I thought I’d do a little bit more of my story, since some of it is pretty wild.
So I’m living in a small town, in 1988 or 1989, in idaho. I’m not that far away from Rajneeshpurim, and Rajneeshpurim had shut down after Osho left. Basically many sanyasins were left homeless and they were looking to get rid of a bunch of books. So I contacted a center in Seattle and said, “I’ll take some books.” I started chatting with people there and they discovered that I was living in this town not that far away. I owned some property and so several sanyasans, who didn’t have any place to live came over and stayed.
It turned out to be a very interesting crew. Two of them were Swami Yogino and Swami Nigen who were both awakened sannyasins. There were a lot more actually awakened sannyasis than, perhaps, we were led to believe. They weren’t flashy about it. Most of them were quietly working to to help the overall goals of Osho.
What Yogino told me is that they were part of an inner circle, not Sheila’s inner circle, but a particular circle of all awakened sanyasins whose job was to meditate all day long and maintain the Buddha field.
That’s really interesting to think about. I just assumed it’s true. I still do. There’s really no reason to think that it wouldn’t be. Right? So it makes you start seeing that the Buddhafield is a bigger and more complex thing than we might think. It’s not just one person. Imagine an entire community creating a Buddha field? That’s the vision I had about how it was working.
Anyway, you can imagine that I was living in quite the hot bed of enlightenment. There I was, little Ma Prem Zareen, and all these matter-of-fact awakened people .
Another thing that was really interesting was that I was a new sannyasin. I hadn’t heard of Osho until after ranch shut down and he had left America. He already had this huge history behind him. He started out as a young man awakening and and as he went through life he learned things. He had a long period where he was silent, and that certainly led to his development as a teacher. Also, the digital world was starting to evolve at this time so meeting in person wasn’t the only way to be “in-time” with a teacher.
When I met him, when I became a sinyasan, he was having this incredibly creative, dynamic number of years. So his talks were very to the point, very radical. I’m prejudiced, but I think it was his best time period.
The internet was just very very beginning. You couldn’t just get online and Zoom, like today. This was pre-google, pre-streaming. But we could chat.
I was on a sannyasin listserve. I could chat with people, and hear about things in real time. I remember there was a magazine that came out regularly. It came through the mail (if you can believe that now!)
Anyway, there was some gal who had access to the recordings of Osho’s discourses as soon as they came out. So she started this casette discourse library. The way it worked is that she would get a cassette of the latest discourse, she would copy it, and mail it to me. I can’t remember exactly, but I would either mail it back to her or mail it on to the next person on the list. So these recent discourses would go through the library subscribers.
It was really very efficient, so I was getting discourses literally days after they happened. This was before Yogino and everybody came. So there I am, by myself with plenty of time to really really listen to everything the master was saying.
So I’m in this hot bed of solitary study anyway, and then Yogino, and Nijin, and Bamboo and all these people show up. They’re living at my house and I go from hotbed to hotbed
It was it was a very interesting time.
Two Interesting Stories
First Dynamic Meditation.
So Swami Yogino tells me, “You are very manipulative. You need to do Dynamic Meditation.”
I’m like… well fine. Okay (rolls eyes).
The meditation I had done to that point was Natarama. I hadn’t done Dynamic. So he sends me off into my bedroom, because that was the most private place in the house.
Dynamic Meditation is on a casette tape, with instructions. I put the tape in the casette player and off it goes. For anybody who doesn’t know Dynamic Meditation it starts with wild music. You jump on the heels of your feet. Boom, boom, boom, boom, until suddenly the music stops, and boom you sit down.
Looking back I think the way reason it works is because your head gets all discombubulated and shook up from all the thumping on your heels. The energy comes straight up your spine and mixes up the habitual brain. It can’t keep up. Then you sit down fast. I think what happens is that you sit down so fast that all your mind-thoughts stay up above and you, boom! Fall out underneath them.
I can still remember, very distinctly, this “vomit” of mind that happened. It retched out. You know, they talk about a near-death experience where your whole life flashes before your eyes. It was exactly like that. It came out so fast and full that I can only call it a mind vomit. What was amazing was the intricate detail. Everything that had ever happened to me and my, horrible interpretations of each moment spilled out. Maybe it was my clinging to it that fell out. The only way I can describe it is a vomit of mind.
Then the music on the tape changes and you get up and dance. Then you sit silently with all that mind vomit gone. You feel better afterwards, but it certainly wasn’t enjoyable. I remember thinking, “Okay. That was pretty wild and disgusting. Must be good enough. Yes?”
But no. The next day Yogino sent me off to do Dynamic Meditation again.
I go in my bedroom. Cassette in. Jump, jump, jump… sit down. Whosh! Same thing!
Woah! An intense vomit of brain. Intricate detail of every moment of my life. But this time what was so interesting about it… because the intricate details…. I don’t know how you can see that many details in one second. But it was every single detail, exactly the same as the day before, exactly, but with one little addition. I could see myself getting up that very morning and putting this veil of vomit on myself, and then throughout the day adding more stuff to it.
What a stupid thing to do every day! That’s ridiculous. I saw myself purposefully doing it every morning. It was obvious that all I needed to do to rid myself of it was to not put the veil on. Just that simple. Don’t put it on and you don’t have it.
So i decided to never do it again, and I never did it again.
I never said anything about it, but Yogino never told me to go do Dynamic Meditation again so I must have changed. But, yeah that was enough Dynamic Meditation for me.
Here’s a funny joke. Years later I met some other Sannyasins who bragged that they had done Dynamic Meditation every day for twelve years. I hope my face didn’t squiggle up in disgust too much as I thought, “Oh yuck!!! Really! You just keep putting the crap back on and have to wipe it off every day!” Ick.
Satori
Here’s one other thing that happened. One time I’m meditating and all of a sudden Yogino says “There. That’s Satori.”
Took me by surprise because the only thing that had happened was that I had gone just completely, totally normal. Like ordinary normal. Relaxed. This was after the Dynamic Meditation situation, so perhaps that had something to do with. But I don’t know how I would have ever known I was in Satori if it wasn’t pointed out.
It makes me think that Satori is way more common of an experience than we are led to believe by spiritual books!
Anyway those were some very very interesting times. When you start thinking about it this is just a small part of the whole story. S
But bottom line… enlightenment is easier than you think!
Get it… easier than you “think!”
So let’s get on with it.