An excerpt from Swami Anand Arun’s new memoir, Mystics & Miracles.
The Japanese have coined a beautiful word for the instant experience of no mind when one becomes absolutely present in the moment and feels the bliss of stillness and calm in the absence of thoughts – they have called this state ‘satori’, or time-bound enlightenment. Although it is a temporary state of elevated consciousness, it gives a seeker a glimpse of his ultimate possibility and sows the seeds of samadhi or enlightenment.
The school of Yoga talks about the three nadis, or energy channels, present in us: ida, pingala, and sushumna. The two channels, ida and pingala, are active in a normal person, but when they become harmonious, the sushumna, which is a more subtle channel, becomes activated. Then a person slowly becomes thoughtless, experiences immense bliss, and transcends the concept of time and space. This is what happens during satori. This happens easily to those who go deep into meditation. But people also experience satori at odd moments in life when the mind comes to a sudden stop. In some way or other, we have all experienced the bliss of this experience but are not always able to recognize it.
Osho says, “Satori is a miniature experience of samadhi, but once you get into it, you cannot get out of it. Samadhi is just like the total opening of the lotus, and satori is the beginning of the opening of the petals. Satori is the beginning, and samadhi is the climax.”
Before coming to Osho, I did not know anything about satori, but today when I reminisce, I realize that some of the profound experiences I have had in my life were actually experiences of satori. Even before I had taken sannyas or had an active spiritual life, many a time I had experienced this state which I now understand was satori. […]
I still remember when I was only five years old and was traveling with my parents. We were going to Baidyanath Dham in Deogar in Jharkhand, India. There was no bridge back then, so we had to take a steamer to cross the Ganga on the way to Patna. At Hajipur in Sonpur district, there is a confluence of the rivers Gandaki and Ganga where every year, a huge mela, or religious carnival, is held.
My father’s friend had a house just next to the confluence, and we were staying there. It was 1949, and in those days, most of the houses in India did not have private toilets, so we had to go out into the field. In the morning, one of the servants accompanied me to the field for toileting, then took me to the riverbank, and I had a bath in the river. Having finished my bath, the servant put me on the ghats and had his bath. I still have a clear memory of that morning. As I was sitting there looking at the beauty in the meeting of the Ganga and the Gandaki, a huge wave of bliss arose in me, and I went into a trance. I began crying incessantly and couldn’t even move my body. I had no reason for the tears; I was simply overwhelmed by the bliss. When the servant came back, I was in a stupor, and because I did not want to leave the ghat, it was very difficult for him to take me back. This was the first satori of my life at the banks of my mother.
Wherever two rivers meet, a strong energy field is created, and the Hindus have given great importance to such places. Many years later, I came to know that at the same spot where I had bathed and experienced my first satori, Ananda, Buddha’s intimate disciple, left his body while crossing the Ganga when he was going from Pataliputra to Vaishali. Ananda was Buddha’s cousin and one of his closest enlightened disciples. I also have a very strong connection with him over many lives and have great respect and love for him. Even though I was only five years old, I experienced my first satori because the Ganga had kept intact the vibrations that were able to trigger a strong spiritual experience in me.
My second satori happened when I was around thirteen or fourteen. My mother was a heart patient, and we had gone to Patna for her checkup. We were crossing the Ganga on a steamer, and I was sitting on the deck when I saw a sight that left me spellbound. A man was standing on the deck looking into the far horizon and was wearing a shirt and pants of dark orange. He was not even a monk but just a normal person wearing an ochre shade. Just seeing that sight triggered a strong déjà vu in me. The combination of the backdrop of the Ganga and the color orange felt extremely familiar and provoked a deep memory hidden in my unconscious. I felt a strong nostalgia that churned my emotions, and again I was thrown into a strong satori.
Tears began rolling down my eyes. This intensified, and I started crying loudly. My uncle saw me and became worried. He asked me what was wrong, but I had nothing to tell him. The sight stirred a memory of one of my previous lives where I must have meditated on the bank of the Ganga as a Hindu monk wearing orange garb. My uncle kept asking me why I was crying, and just to give him some explanation, I told him I wanted a similar shirt and pants to those worn by that person. When we got off the steamer, my uncle went to a shop and bought me an orange shirt made of nylon, which had just come onto the market, and orange cotton pants. Those clothes became my favorite outfit, and for a long time, I wouldn’t wear anything else.
Another strong satori that I experienced before taking sannyas was during my college days. I had already met Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (now referred to as Osho) and had been associated with him for some time. A few friends had just returned from the meditation camp at Mount Abu in Gujarat. Unfortunately, in spite of Osho’s invitation, I missed this camp and had not been able to take sannyas as my other friends did. They had brought back Osho’s audio lectures and proposed a one-day meditation camp across the Ganga.
