Finding Osho in Mount Shasta

The summit was so close and yet we had walked hours and it seemed as far as it was hours ago. The mystical stories that had surrounded the Shasta Mountain were majestically looking at us as we took one step at a time in the dusty and rugged mountain. We had no trails to walk on for the last 2 hours after we left the Horse Camp. Looking down and back at the road we took, we could see many smaller trails that came to a point where there were no trails. This reminded me of my Master telling us, there are many roads to the summit and sometimes they may seem going away from each other but from the top you see them merging and the art is to walk in one trail with constant awareness of the mountain top than to choose each different trail and exhausting our time and energy than reaching the summit. I have seen many friends, seekers, genuine seekers of truth, who have wandered in different paths, wasted so much of their life, collected small experiences on each path but remained very far from the ultimate experience of the summit...

...the day was harsh, a hot sunny day, dry as a bone, with no sign of moisture. The Horse Camp creek, the sole source of water up on this side of the mountain, dried out this year, and still in that dryness we could see some birds chirping in between small green bush between the rocks.... with no trails we were on our own, our only guide was the mountain herself...

That evening after we were back from the ascent, we were all sore, a beautiful sense of ache in all the muscles. Our dog, Munchkin, had her paws all red from walking over the heated rocks...small cute dog with braveness to ascend Mt. Shasta, reminded me of the epic Mahabharata which says when the ultimate time arrived, the five Pandava brothers started to climb the Mount Meru to reach the heaven in their physical bodies. It was so that only the purest of heart would reach, and legend has it that all the other four brothers died on the way but Yudhisthira - the eldest brother and a dog reached the mountain peak and through the doors of heaven...

It was mid-September in Santa Rosa, and our mornings and evenings were already getting colder. This month I had a long break in between my workdays, two weeklong days off in a month and one of those weeks we decided to explore the mysteries of the magical Mount Shasta. After calling many lodges and hotels in Mount Shasta, we found this was a peak season and every little cottage was booked until October. Then birdie found a place in San Francisco that offers a campervan, a smaller brother of an RV van, which is modified inside to have a bed, a storage space and a sink with tap and affordable at a price of $ 80-90 per day. This was all we needed to set forth to the wilderness of Mt. Shasta. Since we left San Francisco at around 2 and stopped by at home to load our pillows and food and supplies for the next one week, it was already 5 and we debated if it would make sense to reach late night. But then we said yes to the adventure and headed forth for an adventure. The highway Interstste-5 was a beautiful drive up North. In no time we found ourselves in Shasta Lake. We parked at a random campground that night and early next morning drove to Shasta. When we reached Bunny

Flat, a free undeveloped campground, we thought we were in the 1960s again. There were guys and girls in dry and dusty dreadlocks that looked like they were unwashed for months. Our arrival was the time for a Shaman circle ceremony in one of the groups. There were tents, may be 10-12 scattered over the small spaces in between the pine trees. There was no electricity or water, the place was extremely dry, not even a lake or a creek. But despite the lack of any comfort, the people there seemed to seek joy, to seek freedom, and to try to be one with the nature around them. We collected woods during the day and in the evenings we made fire...this reminded me of the days human beings lived in caves, and reminded me of Pilot Baba and his mystical journeys in the Himalayan caves, when he made fire and had talks with Mahaavatar Babaji and other enlightened masters. Our campfire was a small one, our visitors were only little chipmunks. But it was a very beautiful experience to relive the memories of past lives, in forest with fire, with tribes, with people who wanted to unite with the One, trying in their own ways.

After spending 2 nights at the foothills of Mt. Shasta we left for the rivers and waterfalls around Shasta. We arrived at Mcloud falls and rested at a paid campground at Fowlers camp. The next 2-3 days we stayed there and went around different waterfalls. The campground was with facilities: tap water, toilet, garbage bins and a pre-made pit for grill and fire. A completely different culture pervaded here. I could see fancy tents, huge RVs, people wearing baseball hats, expensive shoes, coming out with their fishing hooks, beer cans on the way to the waterfall, and most interesting was the fact that we were the only ones diving into the waters...99.99% of the people were there either to make fire, grill meat and drink and have fun or to fish or to take pictures of the waterfall. It was a sharp contrast to the people who wanted to merge with the earth and nature. Here I found people who wanted to take the most out of nature, to squeeze the juice out of life, a rape kind of attitude towards nature contrasting to the love attitude that pervaded at the foothills of Mt. Shasta. Again I was reminded of the movie ‘ Avatar’, it was staring at my face, and I always knew it was not a fairy tale story but a real everyday happening that was depicted in the movie, many of them who saw it as a fantasy movie or a high budget blowout just missed the point, similar to how the whole country had missed an enlightened mystic Osho who came here 33 years ago knocking at our doors to tell this, and was stoned, chained and then poisoned like Socrates was poisoned many centuries ago.

But the waterfalls were beautiful and the cold water was therapeutic to the soul. We spent most of our leisurely times listening to Osho’s discourses on Patanjali Yoga sutras...this has been in many ways a learning experience for both of us, a deeper exploration into the nature and ourselves, a loving encounter with Mount Shasta and the wilderness surrounding it. We did not meet any extraterrestrial beings there and neither the Lemurians come to talk with us as they have been saying in the many folklore stories about Shasta, but the silence and the stillness around the foothills was a mystery in itself, a deep sensitivity is needed to see the trees and the silence around them, to see the moon light between the trees, to see the setting sun and its rays permeating through the space, to see the mountain and its majesty...the air was thin, and it became thinner and thinner as we rose higher and higher up towards the summit, one step at a time, one breath at a time pushing me to look inside the mystery within...this was the real mystery of Mt. Shasta, this is where I found Osho in Mt. Shasta

Memoirs of Osho Sadhana: Osho's beautiful gift to me.

It was exactly seven years ago, during the full moon night of Guru purnima, I had my first meeting with Swami Anand Arun. I was taking a jump into Sannyas after a seven-day meditation retreat in Osho tapoban ashram. Although i had seen him for a week already, a white-bearded man who cracked jokes, was light hearted, and always talked about Osho, about Poona 1 days, on the day of Sannyas exactly 7 yrs ago today, he was there, I was there sitting in front, crying and laughing at the same time and suddenly Osho started echoing from everywhere, the big buddha hall full of his sound, my heart was overwhelmed with an urge to explode like a river before a dam, and i lost control of myself.....since then I have a heart to heart connection with Sw. Arun. And after this meeting during Sannyas, we met many times, mostly when he became ill with a flu or with a gout attack. Again the circumstances would be very mysterious, for days i would miss him at home and work and then a call would come, either from Swami Tanmaya or from Radhika Ma his caretaker at Tapoban or from Arhat Swami that he is sick and wants to see me urgently. I would be amazed, I would pack my bags with joy, say goodbye to my mom at home, and head to Tapoban. On those initial days after my first seven-days Osho retreat, my practice of meditation at home was intense, and I had a lot of questions but as soon as I would see him, all questions would disappear, a feeling of joy and silence would pervade within, and i would feel I am inside a large cocoon within the pulsating energy-field of Tapoban where everything is here and now and full of stillness.

When we met, swamiji (Swami Arun) would sometimes ask what my plans were for future, after

finishing my medical school. And I would always ask him back what is the best thing to do. In fact, there were three different occasions when I had three different answers. Once he asked me not to go abroad, particularly United States as he said I would have a lot of pain in life doing so, in a different occasion he told me I needed to help spread Bhagwan (Osho) in America and again in a different day he said I would be the happiest staying in Nepal and pursuing M.D. in medicine there.

After completing my two-step exam in Nepal to get into MD training in internal medicine in U.S. in March of 2010, I arrived in New York.

