"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