One evening in this same month, Vivek taps on my bedroom door: I am to come to darshan. (I am now living in Lao Tzu House.) As I enter the darshan porch, Osho is talking with a sannyasin, and I sit down quietly. After a few minutes Osho tums and beckons me closer.
“Maneesha, when you were a child, you prayed?”
(Me, not knowing if he thinks it a good or a bad thing), “Yes, Osho.”
“So now you pray like you did when you were a child—exactly, you do what you used to do, mm?”
I sit in a kneeling position, back straight and hands folded. Then, to set the scene, I turn to Osho: “I am by my bed and I’ve got my pajamas on,” I explain, and he nods gently. I turn back to my position, close my eyes and inwardly am whisked straight back to my eight-year old self.
“Dear God, um… thank you for a lovely day. It was good not having to go to school. But would you tell Diana and Tony to let me play with them, and could Mum not get so cross with me? My dolls are being good, and Cuddly is not sick anymore, Amen.”
“Good, Maneesha,” says Osho, and turns to tell the sannyasin and the rest of the group that now we will learn the Prayer Meditation. He then instructs me to kneel, with my body upright, facing the sannyasin to whom Osho has been talking, my arms raised to the sky. I am to feel that I am receiving energy, being rained on, from above; and when I feel filled, I should slowly lower my arms and body to the ground and pour the energy into the earth. When I feel emptied I am to raise my arms and start again. This is to be done seven times, Osho explains; otherwise the process will be incomplete.
When I raise my arms, eyes closed, I prepare to imagine being rained on with energy. Curiously, I am filled with energy—in fact, by and by filled so full that my arms start trembling as I am drenched with this unknown force. I start sobbing with the pure and unexpected joy of it. Then, feeling almost burdened, I lower my body to the floor, my head resting there and my arms out flat, while the trembling flushes through me and is released through my outstretched arms. Emptied, I again raise my arms; again the beautiful feeling of receiving and of allowing my body to be trembled. As Osho has instructed, I repeat this six more times.
Osho turns to the sannyasin and suggests he do this meditation each morning or evening, whatever feels best.
“And Maneesha, you continue to do it too, just before you go to sleep. Arrange it so that you can go to bed immediately afterward. Do everything else that you need to do before, so you can simply fall into sleep with that energy around you, surrounding you.”
A few minutes later I quietly rise and return to my room, clutching the small hand towel Osho has just given me. Such a towel always sits over his left arm during discourse, and occasionally he presents one as a gift to a sannyasin who is leaving or to someone who is experiencing some stuck energy. In the latter case he instructs the person to place the towel on the area of tension when they are meditating or just lying down relaxing. He has told me to place my towel in front of me whenever I do the Prayer Meditation; on another occasion, he says to bring it with me whenever I come to darshan.
Some evenings later, again the tap on the door from Vivek: “Come to darshan!” Flushed with excitement I enter the porch, equipped now with my Osho towel. This time I am to stand behind the sannyasin in front of Osho and to put my hands gently on his shoulders. Osho leans forward, the small pencil flashlight he occasionally uses in darshan softly focused on the sannyasin’s forehead. I close my eyes until I hear Osho’s gentle voice saying—“Good, Asang … come back. Very good! Good, Maneesha.”
Once or twice more during the evening, I am asked to rub someone’s third eye, or place my hands on their body where they feel their energy is blocked. I have no idea what I am meant to be thinking or if I am to think at all! Osho has given no instruction other than what I am to do physically. Though I don’t know what my purpose is in being there, I enjoy these evenings tremendously. A few days pass and then Vivek tells me that I can come to darshan every evening. I can’t believe how lucky I am.
*
There are a seemingly never-ending variety of situations that are created in darshan. Most often I am instructed just to gently rub the center of someone’s forehead, above the nose, between the eyes, “the third”; and invariably Osho’s little flashlight is in action. What its function is I have no idea. Perhaps that’s to my advantage and all that is needed: a head that isn’t too busy analyzing things.
One evening Osho talks to us about yet another new method. Devavani starts off with one speaking in a “gentle, unfamiliar language,” and it is to Vivek, his caretaker, who sits on his left side, that Osho turns to demonstrate what he intends. She lowers her head, her eyes closed, and very quietly makes some sounds; she seems ill at ease. Then we all join in; apparently this is very relaxing for the mind, creating a sense of great serenity.
When the meditation is finalized, this stage (each stage is fifteen minutes long) is preceded by you sitting quietly while music plays. In the third stage you stand and, still talking in this unknown language, you let your body move softly, in an unstructured and spontaneous way. This is known as Latihan, a practice from the Subud tradition. The final stage is of lying down and just being still and silent.
*
One evening Osho creates a role-play around a sannyasin who has told him of the conflict he feels with his parents. Osho instructs a male sannyasin to be father and, “Maneesha, you be the mother, he chuckles, a real Jewish mother!” I can’t recall exactly what we do, but our combined performance provokes a lot of amusement and the now-less-conflicted sannyasin returns laughing to his place.
On another occasion Osho asks me to go down the steps of the darshan porch into the large, pot-plant-lined parking area. “Dance!” is the simple instruction, and I begin waltzing around, keeping in rhythm by humming the tune of “Plaisir d’amour.” Adoring dancing and not shy of the spotlight, I would have happily pranced about for hours. But after a few moments Osho calls me back to the upper porch. “Now move as if you are doing T’ai Chi.” That I’ve never done, though I understand the basic principle of moving very slowly and consciously, with the delicate movements of a flamingo. So I begin my version of T’ai Chi: within moments a lovely, calming feeling settles inside me.
Having called me back, Osho asks which form of movement I feel best doing. I like them both for different reasons, I reply. Perhaps the less structured form of dance serves best whatever purpose Osho has in mind for us: from that evening (we are now in August 1975) the Nataraj Meditation is born. The first stage is forty minutes of spontaneous dancing, “losing oneself in the dance,” followed by twenty minutes lying down, still and silent, and finishing with five minutes of dancing.
In the same month Nadabrahma comes into being. Sitting upright and cross-legged, you hum for thirty minutes. In the next stage, with palms uppermost you move your hands—very, very slowly—in an outward, circular motion, for seven and a half minutes; then, palms now facing downward you make inward-turning circles for a further seven and a half minutes. In the last stage you are still and silent.
Though I don’t immediately feel the effect of the hand-moving stage, the humming stage feels beautiful. On the evening that Osho introduces this meditation, he suggests that I experiment with the hand-moving stage, sometimes having the palm downward, sometimes upward. I’m then to let him know at the end of a week’s experimentation if I feel any difference between the two….
The most memorable happening in darshan for me is the night on which Osho introduces us to a very serious meditation indeed! I have no idea what is in store when at one point he instructs me to go down to the lower porch and stand facing the garden (so I am at right angles to him and the watching group). I am to put my feet slightly apart, with my hands on my hips. Thus positioned, I turn my head toward Osho, some yards away, and wait for the next instruction.
“Good.