Today i’m happy to tell you how i first met Osho; how he came to be my first Yoga teacher; and how “the first 3 Words” i heard from Osho touched me to the core and can transform not only your Yoga discipline, but also your life.
It was a Sunday afternoon in September, 1975. I was 23 and living in La Jolla, California, and had been practicing Yoga every day for an hour, for 2 years. I did not have a yoga teacher, and had never taken a yoga class. I had read a couple of books { my first and most favorite book i lent to my sister and she lost it, and i don’t remember the name. The other book i had read was “Yoga Self Taught” by Van Lysebeth, which is a very good Yoga book, in my opinion}.
In 1975, there were very few yoga teachers, and yoga was thought to be a very strange “Indian idea”. After doing Yoga for 9 months, i finished with the University of San Diego { i majored in Sports and Psychology }. When i started my first “real job” in 1974, it was pretty intense, with a lot of appointments and stress. It was the first time in my life that i was not always playing sports and training as an athlete { i loved basketball, volleyball, bicycling, and body surfing a lot }. So i made “an inner promise” to myself- this was the promise: “if my days become so busy and stressful that i do not have time for my daily yoga session, then i will quit my job”. Looking back, i don’t know where that commitment came from, but i can tell you honestly, that up to then, i never missed a day… but on that Sunday afternoon in September, a seed was planted inside of me, and i quit that job 9 months later, for a completely different reason!
{ By the way… My work at that time was in the Real Estate business, selling land in the high desert, outside of Los Angeles. I wanted to make so much money that i could retire by age 30 and enjoy my life- ha! I was part-owner of the company, “Amity Real Estate”, along with 3 other dynamic guys- my older brother Frank, my best friend at the time, Rick { later he became “Geetananda” }, and the majority owner, Mike}.
Earlier that week, while shopping at the Ocean Beach “People’s Food Co-op”, the first fully organic Food Store in San Diego, i saw a flyer announcing a “Yoga Demonstration with Swami Satya Pujari” for the next Sunday. { by the way… People’s Food Store is still there in OB, and every time me and Anasha visit, they still give me the “Member’s Discount”! It’s a great store- check it out if you are in SD }. I thought to myself, “that sounds cool, an Indian Swami, i think i’ll go…”. I didn’t have much contact with India up to that time in my life… at USD, in a Religious Studies class i had, an Indian Brahmin came to talk to us about Hinduism… that was the only Indian i had met before. The “Hare Krishnas” were around, and had good food and chanting, but i didn’t really connect much with their energy. Plus, you remember i told you before about “Swami’s Beach”, and how i loved Paramahansa Yogananda, and “Kriya Yoga”? Those were the only contacts up to that time that i had with India or its wisdom.
So, when Sunday rolled along, i was expecting to meet “an Indian Swami” who would share about Yoga. I don’t know what else i was expecting, but i certainly was not expecting to see many of the best looking juicy young women that i could imagine! And “the Swami” was a tall guy about 5-7 years older than me with long, flaming red hair and beard, dressed all in orange, wearing a mala of 108 beads around his neck with a picture of his “Guru”!
On a big blackboard in the room was written 3 words: “ACCEPTANCE IS TRANSCENDENCE” and the Guru’s name was BHAGWAN SHREE RAJNEESH. All i remember feeling is that i felt like i was listening to great truth. Pujari talked about his time in India over the last 3 years, how he was a disciple of Bhagwan { Osho } , and how Osho had given him name. I learned that Pujari owned and managed the Rajneesh Yoga Institute nearby in San Diego { which is also still there, by the way, and managed by Pujari’s brother }.
