple, and not the other way around. The amazing experiences that were happening to the friends in that field where we practiced Dynamic meditation and Primordial Voice had nothing to do with us, the energy was coming from beyond, and when I was running around jumping with the drum beat, running, chanting the mantra ”hoo” pushing everyone to take the leap beyond their limits, I felt my master around, his presence was blissful, satisfying and soothing, always in my heart. And I am very happy that he touched many people's hearts in this camp, many tasted his meditations and are ready to take a leap into a new journey in their life!!

A short video from the Osho Dynamic session on day 2 of the retreat!!

Escape into Life : Memoirs of Saint Lucia

It often surprises me when i remember my childhood days, every once in a while a relative would visit our parents and ask me what i would like to become when i grow up, their expected answers clearly visible in their faces and my dilemma of having to at least answer them in front of my parents. And the funny thing is after 30 yrs i realize the most important discovery that to do nothing in life is the greatest doing.

 This winter there were 3 snow storms in the last 3 weeks. The last one had just visited us a day ago leaving Danbury all white and dark. It was one of those not so busy ICU days. We had a mortality this morning and witnessing the family members cry out at the loss of their loved one had infiltrated all of us there but as the day passed everyone got used to it, as an usual ICU day. Here in ICU, every day people pass away and every time it happens there are cries and sobs from the heart, often touching me, making me visualize my own day, as death is the only reality after life, everything else is ever changing, from one 'now' to another 'now' with millions of possibilities in each 'now'. I was talking with a Surgery resident Rachel who asked about my weekend plans and as we were discussing how post-ICU days pass by sleeping and waking up to eat and then sleeping again, we touched topics about doing nothing. Rachel was used to doing something, going to the city the whole day and sleeping the minimum hours, and she told me it was a skill she learned as surgeon. And i had to tell her about my one month i spent not so long ago, a month doing nothing, a month in a little village in the middle of no-where, a month in saint lucia.

The month in Saint Lucia became more and more beautiful as days passed by, in contrast to the busy ICU days. It was early January, after the first week of 2014, we had seen a couple of snow-falls already in Danbury, we had made plans to escape to this tropical island almost a year ago and despite not being able to take our little Ava with us, we were already imagining ourselves on white sands beneath palm trees.We had rented a studio with kitchenette, thanks to our friend Manoj who actually had inspired us with his facebook pictures of the place where he stayed teaching medical students for a year.It was minus 8 celsius in NY city the day we took our flight. Getting off the plane in st. lucia with all our layers and down jackets and being welcomed with warm air was quite a surprise. We were soon surrounded by 10-12 local people all asking if we need taxi. We decided to walk to our hotel, not knowing how far it was, we were told five minutes walk, but it turned out it was five minutes by taxi. Nonetheless we walked and soon we came across the ocean alongside the road, the water hit the rocks ashore and splashed us with cool mist, out first welcome and our first touch of love from the ocean. As days passed by this love grew deeper, the bond became stronger.

 It was a small village in the island. The only place with an international airport in the island.The very first day we went out to the nearby ocean by the reef which was five minutes walk from where we stayed. Finally my little bird was happy, she blooms in the ocean, she merges with the ocean and her happiness reminds me of my happiness when i trek to mountains. In the days that followed, we took public bus and went around the island( which was 200-400% cheaper than the taxi), visited a big city, Castries, where we bought fruits, vegetables, groceries and were surprised to find a subway restaurant. We visited a Nepali friend who lived in a tourist-rich place called Rodney Bay, had some Nepali lunch with his family and returned back to Vieux Fort. We then went to nearby beach where we swam, relaxed under palm trees. We found a beautiful village about 10 mins drive north, Laborie, where we spent some of our most beautiful days. And there were days when we just stayed indoors, watching movies and sleeping. It used to rain for 5 minutes and then the sky was clear for a few hours and then shower for 5-10 minutes, the tropical weather was hard to predict but the rain was always welcomed in the hot sunny days.


One of the beautiful experiences was visiting a Rastafarian in La Tille waterfalls. He had lived in the nature reserve for many years now. He was vegan as he was a Rastafarian and spending time with him, talking about his views about religion, about corporate culture which he called ' babylon' and about the ultimate heaven 'zion' was all very very interesting. He was blended with the trees around, he loved his trees and wanted to touch their branches as he walked around, the touch he said was healing, was connecting him with the nature. He was the man Osho talked about in his discourse on Bauls, the 'adhar manus' the original man, the natural man. I remember OSHO talking on nature and he reminded me of it.

Osho says “If you live with nature — with trees and rocks and the sea and the stars and the clouds and the sun — you cannot be unreal, you cannot be phony. You have to be real because when you are encountering nature, nature creates something in you which is natural. Responding to nature continuously, you become natural.” He has a waterfall by his hut, has coconut trees, banana trees, sour-sop tree, mango trees and almond trees around.He was telling that his friends who studied with him have become lawyers, doctors, politicians and sometimes visit him for a few hours to dip in the waterfall and tell him that they want to live in peace like him but don't have time.He was living in the nature, he rises with the rising sun and sleeps with the rising moon, he had an air of peace around him, he was perfectly at peace and happy with himself. 

We spend some days hiking up the hill, Moule-a-chique which would then give us a view of the whole island, the horizon and the blue ocean meeting each other. Our hike was playful, birdie would take pictures of chickens, of trees, collect leaves, her childlike innocence and playfulness and my insistence to reach the top of the mountain always made the trip wonderful despite an hour long uphill hike. And the view from the top was the reward, the vastness of the ocean, views of both the Atlantic ocean and the Caribbean sea were amazingly beautiful. Our days were unplanned, we would just go out take a bus and spend the day either on a village beach swimming or go out exploring new places, one of which led us to the great Pitons. And riding back in a truck from the Pitons along a windy mountain road, an adventure to remember for long.