My college had a boat club, and as I was a member of it, I could take boats from the club. They had nice boats, two of which we took across the Ganga with ten friends. Osho had just introduced Dynamic Meditation during this camp, and our friends had brought the audio for it. After learning this new technique from the sannyasins, we did it on the banks of the river. This was the first time I had done Osho’s Dynamic Meditation which was later to become one of the most powerful techniques given by Osho to humankind.
After Dynamic Meditation, we all bathed in the Ganga and then listened to Osho’s audio lectures. With Ganga’s enchanting ambiance and Osho’s voice echoing in the background, again, I started going into satori. I fell down, and my body became motionless as I lay there on the sand.
Someone played Guru Nanak’s devotional bhajan, Kahe re bann khojan jayi, sung by the Indian singer Geeta Dutt, on the tape recorder. Geeta Dutt’s voice has an otherworldly depth to it, and I have always been a great admirer of her singing. As soon as the song began playing, my satori intensified. The lines of the song had a very profound meaning: “Why, O seeker, do you search outside when the immortal resides just inside you?” It was as if she was singing the longing of my soul. Her beautiful singing conveyed the heavy emotions of a seeker’s heart, and I was plunged into the great depths within.
I was sailing on waves of bliss and had transcended the physical realm with no sense of time or space. But no sooner had the song ended my satori also came to an end. I felt like a fish thrown out of the water. I cried and asked my friends to play the song again, and as soon as the song began again, I would go into a deep trance. This continued for some time. The sun was becoming strong as I lay there on the sand. My friends tried to bring me back, but I just was motionless, in a divine stupor. I kept asking them to play the song again and again. It was sheer madness, but as soon as the song stopped, I would start wailing, so my friends had no option but to keep repeating the same song. People cooked food and had a picnic while I just lay there motionless in bliss. After a few hours, the tape recorder’s battery ran out, and I finally came out of my state. We returned home.
So, these were the three strong satoris I experienced before taking sannyas: one when I was five years old, the second one when I saw the man in orange clothes, and the third one being the one-day meditation on the bank of the Ganga.
After taking sannyas in 1974, I used to visit Pune two to three times a year to see my master. It was around 1977 when I was traveling with a group of twelve sannyasins to Pune. In those days, I did not have much money, so we used to travel by train. To reach Pune, we had to catch the Toofan Mail up to Allahabad, where the bogey would be detached and then reattached to the Bombay Mail engine that took us to Bombay. We reached Allahabad at around 5:00 am, and there was a wait of five hours before the Bombay Mail left for Pune.
Allahabad, also known as Prayagraj, holds great significance for the Hindus. It is one of the sites where the great Kumbha Mela happens every twelve years. The Triveni Sangam, the confluence of the rivers Ganga and Yamuna, and the mythical invisible river, Saraswati, in Allahabad, is considered one of the holiest sites of the Hindus. The Hindus believe that bathing at this confluence can rid them of many past karmas and ease their path toward moksha. During every Kumbha Mela, millions of devotees throng to this site to bathe at the confluence.
As we had five hours to spare, I asked my friends to go with me to the Sangam instead of sitting there in the bogey. We left two friends who were not particularly interested in the Ganga to look after the luggage, and off we went. First, we took a rickshaw and then a boat to reach the Sangam. All of us went into the water and had a bath at this meeting point of the rivers Ganga, Yamuna, and the invisible Saraswati. After bathing, but still in the water, again I had a strong satori. Suddenly my body became like wood, and I couldn’t move. It was such a strong satori I immediately went into a thoughtless and blissful state. I couldn’t even come out of the water, so somehow, my friends carried me out and put me in the boat. I was enveloped in a divine state of love. My friends managed to take me back to the train, but I remained in that state for around six hours. As I was traveling with sannyasins, they understood my situation and helped me in every way possible.
After this incident, I understood why Hindus have given so much importance to this confluence of the Ganga and the Yamuna and bathing in it and why the huge Kumbha Mela and other melas are organized at such places. Following my experience there, I used to go to the Triveni Sangam every time I was on my way to Pune. Because of my first experience, the second and third times I went, I had great expectations, so nothing happened. Of course, I was ecstatic every time, but I had my next satori there only during the fourth visit because I had stopped expecting it after the third time.
My love affair with the Ganga deepened after my visit to Rishikesh during our first trip to the Garhwal Himalayas. After Osho went to the USA, my destination also changed from Pune to Rishikesh. I used to go there every time I had an opportunity, and I just rejoiced to roam around on the banks of the Ganga like the sadhus and yogis. I would sit on the bank until late at night and go back to the hotel or ashram where I was staying at around 2:00 in the morning to sleep.
