How I was put ... Part - III

One day while driving down to Allahabad from Indore with my family, I was playing a music cassette from Osho Ashram. In between two treks of music, there were short excerpts (2 – 3 minutes) from his lectures. In one such excerpt he said something like (essence is his, words are mine as I do not remember his words now) – “Our consciousness is arrowed outwards. We see faults in the outside for our suffering. We think that others are responsible and therefore correction is needed in others. We start doing that and get entangled in the outside and avoid ourselves. If we look inwards, we will find that reactions are ours and we can transcend them. The consciousness needs to be arrowed inwards. …”.

The substance of what he said struck me and whenever I got impatient or felt bad or was gripped by some desire or anxiety in live situations, I got automatically reminded of these words (like a pop-up in a computer – this process is described by Paramhamsa Nithyanandji as “a ‘click’ has happened” or “initiation”) and used to bring my awareness on what was going on within me. In this shifting of awareness to the body, chain of thought giving rise to one’s value judgement is broken, the emotion or desire is disconnected from the life energy (thoughts connect them to the life source) and consequently gets dissolved. One is out of it soon like a child, free to enjoy the next moment.

Sadhana thus did not remain confined to an hour of practice a day but became part of life as a whole in live situations (with many a sadhakas, practice remains confined – they enjoy it – but their interactions with others during rest of the day do not reflect that).

This process is one of the 112 methods of meditation given in the Tantra Sutra. This method has been main stay of my sadhana for first 17 years on day-to-day basis. If I have to choose one method of all the methods of meditation, I would choose this one for sure (reasons for such choice are discussed hereafter). This method will be discussed in detail in the next article titled as “Descend from the mind – inhabit the body”.

Now coming to the reasons why above method would be my first choice – this process (of course, it was aided by other meditations) turns all the situations, particularly the adverse ones, as opportunities for swadhyaya (study or observation of the self) and meditations and consequently there is no suffering and it gradually led me into a state where the action itself was what mattered to me irrespective of its outcome. I could equally enjoy drafting of an adverse or outstanding appraisal of performance, Charge Sheet to any officer, drafting an explanation called by a Supervisory Officer or drafting scrutiny report against order of an appellate authority. I enjoyed the quality of the draft itself – the work became its own reward – nothing else was on mind.

Though I was not fully conscious of this transformation at that time but it was perceived by others. In the years 1991 and 1992, I gave adverse reports to 5 officers, suspended one clerk and charge sheeted other two (of course I gave equal number of outstanding reports also) and there was no reaction, agitation or complaint against me. In fact, the staff unions thanked me for the suspension. In the cases of the taxpayers also I made deep investigations (while giving due respect to them) but nobody complained. Bosses also were full of praise for my work. This was diametrically opposite to my experiences before I started my meditations.

While in Indore, I got in contact with Swami Anand Gautam, a disciple of Osho (he was running a meditation centre in Indore for more than 15 years at that time). He grew fond of me and never spoke of Osho or meditations to me. Once a new meditation hall was to be got inaugurated and he wanted me to preside over the function – some senior office bearers from Osho Ashram were coming for the function. I felt that I was not fit for the job (no attainments in spiritual field – not even initiated by Osho) and that it should be done by some senior Sanyasi of Osho. He did not agree and later told the office bearers from Osho Ashram that if you want to see a Karmyogi in action, visit office of this person (me).

Then in the year 1992, I got transferred to Ahmedabad. I will continue with my story after a break – after publishing an article titled as “Descend from the mind – inhabit the body”, referred to above.

To be contd. …