When i was telling Rachel about our days in St. Lucia she told me places like these are great if you want to do nothing for a week or two. And thats exactly we were planning to do. To do nothing for as long as we could before we had to return back to normal life, which as i look again and again isnt so normal. We are born, we grow, we study, we acquire skills to make ourselves happy. Humanity isnt so regressed that we live just to survive, to eat, make love, sleep and indulge in thoughts of future plans. We live to be happy and blissful. And all of us are pursuing this happiness, we look for it in our relationships, in our job, in our possessions, in our career, in our goals and we plan and then chase all our life to realize we had it all along, had we not chased for it we would live with it. Our days in Saint Lucia not only reminded us of how beautiful life can be, just living, waking up, cooking, walking to the ocean, swimming, sleeping, being one with the nature, with the trees, the ocean the sun...our friend Manoj had warned us that it will be boring after a week, and i realized after a month that i finally was accepted by the ocean, its waves, i began to feel safe, an unknown trust surrounded me when i met her..
i began to feel the oneness with the ocean, it was suddenly a joy, a constant invitation to merge in, and it was already time to leave..the oneness will invite me again and again, the same ocean in different banks, we are lovers now, we will meet and depart to meet again, at some shore, in some life...

Osho Mala , Sannyas and Laborie Village

It was a hot day, we were lying on the white sands after a short swim in the blue Caribbean sea. I was learning to stay afloat and was remembering Osho's "floating-dying meditation" . Everything around was alive, the deep blue sea, the coconut trees dancing in the wind, the village was quiet, occasional local passerby would hint at us with smoke asking if we would enjoy marijuana , I would simply say no and would be pushed back to my past memories, those days of zero gravity and the day when it happened in meditation. I come back to herenow, to the vastness of the sea and begin to wonder- what pulls somebody into meditation? is meditation a hobby or a necessity ? is it a philosophy or religion ? or is it an urge, a tremendous curiosity to find the unfoundable, to delve into the mysteries of life and death, a constant itch to solve the unsolvable like for those professors in search of the Higgs boson particle.

I remember when I had my first meditation camp. It was about 10 years back. Right after I returned from the ten days silence retreat I had to keep the experience within myself for many weeks. I was not convinced I would make sense to any of my friends. They would have understood peace of mind, concentration of mind, praying to god for brighter future but how would they take if I said I was in two places at the same moment, I looking at myself from a distance, what would they think If I said I am happy without a cause, the silence floating and sounds would be like ocean waves on the vast sphere of silence and would they have been motivated for meditation if I had told it was a feeling of utter completeness as if I didn't need to study or achieve further, life was happy then and there? 

Things have changed since my first experience of silence. Life has taken me through many twists and turns along its road, and friends have come and gone. I am now surrounded by sannyasins who have

become friends , meditators and followers of Osho who carry the sharpness of mind that one feels while reading any of Osho's books, and friends who carry the love and compassion that one sees when one looks into eyes of Osho..but I still get questions, why we meditate? do we know why sannyas? why Master ? why commune? why red clothes ? why mala ? the questions that were there ten years ago are still there and now being part of world of meditators the questions have become more deep and specific. These are not my questions, these are questions asked of me, over and over again by friends and sannyasins...

I remember listening to Osho in Hindi . The discourse was later translated to English and published as the book-"Hidden Mysteries". Somewhere in the beginning of the book he said,  "Suppose we have a key in our hands. We cannot directly understand the purpose of it from the key itself, nor is it possible to imagine from the key itself that a great treasure is likely to be revealed with its help. There is no hidden indication in the key regarding the treasure; the key itself is closed. Even if we break it or cut it into pieces, we may find the metal of which it is made, but we cannot learn anything about the hidden treasure which the key is capable of revealing. And whenever such a key is preserved for a long time, it only becomes a burden in our life.........It can be understood this way. Radio waves are passing by all around us, but they cannot be picked up without a radio receiver. Tomorrow, if there was a third world war and if all technology was destroyed but somehow a radio receiver was luckily left intact, you wouldn’t want to throw it away. Though you know that you can’t broadcast, or tune in to any program, or even find a technician to repair it, you wouldn’t want to throw the radio away.

After several generations in your family, if anyone were to ask the use of the radio, none of your family members alive then would be able to reply. They might only say that their fathers and their forefathers were insistent on its being preserved, so they continue to keep it. Their forefathers never told them what it was for, they don’t know its use and so it is of no help to them; even if that radio is dismantled nothing could be known. By opening the radio it couldn’t be known that some time in the past music and talks could be heard through it. The radio only used to act as a receiving station for some happening elsewhere, but it could pick up the waves and act as a medium to present them as sounds to listeners".

24 years have passed since Osho left his body. I am not sure how many hundreds of years will pass since this world will see a master so fearless and radical , so compassionate and rational as Osho. His teachings are so multidimensional that often his followers catch only one dimension of his teachings and lose the original sense of the teachings. Rational thinkers and sannyasins with western set of mind often see the scientific dimension of his teachings. I have often caught them saying- " You can wear a

mala and robe, it is your choice, a matter of individual freedom" And there are sannyasins who see mala, robe, pictures of master, rituals, temples as keys to unlock the mysteries , they don't want to discard the key because they still have the lock, rest of the sannyas world are carrying keys or threw the keys away because the locks were lost in time and space. They are condemned as 'devotees' and criticized for trying to make Osho movement of meditation into an organized religion. I can see Osho's efforts from the 1960's, his attempt and his dilemma and later how he reluctantly started "sannyas". It was for him synonymous to restarting 'temples', 'rituals' , the same thing that was happening all around in the name of religion. His challenge was immense. there was every possibility that his sannyas, the mala, his picture in the mala would some day be turned into either part of an organized religious rite of a dutiful devotee or a matter of individual freedom. But it had to be started, it was a key whose lock was around, Osho was the lock and he still is.

