Here’s a bit of my story with Osho. This is just the nutshell. This is like the punchline. This is the highlight, but everything that comes up before it is really good and really important, too. Maybe I’ll get into that someday.
It was January 19, 1990. I’m living in a small town in Idaho, USA, right on the Continental Divide. We’re far away from everyone and everything.
I wake up in the morning and turn on my computer. It was back in the days with a modem on a phone line. So it cracks and spittles and logs me in. I get on the listserv, and hear that Osho had died.
Leading up to this was the setup.
The last couple of years there was a lot of tension as Osho got more and more ill. During that time he started talking about his passing. The thing that I heard from him was what he called the transmission of the lamp. That when the master dies, the disciple can become enlightened. And he was very specific about it. What I heard him say was, “When I die, all my disciples are enlightened.”
Maybe I’m a genius, maybe I’m an idiot. I don’t know which. But for some reason, I totally took him literally.
So I logged onto the computer, and I hear that he had died. And rather than waiting for something to happen, some wonderful thing to come, I simply assumed I was already enlightened. So, accidentally, I forgot to wait. I stopped waiting, and I closed my eyes. I look inside. Oops, oh, wow. Nothing was there. Instead of waiting, I looked curious, “What is enlightenment like?” And I saw my self.
And I’m like, oh… “I’m me.”
And then, well, what is this me?
We’re talking seconds here, right? As we’re writing/reading here it is way past the amount of time that it actually took.
What am I like? I am nothing. Absolutely nothing. Really nothing. But that nothing is also everything. Me looking at nothing that’s also everything.
I am. That’s the way the Buddhists describe it. (Pay attention to the language I’m using here and you can see there was still separation. “I saw myself.” That’s still two things. But seconds weren’t ticking by. It was very fast.)
Then, I stepped back into myself. That’s the only I can describe it. I took a little step back into myself realizing that I was the me looking.
All of a sudden, there’s me looking at nothing, looking at the universe knowing exactly who I am. I’m what I’ve always been.
So there you go. That’s my story. I suddenly saw myself. I knew who I was.
I expected everybody else to do it, too. Nobody did. I don’t know what the deal was, actually. I think there might have been a few people that did it, but I was way out in Idaho. I mean, who could I talk to?
Later on I go back and start reading stuff that Osho had said and listening to some tapes. More obviously than obviously I can see that’s what he was talking about all along.
It’s so simple.
It is so simple. There just can’t be anything more simple than knowing who you are.
Another thing that was really interesting was the falling of the ego.
I saw ego and mind and knew what they are. The way I experience what I would call ego is an urge. It’s an urge for security. They call it the reptile mind, always watching for danger.
The mind is just a constant “blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah” Analyzing. Analyzing everything. Figuring out… figuring out… figuring out.
The second I realized I am me — I became the master. I came home. I knew who I was. All of a sudden I’m in charge and mind and ego were so happy to have me home they just both sat down and said, “Thank you. Hello. We’re here to serve you. You were never supposed to be serving us.”
One thing about it is that it’s permanent because it’s so simple. You can’t ever forget something that obvious. You also apparently can’t describe it to anybody else because it always gets misinterpreted.
There’s one other funny thing. I can tell more of the story later, but I literally cannot remember what it was like before. I try to sit there and think. Okay. I remember the moment that ego and mind sat down and said, “Welcome home thanks for being here”, and I can remember searching.
I can’t put my finger on what was causing the veil over my eyes, what was I searching for. I’m not sure and why what was it like. I can’t really remember.
So not only is waking up permanent, but it’s kind of retroactive as well.
So anyway that’s my story with Osho I’m Ma Prem Zareen. Me. Already awake the whole time.