Category Archives: Music
A country priest used to keep chickens in a coop behind his church.
One evening, the old cock from his lot went missing. The next service, the priest asked his congregation, “Who has a cock?”
All the MEN stood up.
The priest said, “No, I mean who has SEEN a cock?”
All the WOMEN stood up.
The priest said, “No, no, I mean who has seen a cock that isn’t theirs?”
HALF the WOMEN stood up.
Exasperated, the priest shouted: “For heavens sake, who has seen my cock?”
All the NUNS stood up.
Meditation’s ultimate conclusion is live the moment to its totality, intensively, joyously, because there is nothing to be feared; because even death is a fiction. There is no need for any security, for any safety. Live moment to moment, trusting the whole existence as the birds are trusting it, as the trees are trusting it. Don’t separate yourself from existence, become part of it and existence will take care of you. It is already taking care of you.
A traveling salesman, completing a trip earlier than anticipated, sent his wife a telegram: “Returning home Friday.”
Arriving home, he found his wife in bed with another man.
Being a person of nonviolence, he complained to his father-in-law, who said, “I’m sure there must be an explanation.”
The next day the father-in-law was all smiles when he met his son-in-law. “There was an explanation,” he said, “she did not get your telegram.”
Osho, The New Dawn, #26
This will be a Year of Flowering. Best wishes to all as we open our petals, release our fragrance, and step into new adventures.
“The day you see your flowers opening up and releasing their fragrance, you have come to know for the first time something that can be called spiritual. And it is not a goal. The trees are not growing towards some goal, they are growing towards their potential, which is intrinsic, which is hidden in them. They want to come to a point where what is hidden becomes available to the whole of existence. What is in the seed comes into the flower. Enlightenment is your flowering.” Osho
December 11 was a blissful day in Centreville, Virginia at Dhyanyoga Center with many friends and lovers enjoying meditation, dance and song, high energy and silent inner moments; also wonderful food, laughters, and LOTS of chai. It even snowed giving things a special touch of magic from Existence. The day after with friends still here, we enjoyed a long walk in the bright sun and fresh, brisk winter air — and there was much more kitchen fun. We even squeezed in another Evening Meeting Meditation with few remaining friends reluctant to depart.
Virginia is definitely on the map now for Osho. I encourage everyone living here, or just passing through, to enjoy the weekly meditations and yoga classes offered by Vasanti, Anam, and their team. And thank you for inviting me to celebrate with you. In gratitude, I want to share some words from Osho that have particularly resonated with me in recent days. And of course a few photos!
“I have been absent for almost thirty-five years. Once I used to be… but for thirty-five years I have been just empty, a hollow bamboo. In the right hands that hollow bamboo can become a flute. I have allowed my hollow bamboo to bring to you any music, any song, any ecstasy that existence wants to share with you. But on your part, perhaps listening to a beautiful flute player, you start looking at the flute, thinking perhaps the music is of the flute. The music is not of the flute. I am singing songs of existence. My gestures are not my gestures.
“I am no longer a person, but only a presence. But perhaps that presence is giving you the idea of beauty. In fact you yourself have said, “I have fallen so much in love with you.” Love imparts beauty to anything. It is not my fault. If you have fallen in love with me, to you I will look as gorgeous as your love is deep. But that shows the heart of a disciple. That shows the eyes of a devotee; that shows the feeling of a lover. It has nothing to do with me; it is all your experience. It is your own inner beauty projected on me. It is your own feeling projected on the screen which is empty. You are also saying, “Not only you are the most beautiful and gorgeous master, but also the most irresistibly charming being my eyes have ever seen.” Your eyes have remained closed to the whole existence. You have not fallen in love with trees and birds and animals. You have not fallen in love with the ocean and the mountains; otherwise you would have seen the same beauty millionfold. Let this be the beginning of a long pilgrimage. Don’t stop at me.
“The master has to be only a beginning, just a push on the way. But remember that these are your eyes full of love which are projecting. These eyes can make this whole existence beautiful. And the moment you can start seeing into rocks and into flowers and into stars, you will be amazed, overwhelmed what a great existence you have been missing. If the master can give you just a glimpse, that’s enough; then you can go on your way.