Before going I had extensively googled Osho centers in New York and was happy to find Osho Sadhana center. It was early spring and Bridgeport was beautiful, especially along the University lane by the seaside park of the university where my brother was studying engineering. But still my heart was longing for the buddhafield, I was feeling like a fish out of the ocean, missing meditation and Satsang with my fellow meditators. I hung a big poster of Osho and swamiji  that I brought from Tapoban and started Dynamic in my brother's little rented apartment room in Bridgeport. I constantly communicated with Swami Parimal and Narinder whose contacts were in Osho Sadhana website. My request was to let me stay in the center and meditate, and i would pay money for food or generate money from spreading meditation. But I was not getting any luck, and this was making me sad.

In the Summer of 2010,  Swamiji came to New York for his meditation retreat. We didn’t have a huge group of Osho lovers to pick him up from the airport as we have in Nepal, there were just the two of us - Sw. Narinder and me. But seeing Swamiji, my heart overflooded with joy. While we were returning from airport to the Sadhana center where Swamiji was to stay for the retreat, something mysterious happened which I will never forget in my life. Swamiji ordered Narinder that from now on I was to stay at the center, help the center conduct meditations, and I was not to be asked any money, I would pay back after starting to earn. I was amazed, my heartfelt gratitude to Swamiji, he didn’t even ask - he ordered....and when I look back now was a happening which would change the face of Osho Sadhana center in New york forever. In days to come, I put all my energy in promoting and spreading Osho meditations through daily meditations, and website.

Mysteriously people started calling, coming for meditations, and my days started to pass as the most wonderful days of my life. Staying in the basement meditation hall and with daily dynamic meditations and evening whiterobe satsang celebrations I had many mystical experiences and connection with my Master, many times he would be there sitting silently inside the hall and at times would join my dance. In days to come, the meditation hall became part of me, i would at times go to the city, usually to teach dynamic meditation to Yoga group or to meet friends, and I would feel the energy of the meditation hall calling me constantly to come back a.s.a.p.

As Swamiji had predicted in Nepal, apart from the happy days in Sadhana, I had to go through a major

painful emotional experience of heartbreak in my life. The happy and loving moments of the relationship, the mediations we did together, our sharing and silences all were part of the space within the meditation hall and were thus connected very deeply inside me. I had to go to Nepal after completing all my medical residency application exams. In Nepal I received the good news that I have been accepted for MD training in Danbury Hospital in Connecticut - a little more than an hour from Sadhana center. Out of so many hospitals I had interviewed I could have been anywhere from Tennessee to Boston, and I felt that Master was playing his game to help me be near the center.

When I returned to New York from Nepal, i was surprised to see that the room partition had been removed and the hall renovated - we had a big hall now. The next three years I continued to help with Osho Sadhana center meeting with friends on Saturdays to conduct meditations. It has been a great learning experience.

Throughout the course of the last 4 years I met many friends, Osho lovers, some of them remained and became part of an everlasting bond of friendship, and some vanished into the busy ambitious life of NY city. After finishing MD residency training in 2014 I accepted a temporary job in Santa Rosa, California. This would mean I would be finally leaving the happy Sadhana center memories behind, the wild energetic kirtan dancing, my extremely weird camps with Mandala, dynamic, chakra breathing in a row, our evening satsang celebrations, and most of all our post-lunch visits to the river side park next to the center...nothing gives me the sense of joy and satisfaction within than explaining Osho meditations to new participants and lead a whole day camp; sharing my master, his words and his message for me was the most beautiful experience which i will miss the most after I leave Sadhana center. I will also miss love of Ma Poonam and Sw. Narinder, who were not only my friends but took care of me like my parents, their love and compassion has nurtured Osho Sadhana, and I have always felt their absence when I had to travel away from the center. But I have to travel, and keep walking, keep spreading my master Osho’s message. I am reminded of Zen Master Basho's haiku, a very beautiful song, it says

“Come, butterfly

It's late-
We've miles to go together.” So I fly with my butterfly, visiting beautiful Osho flowers, and spreading Osho's fragrance...

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...