Unfortunately very few of his disciples knew it before he left his body and what happened after he did and is still happening is nothing but a big joke. Carrying around an old radio without the knowledge of radio waves or frequency to catch a music station will only be heavy weight around the neck. Many sannyasins rational enough threw the old radio and are happy about it and write daily in media blogs and Facebook about Osho himself reducing the need for wearing mala. They find many discrete
cuttings of his talks to support their ideas and would make a lot of sense. But the radio waves are there, will always be there, and radios will always be made. Masters have come and will come in future, they will have different ways to show how to connect to those waves but the game between master and disciple will continue, the ritual will continue, it has to continue, the mystery & the Master, the urge to merge with the oceanic energy-field, the mala and sannyas , the mad intoxicating experience between Master and disciple...

"I leave you my Dream" - Osho movement in America

“America needs a buddhafield, strong buddhafield. Buddhafield is an energy field, where when you enter, your energy gets transformed, where you can feel some transcendental energy, where God can be provoked, where meditation is natural, you just close your eyes and sit down in a corner of the buddhafield and you are in meditation.”
Swami Anand Arun, , June 2010

I am reminded of those days in my childhood, growing up in a small village in East Nepal - I used to spend hours alone in green fields with my cow Gothu. She was very kind and was my friend for the time until we left the village and went to the capital city Kathmandu. My parents took good care of her, milked her every evening and during the day I used to take her out into the fields to graze. I used to sit down on the grass for hours gazing at the white clouds changing their shapes in the vast blue sky, and sometimes vanishing into the sky. Sometimes I used to stare directly at the sun for long to see if I could find out if the sun is on fire. The more I watched the sun, the more it became darker until I would see a dark sun; then I would look around, everything would be dark: the trees, the field, Gothu,- all seemed dark, as if suddenly it was a pitch black night.

When our Master Osho left his body, similar thing must have happened. The sannyasins that were being showered with divine light in Osho’s physical presence went into a sudden darkness after his death. And in this panic many sannyasins rushed to find every little source of light they could find. Many sannyasins joined different living gurus of different traditions and there were many who decided to hibernate in their own solitude seeing His death as the end of everything. However, there were some who were connected with him before his death, despite being thousands of miles away from his physical presence. These few Osho lovers continued the Caravan. Even after leaving his physical body, Osho continued to shower flowers onto them, and their fragrance attracted many new bees who were searching Osho in Osho’s books, his meditation techniques and his discourses.

 

I had read a few books of Osho and had been meditating for several years but the experience of feeling his presence changed everything. My life was divided at that very moment into past, which became meaningless, and present & future, which were to be blissful and adventurous. It happened in Osho Tapoban- a buddhafield where every tree, every flower, every rock was in meditation, and during evening celebration it felt like they were all celebrating with us. The pull of energy was intoxicating and hypnotic.

It is 6 years now since that timeless experience. The experience has remained as an undercurrent inspiring me each day to create a similar space in America. I have been in this country for nearly 4 years, trying to understand people, their choices, their desires, their inspirations and their frustrations of everyday life. Being a physician trained in Western Medicine, I am constantly in contact with people here, their depression and their hopes, their beliefs and their misery.

Many Osho lovers here in the US have asked me and argued with me in the last few years about sannyas. They argue what change it would bring in their lives if they took sannyas- since they meditate regularly and love Osho immensely and keep him in their heart, what difference would changing name to some fancy Sanskrit name and getting a mala with Osho’s picture in it make. I met an Osho lover who was sharing her experience after attending a camp facilitated by Swami Arun here in the US. She was telling me how Osho is against rules, and why we should stop wearing robes and malas. I also met another Osho lover who had been meditating and following Osho for 12 years, but recently felt like being a sannyasin and ordered a mala online from Osho Viha. It was very depressing for me to see such a powerful esoteric phenomenon, sannyas, being reduced to an online shopping experience. It felt like buying a lover from eBay, anyone who is in love would understand, it would be like making love to a prostitute. And Osho has spoken many times on various occasions how he would not be able to work upon anyone without their permission, without surrender, without sannyas.

Osho’s last words have been said to be, ‘I leave you my dream”, a dream to make the whole earth a buddhafield. To create a milieu for sannyas, to taste the experience of energy field of Osho mala - something more than household daily meditations is needed. A buddhafield is needed - an energy field created by a group of people synced in their hearts , in total love and trust with an enlightened Master, singing, dancing, meditating together . It’s a place where heart takes over mind and mysteries of the beyond start to reveal.

We have to create this buddhafield in America. And more than money and space, a group of people is needed; people who care less about money and space and more about melting with Osho and expressing his message through meditations, through music, through dance and laughter. We need friends who are ready to fly with Osho.

I have been helping our small center - Osho Sadhana Meditation Center in Astoria, New York for the last few years inviting people, sharing meditation techniques, books, cds on Osho meditations. And there have been many beautiful Osho sannyasins - Sw. Arun, Sw. Vedant, Sw. Keerti, Ma Jyoti - who were coming to help us grow here in America, to inspire us to meditate and spread Osho’s message. And after 4 years of inspiration, I finally feel the time is NOW. After our recent visits to Ithaca and meeting beautiful people who were ready to jump into a community of loving, growing, meditating people, after the recent July camp where many people new to Osho expressed their desire to be in a community of Osho lovers, I feel ….

