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Being the Master of My Life

After all these years, I have learned to be the master of my life, of who I am. Never do I want to be the master of someone else. You see, I have discovered the art of how to love and to be loved in return. This makes me complete. (From the CD Compassion: The Way of the Master by Veeresh)

The first time I met Osho, in 1974, I expected Him, as a Master, to have superhuman powers. In fact He was totally human, warm, enjoying everybody. I fell in love with Him – His way of laughing, His way of moving, the answers He was giving. As I was leaving He gave me a white robe and said, “Dye it deep red; that will be good for your meditation.” That was His first gift to me.
One Guru Purnima Day in Pune, as Osho was sitting at the front gate He said to me, “Veeresh, come sit next to me.” I was shocked. I wasn’t open to the invitation and said, “No, thank you.”
Another time, I had a toothache and went to the best dentist available in Pune, who was also Osho’s dentist. He hit a nerve, and I jumped because it hurt. He did an Indian head-shake and said, “It hurts Osho too!” That made me realize He’s not somebody who’s above pain.
As one of Osho’s guards died of a brain hemorrhage, He said that if He had known of his weakness He would not have put him in such a stressful situation. Then I got it again: He’s just like all of us; He needs information. The more Osho revealed His humanness, His fallibility, the more I started to appreciate Him as a person.
Over the years He was constantly offering me his friendship, and I would feel that it was too much, that I wasn’t worthy; I needed to prove something first. Then I would be given the right to sit next to Him, or be in the front row, or I would be able to receive His gifts.
Once in Rajneeshpuram I got called into Sheela’s office. She said, “Osho has declared you a Sambuddha. That means you’re enlightened.” All this recognition… He was just saying over and over, “I love you.” That was so difficult for me to accept.
Slowly, with His overwhelming love, I started to appreciate Him and what He was giving me. He looked to me like a superhuman being, but He was the most beautiful man that I ever met, and He demonstrated constantly that He loved me.
One day I wrote a letter saying that I wanted to interview Him because the Humaniversity had a newspaper. That was just an excuse to be close to Him. He sent back a message that He wasn’t talking any more because He had had all His teeth removed, but I could have a photo session. During the session I was so happy; I was overwhelmed. When they were changing the cameras, He asked about my health. I looked incredulously at Him and said, “My health? I’m doing very well. How are you?” I had heard He was not well, and He looked pale.
I was standing next to Him, and He reached out with His left hand. I held it and thought to myself. “Here’s my opportunity.” I took the risk and started to kiss His hand over and over. My tears were all over it, so I grabbed a sleeve of my robe and tried to clean them off. He started to laugh, and I laughed, and He laughed and…wow! I had an experience of what they call shaktipat: He overwhelmed me with His love and His laughter. I got completely lost. I had never felt so much bliss, looking into His eyes.

