From Chapter 88 of Abhiyana’s memoir, The Long Reach of the Dharma, where he remembers Osho’s death
Osho gave his last public discourse in April of 1989; from then on we sat in silence with him. Osho was fading physically, yet radiated an intense cosmic energy. The evening discourses were now known as the White Robe Brotherhood. The intensity peaked during his very slow and long namastes, where he greeted each and every one of his people. He was clearly way out of his body; it was a miracle he could even walk.
When we were in Buddha Hall together, there were no individuals, just a sea of white, a sea of consciousness, all invisibly connected to the Master on the podium. These meditations went so deep, it was often disorientating to come back in the body, and stumble out of the meditation hall to dinner and laughter and gossip and normality.
Prasthano and I took a short vacation to Goa. On the morning of January 19th, we packed up and headed for the airport. The flight was overbooked to Pune, and we were asked to fly the next day. I refused; somehow I knew it was time to return. One of the reasons I love India is you can usually bribe yourself in or out of any situation, so on the plane we went.
We arrived in the early evening, and took a rickshaw to the Ashram, where I was living. As the rickshaw drove the last hundred feet to the Ashram gate, a policeman stopped us, shouting: “You go back! Acharya Rajneesh is dead! You go back!” These words shocked me into an alternative reality, like a dream, or more accurately a nightmare. It can’t be true! We jumped out, put our belongings inside the gate, ripped open our suitcases and put on white robes. We could hear the wild screaming, crying and shouts of “Osho” coming from the meditation hall; Osho’s body had just been brought in and placed on the podium. It was really happening.
It was too late to go inside, as soon he would be carried to the ghats (cremation grounds). We locked arms with the gate guards, and formed a cordon from the hall to the main gate to keep anyone from jumping on his body. Our timing was unnerving: We were destined to be present when Osho’s body was carried by us, not two feet away. I could see it was just his body, no life energy left – he looked like a wax doll covered in red and white flowers.
We could not continue the cordon around him, as hundreds of disciples were amassed just outside the gate. I became part of the flow that headed in the direction of the burning ghats about a mile away – laughing, crying, dancing along the way. As I stumbled along in shock, a wheelchair banged into me, with a little Indian woman inside. It was Sitama, my old friend, like a grandmother and a sister together.
Sitama was hysterical. I hugged her, grabbed the handles of the wheelchair, and propelled us both along the bumpy Koregaon Park road. Street peddlers, beggars and shopkeepers lined the road, paying their respects, some in silence, some in song. In many ways, they were part of our Sangha too. When we arrived at the cremation grounds, Sitama became a tigress. We had traveled rather slowly, pushing her ancient wheelchair along the potholed road, and had fallen far behind his body. But now Sitama’s arms took over, and propelled us both right through the crowd like a bulldozer. Before I knew it, we were in the front, and Osho’s body was being laid on the funeral pyre. Wood was stacked around and over the body; Anubuddha lovingly made a stupa of kindling around his head and shoulders, and ghee was poured over the wood. Osho’s brother Shailendra lit the pyre, per Indian tradition. As a great flame leapt up, an ancient banyan tree was backlit dramatically; that old tree has witnessed many a burning body. The flames began to lick Osho’s body, while the singing became wilder and wilder; Osho always taught us to celebrate death, to give the person a good send-off on their flight to the next adventure.
The song of songs we sang that night: “Walk into the holy fire, step into the holy flame, Glo-o-o-o-o-ria! Halleluiah!” In the midst of our singing, Sitama stood up from her wheelchair, and tried to throw herself upon the funeral pyre. In India, it is an ancient tradition known as Sati, when an Indian wife throws herself upon her husband’s bonfire. I grabbed Sitama around her ample waist, and threw her back into the wheelchair screaming: “Sitama, this is Osho’s show, not yours!”
A few months before, it looked like Sita’s heart was giving out. She used to take so many nitroglycerin pills that I joked: “Watch out Sitama, when your body is burning on the funeral pyre, it’s going to explode!” She always had a good laugh with that one. While she was in the hospital, Osho sent her a message, which I had the honor of delivering and reading to her: “You are a flower in my garden. Your Samadhi will be in Lao Tzu garden, next to Maitreya (her good friend who died awakened a few years before).” Those words brought Sita so much bliss and tears, that I thought she was leaving her body then and there. She said later: “It’s not fair. Both Maitreya and Osho are younger than me. I am their elder. I should go first!” When she died in 1994, her marble Samadhi was placed next to Maitreya, and is there to this day. I am sorry I wasn’t there for her funeral, but I visited her Samadhi a few years later, and I swear I could hear her giggle.
Back at the ghats, we sang and danced and wept and meditated in silence that whole night long. Going through my mind were all the amazing things Osho has said about this moment, when an enlightened master leaves the body. It is an incredible opportunity for the disciples to ride the wave to higher consciousness, and awaken themselves. So, there was a lot of expectation on my part. Stay alert, I shouted to myself. Don’t let the pain of losing his body keep you from meditating tonight! This is it!!
Near dawn, I heard a distinct crackling and opened my eyes to watch the fat boiling off the body’s intestines, like a steak sizzling on a barbecue. It was at that moment that I got it: This was not a dream. My beloved Master was dead, flown from his sick body, free at last. I wept like a small child who had lost his parents, feeling so alone and so unenlightened.
After a few hours sleep, I walked through the commune, exhausted and expecting nothing. The Master was dead, I was numb. Would there even still be a Buddhafield or just chaos and pathos? But miraculously the guards were on the front gate, the kitchen crew showed up and prepared breakfast, the morning (taped) discourse was playing, the grounds were being cared for – everything was as it was. This is the real miracle, proving the Master’s continuous presence, as we all took responsibility to keep his legacy alive.
“No end, no end to the journey. No end, no end ever. How can the heart in love ever stop opening?” – Rumi
Excerpted from chapter 88, titled ‘Gone, Gone Beyond. Gone Altogether Beyond. Hallelujah!’
The Long Reach of the Dharma
Tales of Divine Adventure
by Abhiyana Robert Abrahamson
Self-published, 2017
Available from Osho Viha – amazon.com – amazon.co.uk – amazon.de – amazon.in
Review by Bhagawati: The Long Reach of the Dharma
Related articles
- This precious moment: When an enlightened one dies – From an interview with Swami Satya Vedant – by Ma Dhyan Amiyo
- Osho speaks on the topic of death
- More excerpts from this book on Osho News: From ‘The Long Reach of the Dharma’
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