It was January 19, 1990, 8:30 in the morning. It’s Friday, end of a long week. I have the kids off to school, and my second cup of coffee of the morning in my hands. I’m 35 years old, living in the remote town of Salmon, Idaho.
I toggle the switch to boot up my computer. It flicks, and groans, then crackles and spits as the modem connects through the phone line. I type a few commands (that would be total mystery to me now), and files from the Osho list serve download to my computer.
The first message tells the whole story. Osho died in the night.
I had been a sannyasin since 1987, a short two and a half years, but, apparently unlike many of my fellow travelers, I had listened to Osho as he talked. He was an enlightenment teacher, and had described the state of enlightenment in many metaphors. One thing he talked about often was that enlightenment was our birthright as human beings. It wasn’t an accomplishment, but a loss of pretense. It wasn’t anything special, but a realization of our total ordinariness and that we were actually nothing. Composed of nothing, full of nothing. Nothing and everything.
I listened innocently for several reasons that I’ll go into later, but mostly because I was by myself and didn’t have other sannyasins giving me their interpretations of what Osho was saying. I was also innocent because of my many years of living in nature which had given me an enormous trust about life itself. (Read my book, Walking Without Footprints.)
For the previous six months Osho had been terribly ill, and he had started talking about a phenomenon he called, “Passing of the flame.” This is something that happens when an enlightened master dies. A huge energy is released, and it often happens that disciples ride upon this energy to their own awakening. He said many times that on his death all his disciples would be enlightened.
There is a fine distinction that I subconsciously interpreted about those words. I heard that we would all “be” enlightened, not that we would “become” enlightened, a big difference. “Be” means an already done deal, “Become” means something is going to happen.
Maybe I’m not too bright, maybe I’m a genius. Whichever it may be, the second I read the message that Osho had died in the night, I just assumed that I was enlightened. I closed my eyes just for a little peek, to see what enlightenment looked like. And that was the magic moment. For the first time in my life I wasn’t waiting for something to happen, I just looked to see what I already was.
What I saw was quite a surprise. Inside me was nothing, nothing at all. Real nothing as in nothing at all, and at the same time, that nothing embodied absolutely everything in the universe, and beyond (in case there is a beyond). I was using my consciousness for the first time without focusing on content. The consciousness, the “me”, was nothing. I had always heard Osho talk about “the nothingness” but I had projected all sorts of qualities on that nothingness. Not realizing it was just nothing.
It was so nice, easy and ordinary to see who I was, that I stepped back into the nothingness, and became that, or realized that I was that. My consciousness was composed of nothingness. And at the same time, I was just me: the most obvious, ordinary, always-was-there, me. I was consciousness, and the nature of that was nothing and everything.
With that quick little change of perspective I was living from a new vantage point. From this new vantage point I could see my own ego, and my own mind. Neither thing was me, though they were certainly very close. Ego was just an urge, I could feel it humming in the background. And my mind just ran along, by itself, chattering on and on about this and that. In fact, my mind very distinctly flowed like a stream from left to right in my field of consciousness, like a ticker-tape machine spitting out the news in the newsroom.
Neither thing (mind or ego) had anything to do with me. Very much like the clothes I wear are not me, or like my hair is not me. Ego and mind were two interesting phenomenon, no more. I was completely free of them, and always had been. They were my tools to use if I should need them, but I was alive and full, the master of my own interior experience.
This realization (taking a mere fraction of a second) was a huge relief because my mind and ego were so happy to finally have a driver in the driver’s seat, that I think they had a little celebration. They certainly relaxed quite a bit! The master had come home. The servants celebrated that they didn’t have to be in charge of making choices any more!
This whole discovery took less than a second. Very much like suddenly remembering where you had left your purse. There really wasn’t any time involved in it. I opened my eyes, and my whole perspective of life had changed. That was really the first day of my life.
Unlike other stories of self realization that I have heard, no bells were ringing or choirs of angels singing. There were no lights flashing. I wasn’t overcome with waves of untold bliss. In fact, what I felt was a sense of total embarrassment – thinking of all the things I had done trying to find nothing. Trying to find what I already was.
I didn’t utter a peep.
That’s the story. I woke up to who I was. In the end, it doesn’t matter because I am in insignificant person in a big world. What does matter is that there is no way to verbalize my experience without mentioning the big, bad word, “enlightenment.” It also mattered that none of the other Sannyasins got it! The miracle didn’t explode around the world and I’m still left trying to figure out why.