I realized I was squeezing His hand, and yet He just kept looking at me with so much love. That was such a treasure, such a gift in my life to be so close to Him and tell Him I love Him. He was my Master – He’ll always be my Master – and at that moment He also became my friend. I wanted to say, “If you’re not all right, stay with me. You don’t have to go out there and play Superman for everybody.” I wanted to take care of Him too, to thank Him for taking care of me.
I have come to love and appreciate Osho more and more. I once told Him, “When I grow up, I want to be just like you.” I didn’t mean a carbon copy of Him; I was talking about His unconditional love, His care, His awareness, His constant efforts to free up all of us, insisting that we find our own way. He begs us to be aware, telling us that we have to see who we really are. He asks us to use Him up to a point, but then to do our own trip. The whole process is an incredible journey.
I feel nobody has ever cared so much for me, in that special way that He has. He has always wanted the best for me. As a result, today I am the best in my heart. Despite all my doubts, all my fears, all those things that happened, I’m home, I’m free. You can call it being the master of my life… I do my thing.
He once told me, ”If anything or anybody gets in the way of what you in your heart believe, don’t compromise. Be willing to die for your position.” So I’m ready to give everything, but if I feel in my heart that it’s wrong for me, I won’t do it! That’s another way of looking at freedom.
I once asked myself, “What do I want to be written on my gravestone?” The only thing I could come up with was: Veeresh: A Man of Osho. He loved and was loved by many. I thought that would be really cool. It’s true also. I think He’d say, “Very good, Veeresh.”
Now that Osho is not in the body anymore I feel a greater sense of responsibility. I’ve been listening to Him talk for years, and now I feel I have to carry out what He was talking about. That’s what He expected of all His sannyasins. I feel a deep necessity to really give in my work; there’s no time to waste.
I want everybody I work with, also the Tan-Jus, the teenagers here (at the Humaniversity), to change, to grow up and be beautiful. I give them what I think, what I feel, who I am. As a teacher I have a great responsibility to share my heart with them, so they can find their own Master inside one day.
I remember a beautiful story Osho told: When Buddha died he went to heaven, and he stopped at the front gate. All the angels were ready to welcome him, to jubilate and celebrate that he was coming in, and God was waiting… And he said, “I can’t go in now. I have to first wait until everyone else has passed through these gates.” All the angels cried because they were overwhelmed with his compassion. I see Osho like that: He wants all His people to go through. I also want the same thing.
Osho has this vision that 200 years from now, everyone will be able to appreciate what He’s been doing. When people walk in the main gate of the Resort, immediately they will move into the vertical plane, and the energy of the place will enlighten everybody. I see the same thing happening at the Humaniversity. I see us as the support team for the Resort, and that in two hundred years time we’ll still be supporting them, still be doing Osho’s work, making sure everyone goes through that gate: “Come on, you can do it: Hurry up!”
Osho said He wanted the Humaniversity to be officially affiliated with the Resort – not for us to feel restricted, but that He wanted us to be connected. I thought to myself, “If I were in His position and had to choose someone to support the work in Pune, of course it would be me!” I’ll do all I can to promote His work and accomplish what He wanted.
Osho Humaniversity is a School for Masters.. In the beginning we have to do a lot of therapy, change the negative behavior first. But finally, we are a meditation school: Who are you? When you look deep inside, you will find that you are a lovable human being. “Your behavior might be strange; your judgments and mental mind-fucks get in the way; your relationships can be improved; your sexuality is a little bit dysfunctional; you wish you could have had other parents…” But your foundation as a human being is: you are perfect just the way you are. Everyone is a master. It is just that a lot of doubts and conditioning gets in the way.
Our job here is to free people up to be themselves. I want everyone to develop their total human ability - everyone is unique. That’s the basis of being a Master. Once your awareness has grown enough, then give and share your love!” The world needs that!.
http://www.humaniversity.nl

This article first appeared in Viha Connection magazine

Tags: Discussion, Meditation/Spiritual by sannyasnews
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Film in Israel with Holacaust survivor daughter
decimates the past

Bettina Goering ran away from home at 13, lived in the early Osho Ashram in Poona, India, and later in the Osho communes.

Her great-uncle, her father’s beloved godfather, was the infamous Nazi leader Hermann Goering. Adolf Hitler’s second-in-command, he headed the vaunted Luftwaffe airforce and was a leading architect of the “Final Solution” to exterminate Europe’s Jews.

His grandniece’s impressive odyssey to cleanse herself of the family’s tarnished past brought her recently to Israel, where a documentary about her relationship with a child of Holocaust survivors is being featured at the Jewish Eye film festival.

The film, “Bloodlines” records Bettina’s emotional encounters with Ruth Rich, an Australian artist whose brother was murdered by the Nazis and whose parents emerged broken from the Holocaust. The film has been aired on Australian television and will next be screened at the Boston Jewish Film Festival.

Bettina, in an interview, said it was only thanks to her meetings with Ruth Rich, where she faced the pain of an angry victim, that she was finally able to break through from a guilt-ridden life. “I looked into the darkest darkness and there is nothing left to fear. I finally released it,” she said. “It was the deepest kind of therapy you could do.”

Bettina is now 52 and a Doctor of oriental medicine, but has struggled with her identity. Her father, Heinz, was adopted by his infamous uncle, after his own father died, and followed in his footsteps to become a fighter pilot in the Luftwaffe. Heinz was shot down in WW2 over the Soviet Union and only returned from captivity in 1952, to find that his two brothers had killed themselves and the family’s fortunes were gone.

Hermann Goering was sentenced to death along with 11 others at the Nuremberg trials in 1946, but he committed suicide by swallowing a poison pill in his cell the night before his scheduled execution.

