How Shen came to travel to Pune…
My life took a pivotal turn in August 2011. I was busy planning my vacation to Italy when I had an unusual dream.
It was my habit to write down the dreams that I felt were coming from ‘beyond’, right when I woke up, but this was by far the strangest. In that dream I was hovering above my bed looking down at my sleeping body. It was so vivid that the first thought that came to my mind was “I have died and this is just like it happens in the movies.” I felt a presence hovering next to me. It was an old man with a long white beard. I was trembling in a sudden panic and I said to him, “We have to wake him up!” referring to my sleeping body.
He slowly turned his gaze on me and his deep eyes filled me with more panic, and he said, “Wait fool, he has to see his tattoo first.” I looked at my sleeping body and saw a tattoo of a Hebrew symbol appear on my arm. I woke up with my heart racing.
For the next three days I kept seeing the “fool” everywhere I turned. I remember watching an episode of the Tudors the following day – it was a strange one where the court’s fool was playing cards with King Henry VIII and they exchanged a very mysterious dialogue. I ran a search for the tarot card “The Fool” and was shocked to read an article that mentioned a hidden symbol in the skirt of the fool on the card of the classical deck. The hidden letter was Shin: the symbol I had seen in my dream and the first letter of my name in Arabic.
Those three days were almost sleepless and full of strange events that rendered me exhausted and confused. Being very much a ‘mind’ person whose life revolves around business and logic, I could not place all what was happening in a comfortable explanation.
The fourth day while surfing the net searching for tarot cards and their meanings, my heart almost stopped when I saw the photo of the Man in my dream: same eyes, robe and beard. I found out that he is an Indian mystic who lives in a city called Pune. This was more than I could handle. The YouTube video of the Pune Osho Meditation Resort looked like a fun place anyway, so I cancelled my trip to Italy and went on my first trip to India, my mind busy with all the questions I wanted to ask this man!
I still remember how strange it all seemed to me, the HIV test, the maroon robes and the strange look the security guy gave me when I answered his casual question about what brought me there. And then the disappointment I had felt when I learned that Osho had left the body turned into bliss by constantly being in his overwhelming energy field and by having more dreams of him.
As I became enchanted by his beautiful hands, the hidden harmony of his voice and the soft dance of his heartbeat, he had already started taking away my toys, one by one. I left India that year with sannyas, Kundalini meditation and gratitude for his love.
Many times I have tried to understand what had happened to me: why did he pull me by the hair from my sleep and throw me across the world? Why did I follow the sweet sound of his flute? It was only recently that I dropped any attempts to understand and started enjoying the ride.
I have been invited by Osho’s beautiful people to Delhi, Goa, Rishikesh, Pune and Dharamsala and found Osho’s presence and his magic in all these places. To be with Osho is to be with one’s real self.
If you are open to me, even if this body disappears, it is not going to make any difference. I will be available to you.”
Osho, The Discipline of Transcendence, Vol 1, Ch 6, Q 5
Shen was born in Syria and grew up in Dubai; he studied to become a Health, Safety and Environmental Engineer. In 2011 he visited Pune and took sannyas there. He now lives in Dubai and works as a corporate HSE Manager in a construction company.
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