My beloved Swami Arun has been coming every year with a beautiful flower and some seeds from Tapoban, to share the fragrance of a buddhafield with us. Every year he would tell us about the flower, show us the seeds and go back with the flower and the seeds, hoping someday we will prepare the soil for the seeds to be sown. For years, we have been carrying Osho’s torch here in America talking about the flower, talking and spreading stories about the flower, our whole year would be spent on discussing how beautiful the flower was and how we lack such flowers here in America and how we can invite Swamiji again to feel, see, smell the fragrance of the beautiful flower again next year, not caring about the soil at all. But things are changing, and change is happening very fast. The soil in America is now getting ready for those seeds again. Many new Osho lovers are feeling the need of a strong community to meditate, sing, dance and live together. Many Osho lovers are ready to fly with him. Soon we will have flowers in this land arid of meditation; soon we will spread fragrance of the buddhafield all around the world from here.

I am sharing this beautiful video, watch it with an open heart, it’s where we are now, it’s where sannyas is here in America and it’s where it is going. Time is coming when we will be inviting hundreds of people to festivals of Osho meditation and music. Soon artists, musicians and seekers will flock from all around singing...

Osho, with you, we fly , we fly ….Osho, with you we fly, we fly….

Paradise away from paradise : An Osho experience

Ever since coming to America from Nepal two years ago, I have missed my paradise. My paradise where birds sang Osho songs, where trees sat in za-zen and where the rolling mountains around vibrated with pristine energy. My Tapoban, my moments spent there, silences, wild ecstatic free space within and frequent random visits by beloved Osho during meditations, during Samadhi sittings – memories of my blissful days back in Tapoban would overwhelm me from time to time here in America. And to remind me of what I lost, once a year Swami Arun would come to America with lots of Osho energy and love to share and to tease me with the taste of the paradise. His brief visits would ignite in me a desire to create a Tapoban in America, and this hope to have a living, vibrating Osho ashram in America has been floating in my heart for long now.

Once one has tasted the bliss of living in a Buddha-field, one is constantly craving for the experience. I was lucky this spring to have such experience again here in the U.S. It was spring again, outside and inside. Flowers were blooming, hills were smiling with lush green trees, and birds were singing their welcoming song as we drove towards Ithaca, NY for a 3-day Osho meditation camp.

The first evening over 30 people gathered in this beautiful meditation hall on premises of the Foundation of Light – a vibrant ashram maintained by Melissa who was welcoming everyone with a deep loving embrace. We started with introduction of Osho and his revolutionary meditation techniques and ended the evening with a prayer. There was a new medicine Buddha prayer, “Teyate Om Bekanze, Bekanze, maha Bekanze… “ sung by Ma Pratiti and repeated in acapella, and I found myself humming  it everywhere  for the entire time . That night the sky was clear and I could see stars that are rare around the city because they are masked by city lights. There was silence and beauty in this place Ithaca, and the excitement of anticipating Osho meditations the next morning overwhelmed me as I went to bed.

The next two days were wild, reminded me of Tapoban where time flew in dancing, rejoicing, singing together which brought a dynamic silence within. There were times when every participant melted into a single vibrant group energy playing together in joy and bliss. I met with sannyasins from the time of Osho: swami Akul who used to open the car's door for Osho as he arrived for morning discourses; Swami Shanti Lou and his beautiful wife who lived and took care of Osho in Kips castle in New Jersey; Ma Usha who was around Osho through all the years in Poona I, Rajneeshpuram and Poona II; and finally Ma Pratiti who brought back the fragrance of those beautiful Poona I days with Osho into the buddha-hall in Ithaca. These are experiences which cannot be explained in words. They can be lived, they can be sung and they can be dreamt. There were friends from Quebec, Canada, Ohio, Montreal, Boston, Washinton D.C., NJ, NY, Connecticut and many from Ithaca itself. Many of us had never met before but eventually bonded as closest friends in just two days: maybe Osho magic floating all around was pulling us together. On Sunday, the last day of the camp, when we all had to part, nobody wanted to leave! We were standing in a circle outside praying that we get to meet again and relive the magic.

The lives each of us had lived back home were in sharp contrast with the bliss we just experienced.  I then felt like everyone’s heart was feeling what I felt, a deep desire to live in a Buddha-field, to walk without legs, to fly without wings, to live in Master’s presence and dance with him every day.

It started as an idea to get together and share joy with Ma Pratiti and few sannyasins who had lived in Osho's presence started as an idea , and ended up with 3 beautiful days of bliss, sharing and bonding with many open-hearted , lovely people. I was happy to sync with my people finally,  I felt hope, I see it happening some day soon.

Osho Sannyas- Initiation into freedom

As I was cleaning my closet yesterday, I stumbled upon an old diary . Going through it I found pages which quote my experiences in my first  seven days Osho meditation camp in Osho Tapoban, an international meditation retreat ashram in Kathmandu, Nepal.This is how it read –

“This is the second day in the Osho Tapoban and it was a very long day….so long that I don’t remember what happened in the morning and afternoon. Its ten in the evening now and I have mixed feelings, or no feelings as if water was poured over me and washed everything over me and now in the evening I am already dry and there are no recollections of either the water or the dirt that was washed…..

Osho has strange techniques of meditation but everything he is suggesting us to do in meditations is theoretically very much linked to what I have read in his books. And celebrations in the evening are so joyous around here. We celebrate as if this were our last moment on earth and this thing is transforming me…..slowly….it feels very good….it has never happened before, as if a heavy weight in me , I was carrying for years, has been lifted off…and for this my love for this man Osho is growing .