Bettina said her father, who died in 1981, never spoke about the Holocaust, or about his notorious uncle. Bettina was baffled at how the systematic killing of 6 million Jews had occurred, and rebelled. At 13, she ran away and cut ties with the family. She became a hippie and then a communist, and travelled the world. Her journey took her to India where she become a disciple of Osho. Still, she says she couldn’t shake the ghost of her great-uncle. It was there every time she looked in the mirror. “The eyes, the cheekbones, the profile,” she said. “I look just like him. I look more like him than his own daughter.”
The most drastic step she took was to have her tubes tied at age 30. She said she feared she would create another monster. “It’s my bloodline and I didn’t want to continue it,” she said. “I didn’t want any more Goerings.” Her only brother independently decided to have a vasectomy. She is now close with him, but disconnected from the rest of the family. “It’s all a part of this guilt,” she said.

Through a common friend, she was introduced a couple of years ago to Rich who was struggling with her own baggage of victimized parents and the ghost of a brother she never knew. Rich went through years of intensive therapy and escaped to art, where she painted dark troubling images of the demons lurking inside her. Together, the two women began to heal.

In their first meetings, Rich said she felt contempt for Bettina. “It was very intense and I definitely projected this on Bettina,” she said. But ultimately, she said they have formed a “great sisterhood.”
Bettina credits Rich for letting her finally shed a burden. The newfound inner peace gave her enough confidence to come to Israel for the first time. At a screening this week of “Bloodlines”, she faced tough questions from survivors at the film festival. Later, in a visit to the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum, she watched the famous footage of Hermann Goering from the Nuremberg trials with less pain than ever before. “The hardest part is admitting that I could have liked him. I was so shocked by that,” she said. “Now I am accepting myself more for who I am, whatever that encompasses — the good, the bad and the ugly.”

On the Net: http://www.bloodlinesfilm.com

Tags: Discussion, News by sannyasnews
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Sw Vasanto and Ma Abhiru are scientist couples from France who came to Tapoban this October to participate in the seven days intense silence meditation camp. While Swami Vasanto has already filed two major patents and has forty three of his designs on the space shuttle, ISS (International Space Station), Ma Abhiru is a holder of two PhDs and works on molecular biology in the R&D center of a private company. We sat down with these science inventors to know more about their experiences as spiritual seekers.

Vasanto, Abhiru was telling me that you have interesting incidents about how you came in contact with Osho. Tell us about it.

Vasanto:- I was born in France in 1938 in a catholic family. Probably when I was 14 years old, I was having dreams about eastern countries that I had never been to. I used to receive impressions coming from a culture born in India during 8th-12th century about Shiva and Tantric practices. When I was 30 years old, the new age flowed from America into Northern Europe like flu. I was running after things like rebirth in order to meet higher beings, or probably a master but I found nothing.

Later in my professional life when I was inventing, I always felt that some one was watching me over my shoulder while I was designing my inventions. The repetitive occurrence of this feeling made me paranoid but it was real. These were the most creative years of my life. Now I have clearly come to know that it was Osho who was guiding me in my designs. Its been three years since I met Osho through a woman, Ma Anand Marga and I am more aware today about how he is helping me.

And your new work?

Vasanto:- This new work was a secret until today. I have come to know that sometimes when our body is silent, our biology works better and can work as a medium for energetic healing. I am working on how to bring this phenomenon to use. I am preparing a text about this and Osho has helped me a lot in it. When we met Swami Arun it was a great time. After a lot of discussion we have come to know that the people in Europe don’t know that most of their problems are in the mind and the only solution is meditation. So we also have plans to open a Osho commune in near future where people can come and meditate. It will happen gradually and the first step has already been taken.

I have seen that it’s very difficult for scientists or people from a science background to bend towards spirituality or religion. But today it is a different story………

Abhiru:- Scientists have to be convinced by a demonstration like a+b=c. They have to understand through logic. So the difficulty is to bring them to the heart. But today there is a lot of stress in France like in Europe and people have slowly begun to realize that there is something wrong in their lives. So I think that the right way to explain it to them is by allowing them to experiment it on themselves. Then its ok. They are narrow minded and at the same time they are not narrow minded. When I said to my colleagues that I was going to Nepal for meditation camp, they were very happy for me. So they can understand that it will help me but they are not ready to accept that it could help them too.

