I am reminded of the fateful day…

Several drawings by Sangeet dedicated to Osho’s Enlightenment Day.

I am reminded of the fateful day of twenty-first March, 1953. For many lives I had been working – working upon myself, struggling, doing whatsoever can be done – and nothing was happening. Now I understand why nothing was happening. The very effort was the barrier, the very ladder was preventing, the very urge to seek was the obstacle. Not that one can reach without seeking. Seeking is needed, but then comes a point when seeking has to be dropped.

By the evening it became so difficult to bear it – it was hurting, it was painful. It was like when a woman goes into labour when a child is to be born, and the woman suffers tremendous pain – the birth pangs.

A deep urge arose in me to rush out of the room, to go under the sky – it was suffocating me. It was too much! It will kill me! If I had remained a few moments more, it would have suffocated me – it looked like that. I rushed out of the room, came out in the street.

A great urge was there just to be under the sky with the stars, with the trees, with the earth… to be with nature. And immediately as I came out, the feeling of being suffocated disappeared. It was too small a place for such a big phenomenon. Even the sky is a small place for that big phenomenon. It is bigger than the sky. Even the sky is not the limit for it. But then I felt more at ease.
I walked towards the nearest garden. It was a totally new walk, as if gravitation had disappeared. I was walking, or I was running, or I was simply flying; it was difficult to decide. There was no gravitation, I was feeling weightless – as if some energy was taking me. I was in the hands of some other energy.

For the first time I was not alone, for the first time I was no more an individual, for the first time the drop has come and fallen into the ocean. Now the whole ocean was mine, I was the ocean. There was no limitation. A tremendous power arose as if I could do anything whatsoever. I was not there, only the power was there.

I looked around. One tree was tremendously luminous – the maulshree tree. It attracted me, it pulled me towards itself. I had not chosen it, god himself has chosen it. I went to the tree, I sat under the tree. As I sat there things started settling. The whole universe became a benediction.
It is difficult to say how long I was in that state. When I went back home it was four o’clock in the morning, so I must have been there by clock time at least three hours – but it was infinity. It had nothing to do with clock time. It was timeless.
Those three hours became the whole eternity, endless eternity. There was no time, there was no passage of time; it was the virgin reality – uncorrupted, untouchable, unmeasurable.
And that day something happened that has continued – not as a continuity – but it has still continued as an undercurrent. Not as a permanency – each moment it has been happening again and again. It has been a miracle each moment.
That night… and since that night I have never been in the body. I am hovering around it. I became tremendously powerful and at the same time very fragile.

Read a longer excerpt from Osho, The Discipline of Transcendence, Vol 2, Ch 11

One day I wanted to make a series of illustrations for one of Osho’s discourses where he talks about his enlightenment. It is a very soulful story, which gives me goosebumps just to think about it. I got down to work, but very soon I realized that I was unable to complete the work as I had envisioned it. However, I saved a few pictures…

At the beginning I had no intention of drawing an image of Osho that would be clearly recognizable. I had tried many times before to draw the Master, but I was always disappointed with what I had done. How can I use forms to draw that which is beyond shapes? It is always the challenge. I just wanted to try and convey his innocence, fragility and light… Abstraction, colours and primitivism were my inspiration. Also in my head were flashes of pictures from the Ajanta caves – you know, these Buddhist wall paintings. Those images of Buddhas have become very shabby with time which makes them even more mysterious.

I enjoyed the process and it seems I painted everything in one night. My memories of travels to India came up, which helped me a lot. I remembered how together with sannyasin friends I visited Jabalpur. I remembered that room which Osho talked about; I remembered the Maulshree tree – that tree! In my mind there was also the smell of Indian summer nights and the light of the same full moon…