During my visits to Rishikesh, I also met Osho’s first disciple, Ma Anand Madhu, who had been living in silence and doing her sadhana on the banks of the Ganga. She lived there for forty-six years, from 1974 until she left her body in 2021. It was also because of the love and care I received from her that I began visiting Rishikesh at least twice a year. This continued even after we built Osho Tapoban here in Nepal. Seeing my deep love and association with the Ganga, Ma Madhu used to call me Ganga Putra, or Ganga’s Son.
We also began organizing meditation camps, and I used to facilitate meditation retreats at an ashram in Haridwar or the Vanaprastha ashram in Rishikesh. The camps used to be just an expression of my love for the Ganga, and hundreds of friends used to gather for these retreats, where I shared my love story with the great mother. Many a time during these retreats, while speaking on the Ganga, I used to go into a trance and experience sweet satoris.
I have not counted them, but my life’s most profound satoris have happened on the banks of the Ganga. Some of them have happened in Pune in the presence of my master, but more than ten strong satoris have happened in the lap of my mother.
The story of my love affair with the Ganga reached its crescendo in Uttarkashi, where I was facilitating a meditation retreat at the Hotel Trishul. Around one hundred friends from Nepal and India had come for this meditation camp. I have a strong connection with this place because, in one of my previous lives, I had meditated in a place called Ujeli, in Uttarkashi, as a Hindu monk on the banks of the Ganga. On the very first day of the camp, I had one of the most powerful satoris of my life. I couldn’t facilitate the session and fell down. Somehow my friends took me back to my bedroom and started doing different things to my body to bring me back.
I couldn’t speak, my body was immobile, and my hands and feet had turned cold. Friends did not understand what was happening to me, and Ma Sumitra forcefully made me drink some milk and rubbed warm oil on my feet. Although her intention was to help me, it somehow disturbed my satori, but still, I remained in a trance throughout the night. During strong satoris, the body temperature drops immensely and becomes cold, so it is very important for those around to keep the body warm by covering it with a shawl or a blanket. No one should touch, disturb or force feed when someone is in a satori since the one going through the satori is in a very sensitive state and is in an extremely fragile situation. Even shaking the body of such a person can be fatal. This is the reason why we are very cautious about this at Tapoban.
The next morning, I woke up and went to the meditation hall to conduct Dynamic Meditation, but as soon as I looked at the Ganga, I went into a trance and fell down again. I was overpowered by intense bliss and went into a deep satori. Many friends waited for me to start the meditation, but I could not do anything. I was in a thoughtless state, and an unknown source of joy overpowered me. People waited for some time and slowly began leaving for breakfast while I lay there motionless. After some time, when I was able, I opened my eyes and couldn’t believe what I saw. I saw myself lying down, my head in the lap of a beautiful lady wearing a white sari. She had a beatific smile and was looking at me with great love as she caressed my head. She looked like she was in her middle age, and the simplicity and purity of her beauty were just like that of Ramakrishna’s wife, Ma Sarada.
I immediately recognized her! It was Ma Ganga herself who had appeared in front of me. Love and devotion can open many doors, and I realized that when a seeker really wishes with love and devotion, even the impossible can become possible. I remained in a trance throughout the time we were there, so I was unable to facilitate the camp. Some people became angry with me, and some left the camp to go sightseeing.
Celebrated in myth and legend, in literature and art, the Ganga, in many ways, is a living mystery, but at the same time, as a river, she is a life-giver to the millions who have settled on her basins and to those dependent on her ecosystem.
Spiritually, no seeker has come back empty-handed after surrendering to the Ganga. She has always been a mother to those on the path of meditation, and that is why, for eons, saints and hermits have chosen to live, meditate and leave their bodies on her banks. As with my story, every seeker who is in this love affair has their own experience of her mystical presence.
The Ganga is a living phenomenon of divinity, purity, and love. She is the mother of every seeker on the path of truth and will provide for all those who have a deep love for her and trust in her. But to understand this mystical side of the Ganga, one has to dive deep into this mad love affair with an open heart and a receptive being. I will remain forever grateful to the Ganga for her love, blessings, and the solace she has given me, and if existence permits, I would love to leave this world on her banks, in the lap of my mother.
More than sixty percent of Ganga’s water is from Nepali rivers, so if not in India, I would love to end my journey on the bank of one of her tributaries in Nepal. There are many beautiful spots, like Chisapani, Banghat, Chatara, and Devghat, situated on the banks of these rivers, and it would be a blessing to complete my physical journey in one of these places.
Mystics & Miracles
by Swami Anand Arun – tapoban.com
Osho Tapoban Publications, 2023
387 pages
Paperback and Kindle
ISBN-10: 9937758416
ISBN-13: 978-9937758413
ASIN: B0C442Q1G5
amazon.com* – amazon.ca – amazon.co.uk* – amazon.de* – amazon.in
Related article
- Mystics & Miracles – a presentation of the memoir by Swami Anand Arun, launched on his 49th sannyas birthday on 11 October 2023
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