I remember many things from that day… Pujari’s demonstration and explanation of why “Acceptance is Transcendence” in the practice of Yoga Asanas is so transforming. He had one of the beautiful women go into a forward bend { she also was dressed in orange and wearing a mala}, and told her to go the point where she started to feel her limit… when she got to the limit of her stretch, he told her to soften into the sensation… don’t run away from it… feel it minutely… bring her focus there… don’t try to change it. When she did what he told her to do, everyone could see that her breathing expanded and it looked like she became a little more flexible. But because she was one of his students, it wasn’t really all that convincing. What was impressive to me, though, was how he talked about the delicate balance between effort and let-go, and how if you really accept what is happening, you “go beyond” the tension into a state of let-go. Then he asked if anyone wanted to volunteer to let him demonstrate this “energetic principle” on them. Well, you can imagine, that i said “yes” immediately! He asked me if i knew about different yoga postures, and i said yes. Then he asked if any position gave me a little trouble… i thought about it, and said, “well- sometimes it is hard for me to stay in the Cobra position”. He had me go into it, and then asked me where i felt the 2 biggest sensations… so i told him, and he said to come back a little, and to stop “just before” it becomes intense. And then to just feel it; allow it; don’t judge it or feel bad about it; accept it not only with my body… but accept my limit with my mind, with my heart, with my ego. Well, after just 20 seconds of “guided acceptance” my spine became obviously rounder and more flexible.
So the next day i went to the Rajneesh Yoga Institute to begin taking classes. I arrived straight from work, and still had my tie on, when Pujari asked me what my motivation for taking Yoga classes was. I said that something inside me had clicked when he shared about Osho’s vision of Yoga, and “i want to go all the way to discovering myself”. He smiled, and said that i had “come to the right place!” Every Friday night Pujari played an Osho discourse… the very the first discourse i heard was Osho talking about Yoga and love together. I literally laughed and cried at the same time! I knew that i had found my Spiritual Master, or that “he had found me”. Pujari also offered Osho’s Active Meditations there, so i began experimenting with them… again i could not believe my luck! Each meditation opened me up to new energies inside. The Rajneesh Yoga Institute became “my second home” for 9 months… i took advanced classes, and was gradually permitted to lead some of the “Beginner’s classes”. Pujari was also a group leader in early Poona One… in many of the early “Darshan Diaries” of Osho talking to individuals you will see him talking with Pujari. It is with him that i first experienced the “Tathata Meditation” that we share in ARUN. I have never seen such an amazing Yoga center, and i have never met such a wonderful teacher and yogi as Pujari… hundreds and hundreds of people took Sannyas through visiting there.
“The A.O. Y. in-sight of the Day { and perhaps of the Century! }”
When you are in the various asanas… create angles and curves with your “Buddha-bones” that are not “too extreme” for you, yet at the same time produce sensations that “call you here”… bring your mindfulness, your inner vision, and your heart to the feeling. Spread your awareness between the stretch and the compression. Learn how to “let go” on the spot, and learn to not allow any “unnecessary holding” in the areas that are not obviously implicated in the stretch. Let “this moment” be the goal.
Let me put it this way: it is very simple. If you fight with the sensation, or push “too far”, you are creating a split inside of yourself… a kind of inner schizophrenia. Your Central Nervous System is very wise… if something is happening that “is not good”, or threatening, a very wise protective mechanism comes in… if you are being “pulled apart” in a way that is scary, even if your own “goal-oriented” mind is telling you… your nerves will prevent your muscles from letting go… especially the delicate “proprio-ceptor nerves” deep within the joint capsules… they hold you together “for your own good”. The body knows that if you go too far, pain or injury is the result, so it protects. When you “lose Mindfulness” during the stretch, you lose “Acceptance”. If you always stay within the “energy of acceptance”, then your Central Nervous System has NO PROBLEM allowing the stretch and the compression, and it even cooperates with the bones, nerves, muscles, breath, and blood. If mentally or emotionally you are fighting the stretch, or giving yourself a hard time for not being “good enough”, then a similar “shutting down” of the Nervous System, especially in the center of your brain, around the hippocampus, occurs. When the “energy of acceptance” is present, this affects your glands in a VERY POSITIVE WAY.