And about this small commune here….people are keeping a distence from new-ones like me. Those who are staying here as sannyasins have long hairs and beards J) …some do have compassionate eyes, others seem to be confused about why they are there….and over the day many times I feel like leaving my world and entering into this world of sannyasins forever but when I see these sannyasins living as family , with the same bondage of the social relationships , same jealousy, same gossiping on the breakfast table , same heirarchy and respect to the higher and neglect to the lower , same subtle waves as of the rotten world which I so much yearn to abandon, I don’t see any impulse to do so now…..but I don’t know…its been only two days here….may be someday in these seven days , something suddenly, a satsang and I get transformed into a sannyasin, living in this celebration forever, living with Osho forever…

I am realizing, my very thought of being enlightened is troubling me. During Vipassana , I had made up my mind for some more births before it would happen but as I started reading Osho books, enlightenment as he said is a phenomenon of milliseconds….and this has made me anxious, has agitated me to start running after it …..

I was going towards right direction…..was afraid because I could see nobody walking with me towards there…..and in that fear I have come here in Tapoban…..i feel good though, the very nature of meditation here being celebration, I feel nice to celebrate, dance everyday and every evening…..and it may take many lives for liberation but who is going to ruin that many lives , I would meditate and celebrate this way as many lives it takes….and I would try to be free, like in my childhood, playing and pondering in solitude….i would love to celebrate and be free wherever I am……”

I don’t have further notes written during those seven days camp . It is obvoius why . There simply was not any need…the questions were slowly vanishing and the camp was going more and more crazy as the energy built up , the celebration were more ecstatic and I ended up becoming an Osho sannyasin , Swami Dhyan Saurav, on the last day , it was Guru Purnima evening ,July 29^th, 2007……as I remember back the camp now , 4 years ago, it was one of the most beautiful weeks of my life….

- Swami Saurav

Jennie said she wanted to marry me

 I went close to  her….touched her hands, her hands were happy to get my touch….then I asked her how she was….she was humorous, she said she felt so great that she would have sex with me, I smiled , and was surprised she could make me smile…then she looked into my eyes, I wondered if she could see what I see…those eyes were wise and sharp , like her, beautiful ….and then she said, I had a lovely presence , and that she would marry me , and then almost waited for a while for me to say something, there was silence for a while and then it was broken by laughters from both of us…..

Jennie is 96, she is almost blind in both her eyes, she says she sees me in outlines , in form only…but she has good ears…I meet her every morning , she came to my care, with low blood pressure….she has two small pipes taking oxygen fram a cylinder to her nostrils, she says she is ok with that, used to it now, and every morning when i see her i feel like combing her hair, she doesnt even know that her hair is not combed, she has no wish for a mirror anymore....but she has seen it all, all those 96 years , i see in her eyes and still the eyes are ready for anything new, alive....we shared , she would talk about the war of turkey and iran and how her fathers had to suffer from turks….and sometimes she said how wild she lived her life , she fell in love with a musician in her 90’s and then quit smoking after 60 years of smoking…..once she asked me if I had children , I said I wasn’t even married, first she said good, then she added , learn to swim first before you jump into the river…it was a strong statement….but I have always wondered where the river starts and where it ends in this short life, it is always flowing and we catch it in between….it was a torture but I had to say goodbye to her, and even arrange papers for her discharge to some assisted living homes, she said she hated being alone and I said she is so jolly, she will make new friends there….i felt a strong wind inside me as I was saying her this, I saw myself there , alone, all the people whe were with me either died or went far away, or were in some similar homes themselves….Jennie would leave soon , go back to her assisted living facility, where she would look back at her life and wonder where all the years go , and ask herself, will they come back …..but I met her now, and she is beautiful, I see life in her, I still see hope in her, hope to live and to enjoy senses , when she eats, when she listens to the music in this small disc player by her bed, when she speaks  about her love life, she is full of life as much as I do……

I wished the night would never end

It was one of the most beautiful nights of my life. The more i spent time with her , the more i felt like sinking deeper and deeper into her beautiful energy. Her smile , the look in her eyes when we saw each other still surrounds me from within and without as i close my eyes and remember that evening.
She sat beside me , it was was a park , and people had gathered for the evening, some singing , some playing, all bemused  with the water fountain at the center , and in that crowd, i could still feel in myself an isolation, an stillness that floated within me amidst the movement around.Then i touched her hands, felt her heart beat in her fingers and made my heart beat together with hers in synchronicity..... and we sat there for long , as i started to float in the air mingling with her energy , I felt like bowing down to her , how open she could be to someone she just met ......and then it happened at that moment, it was so beautiful, i thanked her so much inside myself...she is so beautiful....then she turned to look at me, our eyes looked at each other for long with subtle smiles on our faces, i knew that it was the most we could do to melt into each other...we could get more physically close, but that would be even more frustating than the bliss we were having with those eyes melting into each other....nothing like this has happened with me before and nothing of this sort might happen again, and i said to myself, i could give anything in the world for this moment now....

Monsoon Song

The whole atmosphere is filled with the wild croaking of toads in the pond by the side of my window. For days in this hot summer of 2011 , I fall asleep with the chorus of toads in the pond and the crickets in the trees around. The garden is greener than ever, with flowers of yellow, red and pink all around. The occasional rain that pours gives more greenary to the leaves in the garden in front. It is as if the whole nature is preparing for something, like they prepare a bride for the marriage. I am sitting silently by my window , watching the darkness outside and listening to the chorus , trying to figure out a meaning out of the chorus…but it is just a music, with no meaning…but it has a symphony and at times everything, the toads,  becomes silent for a while, then this silence is so penetrating. I sit for meditation again. Within few minutes , as I focus from the nares to my navel, I start feeling my body losing its boundaries and expanding above and sideways, it always happens so and I was not surprised …what surprised me after a while of watching inside was that I could no longer hear the outside croaking of toads and singing of crickets. Rather, I felt I was in a vaccuum and the sounds were there far away and I had a space of no sound between me and the outside chorus going on. Then something beautiful happened. Out of nowhere, I started to hear a ring in my both ears, the ringing was like the sound made by tibetan bowls..i wanted it to last for a while so that I can find their source but the harder I tried , the softer they became and finally faded and suddenly the outside sounds were all around me again. It was a strange evening, more so because I had to go through a very traumatic emotional event that morning ….but it seems the depth in sadness is more deeper than that of happiness…that day I felt like I swam to the depths of myself which I had never swam before…

Do you really want to be free ? - Osho on Freedom

He asked me again, “ Do you really like to be free?.....are you free from your place, from your parents, from your profession, from your lover….? ”  …and I kept silent….i realised where I was and it was the second time in recent times I have been confronted with these questions. The previous time was in the Shivapuri mountain during my dialogue with Om baba and this time Tathagat swami , one of my dearest friends, teachers was asking me, looking at my eyes….as he was asking I was witnessing in my mind, my bondages, some material and alive and some abstract and unseen…..i started asking myself, why was I living….if the purpose was to learn few more things, earn few more money, buy some house, fall in love with some women, have kids with her, go out on vacations, go out on meditation camps once in a while and let myself drift slowly towards the destination which is death , then i am already a  living dead.....a corpse waiting for my cremation...

For experiencing even a glimpse of meditation tremendous energy is needed. For those who have never come across the futility of this kind of life which is a slow drift towards death, the question of seeking , of meditation never arises. They live their lives, and they are happy with their families, with their job, with having to earn and then spend on the pleasures of life and on the difficulties of life that come interspersed with the occasional pleasures...…for those who see the transiency in these shades of life, those who get bored with the repeating routines of life start their inner journey. But even with that inner search , there are laws, as the whole journey is about energy and energy moves with certain laws. Many of us who spend our valuable time out of our busy schedule, in doing some kind of meditation never take care of these subtle laws of bio-energy. We spend months , get nothing but some peace, some good relaxation and then either drop it or change to other techniques. There are two basic things to know- one is to accumulate energy inside us so much that it becomes a dynamic bomb inside us and next thing is to stop the wastage of energy thru many holes in our being, that we have managed to create for ourselves.

We get energy from food some of which goes to our physical body and some of which goes to our vital body . We breathe in air and prana which nourishes our vital body. There are many ways by which we lose this energy. It is lost by wrong exercise, wrong thinking, wrong feeling.....all in all a wrong way of life…When energy is accumulated in the body thru right awareness, right exercise, right thoughts and right feelings, this energy needs to move, i.e. either flow up or flow down…and this is when the intensity of the seeker comes in….the question whether one really wants freedom , really wants to realise the truth becomes pertinent …if the fire , the thirst is there then the energy will explode…but most of us are bondaged in our own ways….and many of us in the West still take meditation as a tool to make our lives balanced, joyful and to add to the harmony they have with their family and with animals and with the nature…….meditation surely will do that for them….but it is like using an aeroplane as a bicycle to ride on the road…..the flight of the body to bodylessness and the flight of mind to thoughtless Samadhi is simply in the myth books as far as the Western views on meditation is concerned…

I take a deep sigh. I close my eyes and see my mom who still thinks that I have ruined my life not settling down with someone and have a stable life…I see my father who is happy that his son became a doctor and not a painter or a musician writing and singing for the little money to get food and shelter….i see my friends who are waiting for me know what subject I will take after 3 yrs for specialisation, as if not studying after Masters degree is a crime against oneself. ….I look at myself who has been away for months, from someone I was was in love with and still fall sleep remembering her every night.....I feel chains all around and they seem to be, all created by me and for me …….and then I look at my Master , his luring eyes , telling me , urging me, scratching me from inside , to take the jump, to die and never come back as the old me.…I am gathering courage, I know if I am brave it can happen now and here , but still I feel like that little bird who just opened her eyes through the cracked egg-shell,watching the sky, so vast, but has no courage to spread her wings and fly….i still ask myself, do i really want to be free ?

Meetings with Babajis and Sadhus : The inner and the outer world

Once I heard Osho say , wherever you taste an ocean it will have the same taste. And my experiences with people of the path to realization have given me the same impression. Reading Krishnamurti or Osho or Shivapuri baba I find the same explained it many different ways, they indicate the same through their own understanding…the containers differ according to them but the content they talk about is the same….

Recently , due to the immense devotion of my beloved, Swami Arun towards Shivapuri baba, I decided to know this man …..i had seen his pictures and the glow and bliss in his face even at the age of 130 yrs attracted me to pursue him….Following him, I went to the hill-top of the Shivapuri hill where it is said he lived for many years after his enlightenment and his travels around the world…..

It was on the day of Buddha Purnima, the birth-day of Gautama the Buddha that we, I and my  friend Ganga, chose to go to the place on the hill-top where the baba had lived…..we didn’t know the route but we had asked a few sannyasins who had been there before…After about two hours of uphill , already the serenity of the jungle, the sweet chirpings of the jungle-birds and the humming of insects hiding around the bushes filled us with a peace and tranquility we never imagined….we had still 2 hours up and we could imagine how amazing it would be there at the top….

For the last one hour of walk we met no one except birds , and this made me wonder if anyone was there on the top….we hadnt carried much food except some packets of raisins, a loaf of bread and some sweets made of lapsi , but Ganga was insistent that we should fast if there was no food and fasting would be nice for meditation as well….i was not ready for that intense meditation as her, but hoped somebody would be there at the top……There were roads bifurcating , and we had a hard time choosing which to take, but we were both following our instincts and we were talking about swamiji, about Osho, about life , about relationships and this made our journey very easy and comfortable…..

