OSHO: The Buddha for the Future. Maneesha James

love him. Time and space have disappeared. I am so full of love and joy that I feel as if I will burst. Tears spill down my face.

      Perhaps the format of these celebration changes over the years, but always foremost for me is Osho sitting so still and elegantly in front of us, and our singing. Singing our hearts out—in gratitude to him, to each other, to life, and singing, too, for no reason other than that we cannot not! The love is palpable and expressed in songs that are tender—

      He’s a flower of a man,

       he’s a rainbow who can sing

       who can sing, who can sing,

       who can sing.

       He’s a waterfall of music,

       pouring rainbows over me,

       over me, over me

       over me.

      —and some that are poignant. Indian Taru sings the perennial favorite to a hall that has become absolutely silent, spellbound now:

      Guru Brahma, guru Vishnu

       guru devo maheshwara

       Tasmai shree guruvai namah now.

       Om shanti-i-i, shant-i-i, shanti-i-i….

      The song dissolves into silence, there is a pause, then once again we are off, riding the crest of

      You fountain of love, of love,

       You river of love, of love.

       You ocean, -o-o-cean!’

      And finally, as Osho rises and glides out, beaming, we sing our all-time favorite, the one that ends each celebration:

      Yes, Osho, yes!

       Yes, Osho, yes!

       Yes, Osho,

       Yes! yes! yes!

      *

      Surrendering to a master and into the energyfield around him is really just an excuse to encourage our small selves to dissolve. Osho says on one occasion:

      From the heart there is no ego. Because of this we have become afraid of the heart. We never allow it to have its own way, we always interfere with it, we always bring mind into it. We try to control the heart through the mind because we have become afraid—if you move to the heart, you lose yourself. And this losing is just like death. Hence the incapacity to love, hence the fear of falling in love. Because you lose yourself, you are not in control. Something greater than you grips you and takes possession. Then you are not on sure ground and you don’t know where you are moving. So the head says, "Don’t be a fool, move with reason. Don’t be mad."

      [You are] possessed…but unless you are ready to be possessed there can be no God for you. Unless you are ready to be possessed there is no mystery for you, and no bliss, no benediction. One who is ready to be possessed by love, by prayer, by the cosmos, means one who is ready to die as an ego. Only that one can know what life really is, what life has to give. What is possible becomes immediately actual, but you must put yourself at the stake.

      He suggests we find as many opportunities as we can to be more loving.

      Remember, whatsoever you are doing, the quality of love must be there. This has to be a constant remembering. You are walking on the grass—feel that the grass is alive. Every blade is as much alive as you are.

      Be loving. Even with things, be loving. If you are sitting on a chair, be loving. Feel the chair; have a feeling of gratitude. The chair is giving comfort to you. Feel the touch, love it, have a loving feeling. The chair itself is not important. If you are eating, eat lovingly.

      Music, singing and dancing have always been important to me personally, and I can hardly believe my good luck at not only finding Osho and living such an extraordinary life in exotic India but discovering that all three are intrinsic to our every day. In listening to music, in singing and especially in dancing I can lose myself, or find my real self in the space of vastness they all take me to. One day I ask Osho in a question for discourse, “Our love for music, poetry, dance, our love for love itself—doesn’t that suggest an urge in us to disappear? If that is so, why does meditation, the art of disappearing, not come more naturally to us?”

      Osho responds:

      Maneesha, music, poetry, dance, love are only half way. You disappear for a moment, then you are back. And the moment is so small…. Just as a great dancer, Nijinsky, said, "When my dance comes to its crescendo, I am no more. Only dance is." But that happens only for a small fragment of time; then again you are back.

      According to me, all these—poetry, music, dance, love—are poor substitutes for meditation. They are good, beautiful, but they are not meditation. And meditation does not come naturally to you because in meditation you will have to disappear forever. There is no coming back. That creates fear. Meditation is a death—death of all that you are now. Of course there will be a resurrection, but that will be a totally new, fresh original being which you are not even aware is hidden in you.

      It happens in poetry, in music, in dance, only for a small moment that you slip out of your personality and touch your individuality. But only because it happens for a small moment, you are not afraid; you always come back. In meditation, once you are gone in, you are gone in. Then, even when you resurrect you are a totally different person. The old personality is nowhere to be found. You have to start your life again from ABC. You have to learn everything with fresh eyes, with a totally new heart. That’s why meditation creates fear.

      Music, poetry, dance or love can become hindrances to meditation if you stop at them. First comes meditation, and then you can create great poetry and great music. But you will not be the creator; you will be just a hollow bamboo flute. The universe will sing songs through you, will dance dances through you. You will be only an address—c/o you. Existence will express itself, and you will be just a hollow bamboo.

      Meditation makes you a hollow bamboo; then whatever happens through that hollowness, that empty heart belongs to existence itself. As far as I am concerned, poetry and music and love and dance are more religious activities than the so-called religious rituals, because at least they give you a little glimpse. If you follow that glimpse you will enter into meditation.

      Meditation directly and naturally does not attract you because of a great fear of death. You don’t know after death whether there is going to be a resurrection or not. That’s the place where a master is needed to give you a promise, a trust: "Don’t be worried. That which is dying is not you, and that which is arising is your original being."

      But you can have a master only if you can trust someone. It is going into very dangerous ways. Meditation is the most dangerous thing. You need someone who has been on the path, who has been treading on the path, coming and going. You need someone who can create courage, encouragement, and trust in you that you can take the quantum leap.

      *

      For years after I take sannyas, I wonder intermittently how is it that I have stumbled across Osho and am actually living with an enlightened master.

      The answer lies in the question: it has been just a stumbling; something that has happened not because of me and anything clever I have done but in spite of myself. I think back to the many beautiful people I have come across in my life—intelligent people; alive, open, loving and concerned people. Why are they not with Osho, while I am? Yet if I use openness and intelligence as the criterion by which people find Osho, that suggests that I was intelligent or open, and more so than them —and I’m certain that’s not so.

      It is easy enough, at a certain point in one’s life, to look back and be able to see a logical thread that seemed destined to lead one to that point. However, at least before meeting Osho, I was on a path that felt haphazard, that was created as I was propelled along by an inner restlessness that—in spite of my initial resistance—brought me here, to what feels like home. “It seems,” I write in a question to Osho, “I came to you in spite of myself, rather than because of myself.” Osho replies:

      That’s the right thing to do, coming to me in spite of yourself. Yes, there are people who come because