I had expected to be part of a mass, global awakening of Sannyasins. Instead I was a lone fleck that would soon be swatted at like a fly. My life since then has been in trying to figure out why. Looking back I can see now that my consciousness, even then, was about group awakening.
On that day there were ten thousand other people following Osho who heard the same message as I did. It was so easy. Why didn’t they get it too?
It’s a really important question. What was it about me that made self realization so easy. Why is something this simple so hard for everyone else? After all, enlightenment IS our birthright. Not only that, we are at a crossroads in humanity’s development where moving beyond ego is essential to our survival. What happened? What happened to me, and what happened to everyone else?
This is really big. Why do some people seem to be able to get it, and most people don’t? Maybe an answer for how humanity can move forward lies in the answering of this question.
What Happened Next
For the first few years (decades, really) after this experience I was so innocent about what it meant. I thought that people would start coming to me to learn this very easy secret to self illumination. I thought that all I would have to do was tell them how simple it was, and then they’d get it. Enlightenment would spread throughout the world. After all, it was easy. It was so easy. Waking up was way WAY easier than all the work I used to do to constantly maintain my self delusion. Just relax, boom, there you are. Stop struggling, stop waiting, stop projecting.
Actually I was way worse than that at the very first. For the first several weeks I was convinced that all the other Sannyasins had had the same experience. After all, there was no reason for them not to. Osho had given very plain and simple instructions. I started chatting on the web service about my experience and was totally shocked at the response. I was practically crucified!
After I got over the fact that other Sannyasins didn’t follow the instructions, I decided to write a few articles and explain it to all the other people. There are tons of books and magazines about enlightenment. Surely they would be really happy to have me explain how easy it all was.
If you are reading this story and really having a laugh at me, I don’t blame you. I didn’t have a clue that people weren’t interested in really finding out about enlightenment. Yes, I was totally clueless.
It took years for people to convince me that they either they weren’t interested in enlightenment at all, or if they were interested, that they simply couldn’t do it. So slowly my quest changed. I started to look for a key. Maybe there was something about me that had made illumination so easy, so attainable, and so possible. Maybe if I could locate the little switch that worked for me, then I could be of some use to all the folks struggling with spirituality. So, although this is a story about my one little moment in time of illumination, it’s really a story of what went before, and what happened afterwards.
Strangely enough, I’m going to start with what happened afterwards.
AFTER AWAKENING
So just picture me, sitting there in my living room, computer humming away, suddenly enlightened and quite embarrassed about all the stupid things I had done searching for something so obvious.
Next to me was Swami Yogino, who was living with me at the time.
Yogino had been one of the meditators at Rajneeshpurum who helped maintain the Buddhafield. I had discovered Osho after the breakup of the ranch, and had never been to Rajneeshpurum. Yogino had lived there for years, and then came to Salmon to live with me because he needed a place to stay after the ranch broke up.
The Buddhafield was the enlightened energy that surrounded and filled the ashram. I didn’t used to think it was such an important phenomenon, but the more I learn, the more I realize how important it was. Yogino had been one of the people who sat in long hours of meditation every day, maintaining the field. When he came to Salmon he told me that he was already enlightened. I was innocent and trusting, so I didn’t see any problem in him being enlightened. In fact, he was. Realizing my own enlightenment was the final verification of that for me. After all, enlightenment was easy to do, why would I doubt him?
Meanwhile, in our story, there I was, sitting next to Swami Yogino, suddenly realizing who I was, and seeing all the absurd, idiotic things I had done trying to attain enlightenment. I kept my mouth shut, and we celebrated Osho’s passing.
About three days later, Yogino and I were on a walk, and I finally got up enough nerve to confess. I didn’t say much, just some little thing like, “By the way. I got it.”
That was all I needed to say. From then on, the cat was out of the bag.
For three days I had been sitting around, reading the list-serve, and waiting for everyone else to mention their awakening. But there wasn’t a word from anybody about anything. Funeral arrangements were made. Everybody was grieving and celebrating at the same time. (Just in case you don’t know, Osho’s sannyasins celebrated everything, so we certainly made no exception around the passing of the master.)
One of Yogino’s good friends went to India, and sent back pictures of the funeral parade and pyre. There were lots of things going on every day, but no mention of anybody else awakening. So finally, after admitting my embarrassment to Yogino, and then stewing about it all a few more days, I began challenging all the other people on the list-serve.
I started by making an announcement: “This is Ma Prem Zareen. Didn’t anybody pay attention to Osho’s instructions? I realized my enlightenment when he died. What happened to everybody else?”
And the shit hit the fan.