The “shadow of acceptance” is that your “proprio-ceptor” nerves, which are essential for our “Kinesthetic Sense” are enhanced. { “proprio means your self; “ceptor” means feeling… “feeling your self”. What could be more valuable?!? } This awareness activates the “6th Sense”… or “Meditative Sense” of perceiving inner motions and Energy Lines. The “invisible inner Touch of love and awareness” is related to the “invisible 6th sense”- and the 6th Sense needs to be consciously developed through your own inner witnessing and love. The 5 Senses we normally relate with are more connected to and are perceptors of things outside of us. “Prana”, “Chi”, or “electro-magnetic energy” is more an “inner consciousness” of the Life flowing inside of us. To utilize the “6th or Meditative Sense”, and to help it grow and expand, we need to look in… and sometimes “not be distracted by our 5 senses, mind, or emotions”. Remember Anasha’s teaching: The Breath of Meditation and the Nervous system are in absolute synchronicity… and the “Breath of Meditation” is TOTAL ACCEPTANCE of what is.
The deep understanding of Osho and all of the Buddhas is “ACCEPTANCE IS TRANSCENDENCE”…
Enjoy the time with yourself… it is a gift and a luxury.
Sending a smile from the Heart,
Anubuddha
Thank You for giving us This!
I`m practicing Yoga since 8 years and I do love your guidance. Everything is new and deep and touches me, that I could cry. I do the sequence supersoft, every day softer. Looking inside to the point struggling starts, working starts, the feeling to reach something, being better….etc….etc…. and breathing, also supersoft, and sometimes my hole body is shivering with the outbreath in release. Makes me very happy and sensibel, and also frightens me sometimes…
with Love
Mirjam
this is from “Monica la Catalana” in Barcelona:
“me encanta empezar el día con “song for yoga”….. gracias!
esta siendo una experiencia maravillosa… estoy empezando a notar una vibración especial y distinta dentro de mi… y por fuera los cambios se pueden ver tambien!!
la verdad que no se muy bien como explicarlo… pero se siente muy pero que muy bien!!
ahora voy a ver un poquito mas por dentro de mi cuerpo… sigo con mi A.O.Y.
risas, abrazos y muchos cariñitos YES YES YES!!
monimaya
She is saying: “I love to start the day with “song for yoga”… gracias! it is being a marvelous experience… i am beginning to notice a special and distinct vibration “inside” of me… and “outside” the changes can also be seen… the truth is that i do not really know how to explain it well… but i feel very, really very good! Now i go to see a little more inside of my body… continuing with my A.O.Y. laughter. Hugs and tenderness YES! YES! YES!”
Monimaya
Moni… eres perfecta asi como eres! Abrazos de Anasha y Buda
Beloved.
I enjoy so much this story. And i feel your energy like a reflection of my own. I am so gratefull Osho came into my life although i was never with him when he was in the body. Si to be able to share with sannyasins who wrte, is a great gift!
The every day yoga is not every day so easy for me and some days i skip. But when i read your blog, i get inspired again. My mind is unterfering.
Once i am in it feels great! I notice i have issues with patience. I want things happen fast and push to my limits. Thats one of thecreasons i have some lower backbproblem now. So , i start looki g more inside, being more gentle and breath into my lower back.
Thank you so much again… Namaste
Dear Buddha,
you ask how it feels to do yoga, and i had a look: There are two main feelings, one is doing what you say and enjoy the effect and feel greatful that you share your expierience so genorously. And when I look deeper, I feel that I am doing even that still because of desire to be happy and the fear that I never will be, and on the sametime I am so fucked with doing what anyone tells me, I feel so imprisoned and on the same time I am still to scared to trust myself to find an way of my own….
You see I am still heading for the moment.
On facebook passes a quote from Gurdijef today: “that you have to know, that you are imprisoned to have a chance to come out.” So thank you for giving me the oppurtunity to feel it more clearly. 🙂
Lovc
Surati
Beloveds
the sensation is to be more and more aire – so light allmoust no weight anymore.
And the heart is so nourisht and warm in this beautifull connection to all of you –
its like being a part of one organisem.
muchissimas gracias para tus palabras gada dia!
sonrisa of the heart
Sister! So nice to know you are in too! – Alles Liebe Dir