“Gautam Buddha is reported to have said, “If you meet me on the way again, cut my head immediately. “No authentic master would like you to become addicted to him. He would like you to move on. If you have seen the beauty in me, you are capable of seeing beauty. Just here, you have opened your eyes in trust, in love. To the whole existence you remain closed in distrust, in doubt, in uncertainty; otherwise, this is the most perfect existence possible. And anyway, there is no other existence.
“If the master can become your window and you can see through the window to the open sky, to the vast spaces, you will remain grateful to the master, but not addicted to him. The fear of addiction is not unfounded: there are millions of people who are addicted to Gautam Buddha, millions of others who are addicted to Jesus Christ, millions of others addicted to Mohammed. They have forgotten that a master is only a window frame, and if you start becoming addicted to the frame of the window, you will never look through it. Then the window becomes your worship, the object of your worship. Windows are not to be worshiped; windows are to be opened so that you can see beyond.”
Osho: The Great Pilgrimage #23
“We are not born with our birth, and we are not going to die with our death. Neither birth nor death… our essence is eternal, beginningless, endless. Births and deaths have happened a thousand-and-one times, they are just episodes, very small things compared to our eternity. Whenever anybody finds this eternity, it starts transforming him. He becomes a new man in the sense that his vision is clear. He does not belong to any crowd, he cannot be a Christian or a Hindu, or a Mohammedan; because he knows in his innermost core that we are all part of one existence.”
Osho: Dogen, the Zen Master #4
Today, while giving my guitar some TLC in preparation for Saturday’s event, I was thinking what to send out for an invitation. Then I came across these lovely words of Osho. I know I could not say it better, so I am going to let Osho do the inviting:
“I am an invitation for all those who are seeking, searching, and have a deep longing in their hearts to find their home. I am an answer to the question that everybody is, but cannot formulate — a question that is more a quest than a question, more a thirst than a verbal, mental inquiry; a thirst that one feels in every cell and fiber of his being, but has no way to bring to words and ask. I am an answer for that question which you cannot ask and you cannot expect that it could be answered. When I say I am the answer, I don’t mean that I can give you the answer… yes, if you are ready, you can take it. I am just like a well, ready for you to throw your bucket and draw the water for yourself. I have it but I cannot reach to you without your efforts. Only you can reach to me. It is a strange invitation. It will take you on a long pilgrimage and it will end only where you already are. You will have to move many steps and on many paths just to come to yourself, because you have gone far away from yourself. You have completely forgotten the way back. I am a reminder, a remembrance, of the lost home. As a person I do not exist. As a person I only appear. I exist as a presence. Since the day I came to know myself, the person disappeared. There is only a presence, a very living presence that can quench your thirst, that can fulfill your longing. Hence, in one word I can say I am an invitation, of course just for those who have a deep longing in their hearts that they are missing themselves — a deep urge, that unless they find themselves, everything else is meaningless. Unless it is your a priori concern, your ultimate concern, such that if it is needed you are even ready to lose everything for it, but you cannot drop it… There are thousands of desires, but as far as longing is concerned there is only one: to come back home, to find your reality. And in that very finding, you have found all that is of any value — blissfulness, truth, ecstasy.” from The Invitation #1
Welcome Everyone
Saturday, December 9
Osho Birthday Celebration
Venue: DhyanYoga Meditation Center, 15155 Bronze Post Ct, Centreville, Virginia
Contact: 813-830-1008 (Anam and Vasanti)
Email: dhyanyogamc@gmail.com
www.DhyanYogamc.org
Our amazing USA tour just finished. I returned the van today, making note of its odometer reading: 5,911 miles from start to finish, not counting the air miles to California and back. Needless to say, I could use a long walk right now. And perhaps a cold beer to sand off the rough edges. Many thanks to my amazing One Sky Band; also the guest musicians who joined us along the way. And to the many brilliant organizers, whose fuel is LOVE and TRUST, I say NAMASTE and THANK YOU. I’m a little tired to deal with photos at this point, but Rishi and many of the friends have documented things through their lenses. I am sure there are some great shots to be viewed on Facebook and the Meetup groups. And who knows? Maybe one of these days, when I have sufficiently floated back to Earth, I will make a few collages of my own to post. But for now, I am going to step into the colorful canvas that has been this tour and disappear into the painting… at least for a bit ;+)
Click here to enjoy slideshow: https://youtu.be/w2Vpn1uXKPs
The OSHO Leela Center in Dorset, England has a year-round program of courses, workshops, and festivals, and their summer OSHO festival is one of the highlights. It is always a joy and honor to be invited. This year’s festival band included some friends of mine since many years (Tarisha, Suvarna, Satyam, Shanti Deva, Prabodh, Omesh) but also included musicians I was playing with for the first time such as Manu. What a wonderful job he did on the drums! It is always a luxury to have a soundman and this festival always has a good one (thank you, Shaun!). For the music part of the program, there was Morning Satsang, Nataraj, Stop!Dance, Mahamudra Meditation, the Evening Meeting, Sannyas Celebration, a rocking concert of songs, and Heart Dance with Yatro and Nishok. Wow, that’s a LOT of music I just realized! Amura and Tarisha were the festival coordinators. They did a wonderful job making everyone feel welcome. We were also blessed with super weather. For England in the summertime I would say we were very lucky. The food from the festival kitchen was simply stellar.