After about two hours in wilderness, we arrived to a place with a water reservior and a shiva statue in between the reservior….we were on the right path and after five minutes we reached an ashram….we were welcomed by a baba who was meditating in a dark room with wood-fire burning inside…he was Om baba….we were pleased by the reception…it was not yet dark , so we decided to climb up the hill to reach the top where Shivapuri baba had stayed……it was a half an hour walk up-hill …..as we reached the top and sat for meditation, white mists came dancing from the skies and covered us…for a minute or more, I felt I was floating in the clouds…and then they left , and I felt I was engulfed in their presence….i thanked the shivapuri baba..…..then we did a kirtan and then went down to ashram again…on the way we meditated for a while in a tree hole…the base of the two huge trees had fused and somehow made a huge cave inside them , where another baba, Todke baba had meditated for 40 yrs…we felt a very calm and soothing energy inside and were in silence for a long time inside the tree…..i indeed felt in close contact with the energy of the Shivapuri baba there inside.....let me quote some teachings of the remarkable god-realized man , the Shivapuri baba –

“Since we have our bodies to maintain, we have to perform duties –

i) Personal duty – To keep the body fit we have to use our external organs and we should use them wisely; that is we should use them as much as necessary. Seeing, hearing, speaking, touching, eating should be done only to the proportion required for the body and mind; no extra use should be made.

ii) Obligatory duty – Since we cannot live alone and need help of others, society is required. We have our duties to the family, to parents, children, to the society.

iii) Professional duty- Since we have to maintain ourselves, we must earn something and much take to some profession according to individual taste and capacityBut we should spend on owr own account only as much as necessary and use the balance for other purposes.

We must establish our life first by performing these three duties. Those who desire to realize the truth should make the moral and physical disciplines of three duties secondary and the spiritual discipline, namely Meditation, primary. Those who like to enjoy a happy life only should make the first three duties primary and meditation secondary.”

It is quite clear from my understanding of the words of Osho or Shivapuri baba or Krishnamurti that the human mind in itself has the quality of a mad horse and if we want the horse to guide to the stable , i.e. if we want to go beyond the mind , we need to tame the horse first, we need to work upon the horse first although the horse is not necessary at all for us…..and for this taming shivapuri baba talks of Right life, which constitutes sticking to fixed duties in life , performing them with reason instead of emotions and having no like or dislike for them, i.e. having discrimination in all actions and all emotions encountered by one. Osho also talked of purification of body, purification of thought, of speech, purification of the heart and of charities , of donating ones knowledge to help seekers on the path, donating 10% of the earnings  to the needful, and to the mystery schools….and we all know Buddha talked of samyak aahar ( right food ) , samyak byayaam ( right exercise) , samyak bichar ( right thought ) etc…they are not leading us to enlightenment or realisation but they are helpful to keep us in balance and harmony and tame the mind so that we can ask the mind to sit aside whenever we want.

We stayed in the ashram in the hill for 3 days. I lernt a lot from everybody and every thing there. I was inspired by Ganga’s one-pointed desire for enlightenment…I would joke that her very desire was the barrier but she couldn’t help otherwise. I also lernt a lot from Gaurishankar baba..he was 25 yrs but had left his home a few yrs back after some visions of deities start coming to him in his dreams. He had travelled to different places in India in search for answers and had come to the hill on guidance of some deity , as he said. I took a brief interview with him, and was quite skeptic about his experiences when he told he talks with the crows and the mouse and regarded them as messangers of God. But anyways, he loved the cows, crows and mice and used to feed them everyday..his love for the animals reflected on us too…he was very happy to get chance to feed the two of us , and I was inspired a lot by his overflowing love to everybody and everything in existence. The next day when me and Ganga were just wondering if the Om baba who lived in an another ashram nearby would ever come out of his meditation room, he appeared in our ashram. He sat in front of the fireplace where me, Ganga and Gaurishankar were sitting , feeling the warmth of the wood-fire in the cold and wet jungle. He looked at me with peircing eyes and looked at my mala. I could see a thought running inside him after he saw my mala. I then was prompted to trigger the baba, and I knew Ganga would also like to hear his views. We started our conversation in Nepali and I would translate in english to Ganga later.

I asked Om baba , what is your path ? He told me his path was that of a aeroplane. He asked me if I knew it. I honestly said ‘no’. He was more furious at my ignorance but it had no fire in it. Rather I felt nice when he was furiously looking at me, I was then and there, mind was still..i felt confronted by a Zen Master…..a subtle fear but trusting completely that no harm could come howsoever. He explained to me about the path of a pedestrian, about path of a car-driver and about the path of a aeroplane and that it is the fastest way to realisation of the self. He stressed on 24 hour continuous flow of meditation rather than 1 hr or two hr meditation per day. I then asked him, if he is in 24 hr meditation, he can stay in the city with his family , why he had to live a solitary life in the wilderness…he told me that the city gave him a lot of stress, the family gave him a lot of tensions and if he wouldn’t go down to put his hands on fire, he has known it once and abandoned it out of underrstanding…it convinced me…but still , it felt his spiritual life was not challenged , I asked him after 20-30 yrs of stay here , now he could easily go back and not get disturbed, but I saw a fear in him towards the usual social life…..he said about dropping everything, dropping every desire , then only coming to the wilderness and not coming to the wilderness to drop desires…when I looked into myself, I felt I had hundreds of desires still and I am not yet ready for the wilderness and aloneness that he was so much enjoying. He had a glow in his face and a presence around himself that could be felt from a distance. I finally asked him if he had become one with the divine . he honestly told me it hasn’t happened yet. He is waiting and watching. It was so beautiful. In the evening when I was translating it to Ganga, I went into contemplation myself, of the bondages I have in my life, of how fragile my will is , how I am influenced and disturbed for days when somebody I love doesn’t act the way I like…I felt faraway from the goal…..

