Category Archives: Music
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
In 1989 before Osho left-the-body, he created a meditation making it possible for people to commune with his essence in the absence of his physical form. The format was simple; in three stages. First, some high-energy dance music for approximately ten minutes to move one’s body and support energy moving upwards. There should be peaks with sudden stops at the crescendo, arms high in the air, punctuated with shouts of Osho! The end of this first stage is signaled by a final energy surge upwards with three shouts of Osho! at the peak. The idea is to use the word “osho” as an energy mantra, not think of it as someone’s name (which it actually isn’t!).
In the second stage, one sits silently and relaxes with eyes closed. There should be some soft Eastern-style music improvisations, leaving gaps between for silence. The end of the second stage is signaled by three explosive drumbeats.
The third stage is a select Osho discourse video. Osho called the meditation the “evening meeting”. It is still referred to as this in Pune.
In the nine months before Osho left-the-body he was not in the best of health. It was plain to see his body was disappearing. He had stopped speaking the regular discourses. When able, he would come to the Hall, celebrate with us on the way in, sit silently for a bit, and then celebrate again on his way out. I was coordinating the music department during this time. It was a very fluid occasion with the music; also the evening format. Osho was quite unpredictable. He would be sitting silently on the podium, then suddenly start keeping time with his hands to the soft music we had been asked to provide. Or sometimes, quite unexpectedly, he would begin lifting his arms as if raising the invisible collective energy of the hall-full of meditators. As musicians, we did our best to follow his indications, all eyes glued to the video monitor, Nishkriya, his cameraman, had supplied us with.
On one such evening, Osho’s arms were high in the air, “directing” the music, when suddenly they stopped. Quite unconsciously, we kept playing on. But, I knew immediately we were out of tune with him. It was not a good feeling. In such moments, one gets a direct look at one’s ego. And believe me, musicians can have a BIG ones. Let me just say, though, we were a group of willing hearts. So after Osho went out, we convened and decided to watch him more closely and should he stop the next night, we all agreed we would also stop.
Sure enough, the next evening, Osho was in full “director mode” when he suddenly stopped. And we did, too. After few timeless moments, His arms and hands slowly relaxed to his lap to a resting position. He sat like this for some minutes and then, wow, we noticed his hands start moving again, ever so slightly. Softly, we picked up his rhythm and off we were again!
Things went on like this, evening after evening, for days, weeks, with Osho getting more and more creative with his movements. One day, we received a message that Osho would like the silent sitting to have three pieces of music and that Nivedano should signal the end with three explosive drumbeats. Also that the dancing part should end with three shouts of Osho! And so, in this way, the format for the Evening Satsang Meditation began taking shape, very much spontaneously and in the moment.
Osho’s entrance and exits during these times was dramatic. He came into the Hall in full celebration mode, taking us higher and higher with each crescendo and shout of Osho! And when Nivedano’s three drumbeats exploded at the end of the music-silence section, Osho would open his eyes and explode out of his chair, and be right back in full swing with us and celebrating. One particular evening, I counted forty-six “Oshos!” during the his exit. On that particular night, his doctor came and found me afterwards, saying we needed to dial back the energy and dancing as there were concerns about pushing his body too much . I replied, “What can we do? He is directing. If he decides to dial it back, fine. We will follow him, not the other way around.” For the record, Osho didn’t dial it back. Things went from peak to peak, night after night, with the energy becoming more wild and intense. At the same time, silence in the Hall was deepening.
Osho’s body grew weaker. One day he sent a message to the musicians indicating what was to become the final format for the evening meeting in his absence: Celebration, Silent Sitting, and his Video Discourse. This organically evolved as time went by to include some soft music as people entered the Hall, a kind of prelude to the dancing.
After Osho left-the-body, the Commune continued to gather in the evenings after work and slowly I began to see the genius of the meditation, how it (just as Osho said it would) provided an opportunity for everyone to put aside their work and daily responsibilities and come together, commune and celebrate, dance, melt in silence, and listen to Osho’s words for inspiration.
In my last year living in the Commune, we still had our little Francis House studio and I had an idea to create a cassette series which would be called “Evening Satsang With The Master”. Osho chose this name before he left-his-body just as he did all the music cassette titles we used to sell in the Commune bookstore. With my musician team, we recorded four “evenings” which were formatted as per Osho’s instructions. The idea being that meditation centers and individuals around the world could play the tapes and enjoy the meditation when unable to make the journey to India. After the series started, others picked up the project. I know the series eventually went on to become seven or eight titles. I also know The Resort in India now still records the live-music evenings and makes it available. I have heard and meditated to lots of them, but my favorites, and the one’s that still work the best for me personally, are the original four created at the beginning of the series. Recently, I discovered my original digital master tapes while going through some old stuff. Most of the tapes have deteriorated and are full of dropouts. But I managed to salvage a few and cleaned up the sound quality a bit using my audio software. What I present here are the original four recorded “evenings” from those two cassettes. The dance music was recorded in Francis House Studio with musicians who were part of the team at that time. The music-silence stage with its three drumbeats, plus the prelude music, are all live-recordings from Buddha Hall made within a year of Osho leaving-the-body. On some of the tracks, you can hear Deva Kant’s inspiring flute. He is also the fiddler on number one and two tracks. As always with music, there are technicians behind the scenes making things work and helping everything (and one) sound great,. So I want to acknowledge Sanjiva and “Danish” Rishi for this. The studio tracks were all live-mixed, hands-on, which doesn’t happen much anymore in this age of automation. On the third track, Narayani and Satyam are featured and join me for the singing. The fourth track is a tribute to the Oshoba-style evenings which always open higher dimensions in me when I dance to it. lt appeals to my wild and groovy side! I’ve bundled together the four evenings with two bonus tracks: some studio recordings from 1991 that never made it onto any tape or cd. They feature songs sung in the Buddha Hall music groups before and after Osho left-the-body. “All The Birds Fly Home” is a touching composition from an Italian sannyasin, Dipamo. “Empty Chair” is from me and inspired by the mystery of Osho being here, but not. The songs feature two beloved musician friends, Disha (who has since left her body, untimely) and Sudhananda.
If the music inspires you to meditate and come home to yourself, my efforts are fulfilled. To download, please visit the shop link here: http://www.oneskymusic.com/meditation/.
Basho wrote:
A wintry gust
Disappears amid the bamboos
And subsides to a calm
“What is our so-called life? A wintry gust disappears amid the bamboos and subsides to a calm. Just a little drama, just a little playfulness and you are gone. Our so-called life is so momentary that one should not get attached to it. Its only function, only proper function, can be to find the immortal. Hidden behind every moment is the eternal. But you can go on moving on the surface, never going deeper in your consciousness. You will move for millions of lives on the surface like ripples. It is sheer wastage of an immense awareness that can open all the doors of your originality, of your creativity, of your beauty, of your joy. Each moment becomes such a dancing moment.” Osho
All The Birds Fly Home by Dipamo
Played and recorded by Sudhananda and Milarepa, Pune, India 1990