Rajyogi’s first meditation – in a car – and its consequences…
It was 1977 and I was on a plane from Cairns to Perth, Australia, flying from one side of the continent to the other, in a south-westerly direction. I had had to leave Cairns in a hurry, because the night before, the apartment I was living in was raided by the police. They tore the place to pieces looking for dope or anything to bust me. And why? Because I was a witness in a court case against the police for raiding our commune and burning our houses, destroying our passports and documents. This had happened the year before.
The people they had caught were put in a ‘kangaroo court’, which means that a policeman was the judge! All community members were found guilty and sent to prison. I wasn’t caught but I saw the whole thing unfold, and they knew that… The night before, Detective Inspector Bevan, who was searching our apartment – and didn’t find anything – said to me, “I will bust you. I will plant you. I will do anything it takes to find you guilty. You will go to jail and then be deported from Australia back to the USA…” (where I am originally from). He was so very determined because I was one of the chief witnesses to the crime the police had committed against us.
So, as soon as the police had left, I phoned a travel agency and made a reservation for a flight to Perth. My parents had a cattle and sheep ranch 100 km north of Perth, so that was a start. When I arrived in Perth, I called my friend Martin who had just moved to a country house in Margaret River, almost 300 km south of Perth.
He asked me to come for a few days and stay with him and his wife, Sindhu. I got my car I had left at a friend’s house in Perth and headed to Margaret River. When I arrived, it was late in the evening. My friend Poonam was also there. They all looked so happy and I asked, “What has happened to you two?” Poonam and Sindhu said they had just come back from a meditation center in Fremantle. “We have been doing Osho’s meditations. They are so strong! Do you want to do a meditation with us?”
Poonam asked me if they could use my car to do the meditation. Sindhu had two lively little boys in the house and her husband Martin was not into meditation. And my car had a cassette player! At first I said no because I was too tired – I had just travelled all the way from Cairns that day – but after a few minutes, when I saw them walk towards the car, I decided to do the meditation also. I sat in the driver’s seat, Poonam sat next to me and Sindhu was in the back. Poonam explained the whole thing – she called it Nadabrahma or humming meditation. So we started the meditation. Not long afterwards, Sindhu started saying, “Please help me, please help me…” I heard her as if she was in the distance… Maybe she had fallen into a trance and became scared of it. Poonam got out and helped her out of the car. After a few minutes Poonam got back into the car and continued with the meditation with me.
I was feeling quite amazing and despite the crazy interruption stayed with the humming. Suddenly Poonam asked me to hold out my hand. She had felt so much heat coming off me that she wanted to see what would happen if our hands touched. She put her hand over mine – I felt such a strong energy… Poonam said, “You are like an oven, it is too hot in here,” opened the door and jumped out of the car. I stayed on.
Already when I was doing the humming and then later when slowly moving my hands, I started to feel as if my body was expanding. With so much bliss I kept expanding and expanding. Like being blown up by an amazingly blissful energy. I became the whole car. This went on and on. I was no more a body. I was pure blissful expanding energy.
I don’t know how long this went on; it seemed forever. Finally I came back to my body, just sat there in a state of beyond-belief and thought, “How is this possible?” I slowly got it together to return to the house. As I walked in, Poo and Sindhu were standing there looking at me. I asked, “What the fuck is this?” And they burst out laughing. Poo said, “This is an Osho Meditation. We can’t explain it; everyone has his own unbelievable experience.”
A few months later I found myself on a plane to Pune, wanting so strongly to see the man who had changed my life in such an amazing way.
…I slowly walked through the people to sit in front of Osho for the first time. I had no plan to take sannyas; I just wanted to see him.
As I sat down Osho asked, “Have you come to take sannyas?” I could not speak. I slowly shook my head, no. He sat back in his chair and looked me straight in the eyes, then came forward right in my face and said, “You’ve been ready a long time,” and as he said this I felt as if being hit by a mountain of bliss that blew through me.
He sat back in his chair and asked, “Now are you ready to take sannyas?” I nodded a yes and Osho started to write on some paper, then showed it to me saying, “Your new name is Swami Prem Rajyogi.”
“Prem means love, and rajyogi means the royal path: the royal path of love. And love is going to be your path. Love makes everybody a king and queen; hence it is the royal path. And there is no need to go to God’s door as a beggar. One can go as an emperor, so why go as a beggar?
“Don’t go desiring… go offering. Don’t go asking… go giving! And that’s what love is! The joy of giving is love, and the more you give the more you get… but getting is just a by-product. It is not the motive in it. Love is an unmotivated giving, unconditional: you love for the sheer joy of it.
“So give love to people, to trees, to stars, to mountains, to all!
“Very good…”
The next thing I remember was two guys dragging me over to the side. I was blown off the planet.
And so my new life began.
Osho quoted from the darshan diary, Only Losers Can Win in This Game, Ch 22
Photo by Arman
Comments are closed.