I have been reading Shivapuri baba since my return from the shivapuri hill-jungle and he is penetrating me each day. I can clearly see where we Osho sannyasins diverted in the name of freedom , we almost tried to tame the mad horse with the electric shock, i.e. we are hoping to get a pure mind out of dynamic meditation alone but it is never going to happen. Discipline of the body ( by learning from the experiences of ones body, discriminating the need of the body from the need of the mind, giving a fixed schedule for sleeping eating, playing, disciplines the body) , discipline of the mind ( Shivapuri baba says- by dropping the negative i.e. doubt, fear, crookedness, greed, anger and adhering to positive – truthfulness, compassion, forgiveness, chastity, fearlessness and charitability according to the need of the time and situation and with the flexibility to change) and discipline of spiritual life through self-remembering or through meditation is needed to tame the wild horse called mind. Then only meditation begins.

As I am passing my days of waiting here before my work begins in an hospital in US , I travel everyday watching me and watching around. Everything in my life that has given me pain has come from my ego and further has strengthened my ego by my reaction to it. And every good times, be it of the ecstatic moments of holding hands with my lover or of the joy of being sucessful in any job I had taken , every pleasure , every joy had been of the ego and for the ego….every pleasure gave way for pain and every pain lasted for a while and then the desire for pleasure was there automatically….i can see it clearly and yet I know I can become a victim of the vicious cycle very unknowingly…and hence the need for awareness of everything in and out, of meditation, has become very important for me….to come out of duality of existence, of happiness and sorrow, of hate and love, of anger and compassion , of life and death will be the most difficult thing for me in days to come….and yet the me,  making effort to come out ,  is the ego itself…so the insistence of my Master Osho on let-go, as they say in Tao, wu wei.

Osho on the Mystic Shivapuri Baba

"All the scientists, even the great ones, have proved foolish in many ways outside their specific field. They behave childishly. Bennett was a scientist and mathematician of a certain standing, but he wavered, he missed. He started looking for another master again. And it is not that he remained with Shivapurieither…. Shivapuri Baba was a very old man when Bennett met him. He was almost one hundred and ten years old. He was really made of steel. He lived for almost one and a half centuries. He was seven feet tall and one hundred and fifty years old and still there was no sign that he was going to die. He decided to leave the body – it was his decision. Shivapuri was a silent man, he did not teach.

Particularly a man who had known Gurdjieff and his tremendous teaching would find it very ordinary to be with Shivapuri Baba. Bennett wrote his book and started searching again for a master. Shivapuri Baba was not even dead yet. Then, in Indonesia, Bennett found Mohammed Subud, the founder of the movement called Subud. Subud is a short form of Sushil Buddha-Dharma; it is just the first letter of these three words. What foolishness! Bennett started introducing Mohammed Subud, a very good man, but not a master…nothing even compared to Shivapuri Baba; no question arises about Gurdjieff. Bennett brought Mohammed Subud to the West, and started introducing him as the successor to Gurdjieff. Now this is utter stupidity! But Bennett writes beautifully, mathematically, systematically. His best book isShivapuri Baba. Although Bennett was a fool, even if you allow a monkey to sit at a typewriter once in a while he may come upon something beautiful – perhaps a statement which only a buddha could make – just by knocking the typewriter keys here and there. But he will not understand what he has written. The first book is by Bennett, an Englishman, a perfect Englishman. The book is about an absolutely unknown Indian mystic, Shivapuri Baba. The world has come to know about him only through Bennett’s book. Shivapuri Baba was certainly one of the rarest flowerings, particularly in India where so many idiots are pretending to be mahatmas. To find a man likeShivapuri Baba in India is really either luck or else a tremendous work of research. There are five hundred thousand mahatmas in India; that is the actual number. To find a real man among this crowd is almost impossible." Osho
  Chapter 16 - Books I Have Loved

"Just a few days ago I was reading the memoirs of a very rare man. He was a saint who died a few years ago. He lived for a really long time – almost one hundred and forty years. His name was Shivapuri Baba, Shivapuri Baba of Nepal. In his memoirs he tells a story. When he went to Jaipur a very rich man gave him a box full of notes, hundred-rupee notes. While in the train he looked into the box; it was full of notes and he wanted to know how many notes he had. So he started counting. In the compartment there were only two persons, Shivapuri Baba, a very old ancient man, at the time he must have been about one hundred and twenty years old – and an English lady, a young woman. She became interested. This old beggar was in the first class and was carrying a whole box of one-hundred-rupee notes?" Osho
Chapter 3 - Tao: The Pathless Path, Vol. 2

"This happened twice…again a few years later. In the East this is called “the transmission”; the energy can jump from one flame to another lamp which is dying. Even though such great experiences happened to him, Bennett was a wavering man. He could not waver and betray like Ouspensky, but when Gurdjieff died, then he betrayed. He started looking for another master. What a misfortune! – I mean misfortune for Bennett. It was good for others, because that was how he came to find Shivapuri Baba. But Shivapuri Baba, howsoever great, is nothing compared to Gurdjieff. I cannot believe it of Bennett. And he was a scientist, a mathematician…only that gives me the clue. The scientist has almost always behaved foolishly outside his own specific field." Osho
  Chapter 16 - Books I Have Loved 

"An idea came in her mind. She jumped up and said, “You give me half the money otherwise I will pull the chain and I will tell them that you tried to rape me.”Shivapuri Baba laughed and put his hands to his ears as if he were deaf. And he gave her some paper and said, “Write it down. I cannot hear.” So she wrote it down. He took it and put it in his pocket and said, “Now pull the chain.” Osho
  Chapter 3 - Tao: The Pathless Path, Vol. 2