It’s a great place to visit, Osho Leela, for groups and festivals. There is even a live-in work program. Check them out here: www.osholeela.uk.
Tarisha is also a stellar musician. Find her music here: www.tarisha.co.uk.
Five magical days of connectedness in Bimini, The Bahamas with the most-amazing group of people (our human pod!) in the most-amazing Nature imaginable. Many thanks to Amlas and Atmo and the wonderful Wildquest team. Joy! To view slideshow click Dolphin Dreams.
It’s a fair wind that carries you now
Scattered, dancing wildly for a moment
And then gone, gone, gone.
Watching, as you disappear without a trace
Into what you always knew to be the case
And spent a lifetime remembering.
A few years ago before leaving his body, Veeresh asked his friends to remember him as a Man of Osho. I don’t think Satya Priya exactly specified how she would like to be remembered, but I and many of those whose lives she touched and transformed will remember her as a Woman of Osho.
Priya ran the Osho Padma Center in New York City for more than forty years out of her small apartment in the West Village. I can’t imagine opening my own home on such a daily basis to all manner of crazy seekers, but this is what she did. And she did it well — with a lot of heart, humor, and totality. Osho Padma is the oldest, most consistent Osho center in America. Countless people found their way to Pune, to Osho, and to meditation through it. I remember one of the first times I attended one of Priya’s Sunday events. Ever mischieveous and wise, she said to me in a break between meditations: “Milarepa, next we are all going to run down the street, shouting and screaming like mad people, all the way to the river.” She studied my face for a moment and then smiled, “Scares you, doesn’t it?” Ahh, Priya. You will be missed.
I never really knew Priya very well until I started living closer to New York. As I hung out with her more, I would sometimes coax her to talk about her past. She was always such a mystery to me. Living in the moment as she did, I know the past was really not her thing. But I did discover she had been a journalist for a teen magazine in the 60’s and that one of her assignments was being embedded with The Beatles on one of their tours. And I know John was her favorite. On another occasion, she told me that she was born in a lower Manhattan apartment complex near the Brooklyn Bridge, and that as a child she remembered taking trips to see her grandparents in Queens when Queens was still all farms. Imagine? Priya was quintessential New York.
I could go on but I am going to keep this short. I will finish by saying there was no bullshit with Priya. In fact, I hear her voice now in the back of my head saying, “Bullshit, Milarepa!” If there ever was a rebellious heart overflowing with the Osho, it was, is, and will be Satya Priya. She would sometimes say, “My name means “Beloved of the Truth”. What can I do?”
A mutual friend just wrote me and I feel his words pretty much sum up Priya in a nutshell: “I thank existence for bringing her into my life. She shook my world for sure and brought the impossible to the everyday. Amazing.” Indeed, amazing. So incredibly amazing, our Satya Priya. I’ve made a little tribute with one of her favorite Osho songs to celebrate and honor her remarkable life and death. In all gratitude… Thank you, Priya.
Click here to view tribute: https://youtu.be/DgE5qet0_Dw