I already like my new self. I like the fact that Maneesha pulled me into the pool, that she is the sort of person who trusts a feeling enough to follow it without bothering about the consequences. In fact sometime later in a discourse Osho comments:
Sannyas is something which can be received only in deep innocence. The more you grow in experience, the more cunning you become. Then even when you take sannyas, it is not a jump—it is a calculated step. You think about it; you ponder about it. You think for and against, pro and con. And then you think that it seems beneficial; or you think that it doesn’t seem beneficial. Then you decide. Your sannyas is a conclusion.
A conclusion is always of the mind. There have only been a few people who have taken sannyas without thinking. I say to everybody, when people come to me I say to them: “Would you like to think about it or are you ready?” A few people say they are ready; they don’t want to think about it. Then it is reaching to a deeper level of your being.
When Maneesha came first, I asked her would she like to think about it. She said, ‘What—think? I am fed up with thinking! If you can accept me, I am ready.’ This is innocence. She is again behaving like a child. The sannyas will have a totally different meaning to her.
Many times in the following years I will hear Osho talk about the significance of our taking on new names. It helps to remember continuously that the past is gone; it is a “metaphor for rebirth.” He even creates a meditation around it, suggesting that “Every night when you go to bed to sleep, close your eyes and close the chapter that has passed. Be finished with it. Say to yourself that the past is no more. Consciously, deliberately, drop it, renounce it, so that the next morning you can be fresh again, clean again, young again, innocent again. Only then does consciousness grow.”
My own name, “love’s wisdom,” will become a not-very-comfortable, ongoing reminder of a characteristic of mine—wanting to be the favorite, the most loved, which brings jealousy with it when I feel someone else might fill that slot. So I’m interested when I hear Osho also explain that in giving us a name he is giving us “a device, a technique so that you can remember your device, you can remember your technique, so that it becomes a constant mindfulness for you, a reminder, an arrow pointing out your path continuously.”
I have very little idea of what meditation is, even less about spiritual masters, and none about discipleship. I don’t really understand what “enlightenment” is or “chakras” are, or why I would want my “Kundalini” to rise. Quite simply, I like Osho. He has a great sense of humor; he’s calm but also totally present and open. If I’d met him anywhere I would have wanted to be around him.
After getting some orange robes, within a few days, as do all newcomers, I participate in a ten-day “meditation camp.” Up to now, “camps” have meant roughing it in the Australian Bush, getting knotted up in guy ropes, warming my hands over the campfire and drinking tea straight from the billy. The only familiar item I notice now, on my first morning, is the canvas roof.
From six to seven in the morning we take part in—or are taken apart by—a startling potpourri of movement and noise that is called Dynamic Meditation. For the first ten minutes we have to breathe vigorously through the nose: not a pleasant experience for those with colds, though no doubt very cleansing. Opening with a roar of rage from everyone, the following period of “catharsis” lets me give vent to the relief I feel at having finished the first stage. Now I’m to allow the inner “animal” to emerge in any form, as long as it does not interfere with anybody else’s animal. I hear shouting, laughter, cursing, whimpering: it’s complete madness.
In the past Osho himself has led the meditation camps; how amazing that would be! Now the sad-looking Teertha is in charge. Spurred on by him (it is all very well for Teertha to shout, “Harder, harder!” when he only has to stand there looking elegant in his freshly pressed lunghi), we next raise our arms above our heads and shout “Hoo,” jump—for ten agonizing minutes. We have to land flat on our feet, with bent legs, and all the time our arms are raised. Apparently in this way we are hitting the sex center: I only know I die several times.
The fourth stage, which I might have greeted with overwhelming relief, becomes an agony in a different way: I have to stand “frozen” in whatever position I am when Osho’s recorded voice says, “Stop!” at the end of the third stage. It reminds me of playing “Statue” when I was little. As in that game, move now and I’m “out.” This stage is about being in and just watching from inside whatever is happening externally and in your inner world: sounds, sensations, thoughts and feelings.
But how sweet the strains of the music that announce the final stage—of dance! Adoring dancing, this is a joy for me. I feel resurrected, as if I’ve won a victory, given birth and come through! The sun, now risen, shines more golden than it has ever done, the air is fresh, and perhaps the meditation leader is not such an ogre after all.
It is October 11th, 1974, four days after I have become a sannyasin, and this is my first ever discourse. Osho’s spoken word is even more engaging than what I’ve read. There are no notes that he refers to: whatever he says flows effortlessly and sounds unplanned. Most of us listen with eyes closed; occasionally I notice others like me gazing at Osho for minutes on end. He is really very beautiful to watch. Alternate monthly he will speak in Hindi—of course incomprehensible to us Westerners but so sweet-sounding that it is lovely just to listen to it like music.
After morning discourse and lunch, we meet in the same meditation area to listen to a taped discourse. Most of us lie flat on our backs, spread-eagled; a few sit bolt upright, eyes closed, as the afternoon throbs with the sweltering heat. Then follows the Whirling Meditation. It is simply that—continuous whirling round and round on one spot for an hour. I give it a go—with my sister I’d seen the whirling dervishes in London and been spellbound by them—but it makes me nauseous, so I have to accept it is not for me.
Later in this month (October 1974), happily for me the lovely Kundalini Meditation replaces Whirling. It comprises a first stage of shaking for fifteen minutes—allowing the whole body to vigorously tremble—followed by fifteen minutes of movement, of dance. For the next fifteen minutes you either stand or sit. This is followed by a fourth stage of lying down. Having hammered the sex center in the morning, we have now, it seems, been trying to arouse the energy, kundalini, which lies at the base of the spine.
Though it’s much gentler that Dynamic—in fact it’s known as its “sister meditation”—like that method, Kundalini is one of Osho’s “active meditations.” He has specially designed these active techniques for Westerners because, unlike for our Eastern counterparts, sitting still and silent doesn’t come naturally to us. Our busy minds and restless bodies make it challenging to drop into the inner space of an unmoving, vast, peacefulness; first we need to release all our mental and physical tensions.
I have my fair share of those! My family is speedy and I’m chronically tense—although up until meeting Osho I have not been aware of it. A few months before coming to India I’d started practicing the traditional Buddhist method called vipassana. It’s very passive—just sitting, eyes closed, from inside observing your breath coming in and going out. After 20 minutes or so of trying this I’d begin to feel panicked… feeling as if the silence and stillness were going to suffocate me. I had to get up and do—do anything! Remarkably, years later I would be able to sit, unmoving, in Osho’s discourse for ninety plus minutes, and not only sit still but not want to leave at the end. A minor miracle! Listening to his discourses is to become the deepest experience of meditation ever for me.
*
Within my first few weeks or so, I feel very much at home in the ashram. I slip easily into the routine of morning discourse and meditations, eating Indian vegetarian food, and wearing the long orange robes (how beautiful we look: