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I Call It Satsang, Ja?

Dolano:

“I call it satsang, ja? Satsang because satsang is really when you come to the edge of the cliff, and you’re ready to jump, ja? No more postpone, no more escape, no more overlooking. This is satsang, only speaking the truth…”

The broken English forces you to concentrate. There’s an Osho lecture booming in the background, and birds singing. We’re right by Buddha Hall.

“…not speaking about the truth, ja?, like you will notice the difference from when we were sitting with Osho. Then it was more about it, there was always the possibility of tomorrow. Very easy, ja?, we could postpone it for 20 years, but satsang is directly when you ask yourself now I want to know myself what is true… It’s no more about it, it is it, ja? “

Dolano is the German sannyasin who used to look after the swans. When she “popped”- to use the distinctly sardonic sannyas expression- she played it differently from Maitreya or Tyohar: she stayed on in the ashram, not making a scene about being awake, just sitting in the Egg, having what seemed a lengthy breakfast with a friend, while in
fact she was teaching one-to-one.

“There was a different situation with Osho” Dolano continues, “ we have been basically listening to the gaps… “ But, she says, this is only part of the truth. She echoes that basic advaita contention: gaps in between thoughts are not true silence: true silence is always there, whether you’re thinking or not.

Dolano starts to tell her story… For years she lived in Koregaon Park, meditating in a bamboo hut without any electricity. Various extraordinary experiences took place, but in all of it she says, to use one of her favourite words, she ‘overlooked’ herself. A couple of years after Osho’s death she, like so many sannyasins, went to see Poonja. She didn’t really ‘get it’ from Poonjaji, though the trip started that process of ever-deepening relaxation, of let-go, which seems to be the key factor in awakening. “Spiritual measurement dissolved, it all disappeared… More or less advanced, enlightened or anything. Something completely disappeared there, and it was very beautiful, because it pulled me out of this game, ja? this samsara, this spiritual samsara game…“

But it was Gangaji, and a tape of Gangaji at that, which was the coup de grace.

“I did not know if she’s awake. I did not know if she’s enlightened. And I tell you it was the first time in my life that I did not care if she’s enlightened… It was a relaxation beyond anything, and I could recognise that this will never, never go… It was simply in that moment everything was over, about spiritual, about search, about needing to know- absolutely fulfilled, absolutely ended- like a drop fall into the ocean, like this. There was no way to move out. I could not even understand how I could imagine I’d ever been out… “

(At this moment there’s a banging round on the tape and Dolano croons something like “Neer hushpash ni kush. I have nothing for you, only water, schnapps. This is ginger water. Ek minute. I love animals (cat mews) here hushpash, pani kush… Ja, come here, schnapps. Pani? no pani? I have no food, schnapps. No wait, ek minute. O.K. Continuing satsang.”)

Throughout all this the Osho lecture is playing in the background, and she is talking over it. Two generations of sannyas. Dolano in the foreground with Osho in the back. I find it curiously touching; and perhaps a metaphor for the sannyas new wave as a whole.

“In that moment I did not even care about what Osho says is enlightenment. Or anybody else, Buddha or Lao Tzu, or anybody else. Or Poonjaji or anybody else. I forgot anybody else. I could not deny this is enlightenment. It is what I was looking for. That is why I was meditating like that all the time…

“An understanding came to me that each focused consciousness – this is focused consciousness – has to re-recognise, re-recognise, enlightenment. Like as if it has never happened before. As if you have never heard of it; it has never happened to anybody before. You are, you enter it is so… the entry is so tiny you enter absolutely alone, ja? There’s no Osho – nobody, ja? Even if you take with you, this is only fantasy, ja? Nobody can enter than only you. Than only you…”

Towards the end of the tape the Osho lecture stops. You can hear a group-leader talking in Buddha Hall, and then there’s some New Agey music. It’s a halting, oddly haunting theme; and Dolano winds up to this accompaniment.

“The nature of awareness is silence. It is its very nature. This is when Osho speaks about the silence which is never touched, never any ripple enters there. So this is who you are, this is the true silence which is all the time. If there is mind entering, or no mind entering… I speak in a different way so that you do not identify yourself with the no-mind, rather with the silence which you truly are.

“You are not the silence of the mind – you are the silence which you can’t help yourself, which is all the time.”


Sam

Dolano lives in Koregaon Park, just beyond ABC-Farms, where she regularly gives both open and intensive satsangs. She can be reached through her e-mail address which is: satsang@dolano.com

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