An event that catapulted Christo to the feet of the Master
In 1972 Toxteth, with its bomb-damaged streets and struggling immigrant population, was an area I knew well. Since taking up my job at Walton Jail, Toxteth had become my home, as well as the area from which most of the prison’s inmates were drawn. Liverpool 8 was notorious as an area of prostitution, crime and deprivation. It was not unusual to wake up in the morning and find the car parked outside your home jacked up and the wheels removed.
My job in the prison probation service had given me a kind of immunity in the area, which increased as I became better known. The Welfare, as we were known, were vital go-betweens between the inmates and their wives, relatives and girlfriends on the outside. After a year in Toxteth, I felt relaxed enough to frequent any local chippy, bar or club without fear or provocation. At that time my girlfriend Joan, (Apurva, as she became), ran a playgroup in Toxteth. We particularly enjoyed dancing to reggae music at the friendly Somali Club round the corner in Upper Parliament Street.
So it was a huge shock one evening when I was returning from work to be jumped, shoved and kicked in the back by a young guy, and pushed down into one of the roadside bomb craters, at the point of a knife. After the initial shock, and minus my wallet and wristwatch, in a fit of rage I started running after the by-then-distant assailant. I was particularly pissed off that he hadn’t recognized me.
As I rounded the corner I saw a stationary police car and in a daze found myself walking over to the car to report the incident. Even the police seemed surprised. Suddenly it was out of my hands. The police now drove me around various familiar clubs in an effort to identify the boy, looking into faces of people whom I knew would recognise me. When eventually the police dropped me off at my flat in Huskisson Street, I panicked. I knew I had broken an unwritten law – I had gone to the police; and most likely hoodlums would already be out looking for me. My job, my time in Liverpool, was over, and my life was in danger.
I could not risk another night in the flat. I rushed upstairs, grabbed a bag and some clothes, my chequebook and some money left in the room, and ran as fast as I could up Lime Street, senses alert to any pursuing footsteps. My panic lessened as I passed familiar landmarks – Murphys on the left, the Seaman’s Mission on the right, finally arriving at Lime Street Station.
There were many creative, original people in Liverpool at that time, attracted by its legendary reputation as birthplace of the Beatles. One of these was Long Tall Sally, a kind of early Goth, black clothes, black hair and heavy mascara. She told me once about a place in Scotland she had visited, run by Tibetan refugees. I had been interested, and had taken the address, thinking to visit the place myself… one day.
Looking back over 50 years later, I can’t remember much of the journey. I must have taken the train to Galashiels and bus or taxi on to Samye Ling. I do remember being awed by the fresh green of the Scottish landscape, such a contrast to the drabness I had left behind.
Akong Rimpoche, successor to Trungpa, then director of the Centre, was a warm friendly lama with a huge laugh and little English. Sitting in the Shrine Room awaiting the morning meditation, I had my first experience of pure silent presence, as Akong walked into the room. I found myself overwhelmed by the peace and silence which he always seemed to carry with him. I had little experience of meditation at that time.
One of the other visitors I met at Samye Ling was Maneesha, a young Australian girl, who invited me to join her out in the fields for a new ‘active’ meditation called Dynamic. This was something completely new to me, like nothing I had ever experienced before, based on the principle of screaming and shouting out all the repressed emotions stored in the nervous system, before moving into silence. It was energising and rejuvenating.
She also passed on to me a book called Dynamics of Meditation by Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, the creator of the meditation. For years I had immersed myself in the works of Allen Watts, Ram Dass and biographies of Ramakrishna and other luminaries of Eastern religion. This book however had an immediate explosive effect on me. The author, rather than quoting or interpreting texts, seemed to speak directly from his own experience… I had to see him! I determined to go to India as soon as possible.
It wasn’t until the spring of 1974 that circumstances were right for Apurva and me to set off on an overland trip to India. We had many adventures en route, as was to be expected. It wasn’t however until December that my journey was finished and I came down from Dharmshala in the Himalayan foothills, where the Dalai Lama was living, to Pune. Apurva joined me a few weeks later. When I first entered nervously through the Ashram gates, the first person I saw was Maneesha.
It was a few weeks later, after daily returning from morning Discourse drunk on Osho’s presence and the beauty of his words, that I took sannyas.*
I have no idea what happened to the young guy who robbed me that night in Liverpool, or dear Liverpool Sally, but I now see them as my guardian angels who set me on the path that would change my life forever, and I bless them both with all my heart.
* Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh finally chose, in 1989, to be known as Osho.
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