But today most of the European people need help. There is a lot of sadness and depression in the West especially in the professional world and many are seeking help from different practices, therapies and spiritual teachers. Nature can also be very therapeutic. I think that meditation is actually the true way for scientists to make their life lighter and happier and today people from Europe can easily understand why. These problems can be easily solve by introducing them to meditation and gradually to Osho when their heart is more open.

Vasanto:- Its difficult in France because most of the people are Catholics and anything other than Christian is considered as a cult. They are wrong but it’s not their fault because they don’t know. People need to experiment inside themselves and this is the only way to know.

Before Osho, religion was not accepted into science and science was not welcomed by religion. As scientists what would you say to that?

Abhiru:- Osho is a bridge between these two worlds, science and spirituality. Osho made it easier especially for the occident people to understand spirituality and helped them to come to their hearts. He also gave these rules during his early days, the five principles that Swami Arun talks about. It’s important to have guidelines. You are right about the difference between science and religion before Osho. And for me Osho’s meditation is a crossroad between these two worlds. Through Osho it became easier for us, people in the mind to understand, because he gave us the privilege of experimenting.

These five principles have raised a lot of controversy in the Osho community. Could you talk about your experience with these five principles?

Abhiru:- I think that its important for us to pass through these disciplines. In France I did try to meditate but I realized that I do need some guidelines. It is a step by step process for me and has helped me to be on the line. I realized that I can’t reach the finish line without passing through the first point. And the first point is purification and then the discipline that I have to meditate at least twice a day. And then the life will do the rest. Its like a demonstration, a man who climbs the Mt Everest has to start from the base camp. He also needs to make sure that he takes each of his steps carefully. I think the five principles are in fact the right way for us, the Occident people. I have understood the importance of purification, meditation, company, silence retreat through my own experience.

Vasanto:- The reality is very clear and there is nothing to be said about it.

I would like to know about your experience during this camp.

Abhiru:- It was like Oh my God! Hey Bhagwan! It was wonderful. For me I have been touched by the love of Osho. Its something that I hadn’t experienced before and I was really impressed by all this love, this goodness of everybody. We are very lucky first to know Osho, to know Arun. It was really an honor, a privilege to attend this camp. The camp has been a transformation for both of us. Now I have come to know that through discipline, through meditation I can be, I can be another woman. From here I have also learnt how to celebrate life and I am very thankful. I am sure that one day our joy will spread like an epidemic. That’s my scientific word.

Vasanto:- We are the 2nd generation sannyasins and its a great time. Arun is working perfectly. I speak about my deep feeling that when u meet Arun, when u see the light in his eyes, when u hear the love in his words, when u feel the love overflowing from his heart, phewww……. We have seen that he gives time to everybody and all the 250 people in this camp feel his love. And the beauty of the people here, they are always taking care for your comfort and are always smiling. You are like our examples and we would love to be like you, always laughing even at work.

What was your favorite session during the camp?

Vasanto:- I liked the prayer meditation because I felt a very strong presence of energy. It really spoke deeply in my heart, my body and my brains. The energy was growing more and more everyday during the day and it was a great experiment for us.

Abhiru:- In the beginning I didn’t feel anything when Swami Arun said feel Osho because I was not so connected. But from the middle of the camp I really felt his love and it was a new feeling for me. Then of course the sharing sessions with Swami Arun and the Sannyas celebration on the last day. I also liked the prayer meditation because it made me feel that cosmic energy does exist. I really liked how we receive from the sky and then give it back to Earth.

In the end do you have anything to say?

Vasanto:- Many Many thanks to everyone, to Arun, to Osho, to life for the love that we received.

Abhiru:- A lot of gratitude to you people, to Osho and Swami Arun. Tapoban is a message of hope for the Occidental people because we have come to know that there is a way to change our lives. We all became one during the camp and it’s an example that this can happen on a larger scale through out the world. So my message to the French people is that if you want to transform your lives we know the way and we know the place. We have Osho and we have meditation. It’s a small thing to say but Arun is doing a job really important for the humanity.

Interview by- Swami Aatmo Neerav

Tags: News by sannyasnews
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