I mean, come on! I could get out old tapes and play it to you where Osho said we would all be enlightened at his death. You’d think that if they weren’t smart enough to figure it out their own selves, they would at least expect a few people to do the deed! But exactly the opposite was the case. A huge uproar ensued.
Actually, it was kind of funny, in a really stupid way. There were two Ma Prem Zareens. One was a really important, top-level sannyasin in the inner circle. She was a big huge gal who was in charge of giving sannyas certificates to people who signed up as disciples. Yogino said he was certain that Osho had given me my name as “Prem Zareen” just to push her buttons because she had to send the certificate to me! I was a little newcomer, a nobody out in Idaho, and I got her name! And then I turn around and really make trouble!
Suddenly this nobody in Idaho is announcing her enlightenment, and everybody was mixing me up with her. Ha! That must have made quite an uproar over in Poona! If Osho wanted someone to cause her a lot of trouble, he really picked the right person.
I made quite a stink for months. It was really painful for me because people were quite mean. When people are mean, it really hurts.
I can remember the first time my little enlightened bubble got popped. After my self realization I had a few really good days because I wasn’t challenged by anything, so I thought I was impervious to any negativity. But then somebody was really mean on the list-serve, and it really hurt. My emotions came flying up. But just like my previous experience of my mind not being me, and my ego not being me, the emotions simply arose in the field where emotions are supposed to be. I saw them and was amazed. What a discovery! Enlightened people can have their feelings hurt! Enlightened people can react with anger!
That moment was quite an awakening in itself because it brought me into a full circle of self knowledge. This, really, was the moment of my true awakening because it was the moment I put the whole thing into context and made momentous conclusions about my experience. This was the reason the awakening never faded away for me. The inner and the outer met at that time. It was so much more beautiful to be a complete human being in this way. My previous belief was that enlightenment would mean I would be totally perfect; always living in a zone of no reaction, constantly covered with the sugar of happiness. But this was way better. To be awakened as the full totality of everything I was, everything I had been, and to have the potential of everything I could become had much more juice! I’m really glad that the universe is put together exactly the way it is because everything works so well.
Those first weeks were a painful time, but a lot of good came out of it too. At least a dozen other sannyasins emailed me privately that my emails had shook them to the point of realizing their own illumination. So in my mind, all that effort wasn’t wasted. Out there, somewhere today, these folks are still walking around doing something. I hope they are doing some really cool.
The problem was that all of us who got it were the quiet, little, unimportant people in tucked away corners around the globe. I’ve lost track of them all now, but that’s an important point to note as we get further on in our story.
By nature I am a recluse, and most the people who emailed me about their own realizations were also recluses. I guess that’s the best nature to have for finding truth. Through the years, as I studied spirituality I never pseudo-taught others, or blabbed about it. You’ll notice, if you hang around spiritual people, that they talk and talk and talk constantly about spirituality. Always spouting off about what they know, or what experience they had, or what some teacher said. There is so much blabbing going on that there is no room for listening.
During my years of studying, as a student and as a disciple, it never occurred to me to talk about things I didn’t know. This was evidence that I had no desire to be a teacher myself! I did take the Bodhisattva vow, however, but I have some disclaimers around that!
Osho talked a lot about how important it was to take the Bodhisattva vow, which means that if you become enlightened you promise you won’t simply go off by yourself and happily live away your days, lost in your own contentment. It means that no matter how difficult it is, you will keep trying to help others until the whole of humanity is enlightened. He talked about another thing all the time too, and that was the looming environmental crises and state of the world. Osho believed very passionately that a new world could not be created by passing power to new hands. We need a totally new kind of human being to live on the planet. This would be an awakened being, with expanded consciousness and self realization; someone who knew how to celebrate and enjoy peace.
As I sat and listened to him, I inwardly vowed that I would do whatever it took to make this vision a reality. Holding true to that vow has been quite a challenge! In fact, I feel I was quite tricked into it! The enlightenment part was not a challenge. That was easy. The promising to teach has been a real disaster! The problem was that I had nothing to teach, nobody to teach it to and absolutely no financial resources at my disposal!
In my innocent bliss, as I took the Bodhisattva vow, I thought that enlightenment itself would give me something to make teaching possible. Like big eyes, or a really serene smile, or something like that. At least it should give me some sort of personal magnetism. But it didn’t. I’ve always been a bit of a jerk, and I remained that way: confrontational and way too smart for my own good.
I had never taught anybody anything, or even wanted to, so I had no idea that people don’t want to learn even when they say they do! I had no idea that almost everyone studying enlightenment was just pretending! I had no idea that enlightenment itself was indescribable.