…we awakened early this morning at the hotel in Kathmandu and our taxi driver took us to Bhaktipur an amazigf town just outside Kathmandu…a complex of temples an old nepali architecture…truly an amazing place. We were possibly the first Westerners to arrive so it was just us and the Napali people who live there. We strolled through ancient palaces and temples…It must have been like Bhaktipur when the first overland hippies arrived in the Kathmandu Valley in the late 60's…we strolled down a lane near the wood carvers square and I noticed an unpretentious jewelry shop…the sign above the door included a photo of my teacher Osho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh)…of course I had to check it out and I inquired inside. The young man behind the counter was a disciple of Osho…his name was Swami Pramod Ananda…he told me that there was an Osho Center nearby and that he would take us there. I told him that I met Osho 35 years earlier and had spent a number of years with him. We folded our hands in Namaste and looked one another in the eye…I immediately hugged him and broke down in sweet sweet tears of remembrance that colored the present moment…all those years of being with my Teacher…all the reasons that I went to be with him in India…everything that is bitter and sweet filled me with absolute joy and tender bliss…I last saw Osho in 1989…he died around 1990…I have kept a distance from his commune and even denied my connection to him more than once…when we went to the small Osho Center….the young man gave me a cushion and I knelt on the ground in silent weeping…the connection is still there…the beauty that surrounds me…Osho pointed this out to me years ago in India…in many ways I returned to the Source of my Being today…at one time, being with my Teacher…he pointed out the way on my Path with me…when he died, I was on my own…and today…I am still on my own…but the Beacon of energy that flowed through that man, well, it still shines and that Beacon is in my heart…today was a return…Bringing it all back home….Only in Silence the Word…Only in Darkness the Light…Only in dieing…the Light…
Archives for January 2014
Osho…A Memory…
…Last evening Richard and I went exploring in the Sufi Neighborhood near our hotel here in Delhi. Suffice to say: It was amazing…truly amazing…The streets were absolutely alive…it was an India that I remember from over 30 years ago…the grit…the guts of it all. Afterwards we had a delicious meal at Karim's…such a delight…afterwards we headed back to meet our driver on the busy avenue…We were surrounded by rickshaw drivers and hagglers vying for our attention. A man asked me in good English: "Where are you from"? I replied that we were from Mexico….he said "O Good, but you sound American"….Richard told him that we had been born in the US but now live in Mexico…He asked if we had ever visited India before…Richard declared that it was his first time and told him that I had lived here before…he asked me where and I told him Pune….he said, "Osho"? I said, "Yes, I knew him"…he looked at me in disbelieving wonder and said, "Really'? I said yes, I had known him…and then my heart filled with tears of remembrance, just like now as I type…and the memory of that meeting and years spent with that man beckons me home to the Source of my Being…and I remember…not something from the past…but a cellular memory of "What is"…I do not make this up or feel any sentimentality…just a remembrance…a return…a return to the Source…I am a lucky man…
India…Delhi First Day
Rainy yet absolutely good to be here…we are tooling around the backstreets of Hauz Khas Village…checking things out…I found a 1.5 foot plastic cast yellow Ganesh Statue…had to buy it…we seem pretty rested…maybe it will hit us later…so glad to be here with Richard…we travel well together…our hotel is comfortable..India is so different than 30 years ago…yet still the same…In a restaurant now…lots of Indian hipsters on Macs nursing Caronas and Lattes…cows in the street…rickshaws everywhere…ahhhhh…India
Attention Seeking Disorder: The Perils and Preoccupations of ASD…
…I have been in therapy for a number of years. I have been blessed with a most benevolent and insightful therapist. He practices what he calls Buddhist Psychology. Basically what he has emparted to me is that I lovingly revel and struggle in a "Disorder" known as ASD: Attention Seeking Disorder. He continues to remind me that when I put myself "out there" (like now)…many opinions, accusations, adulations and such will be reflected back. He once jokingly told me that his therapy will be complete when I show up for an appointment in a business suit…Yesterday my friend Carol Jackson brought me back another treasure from her visits to thrift shops in the Deep South of the US…..it is like a major pimp coat taken to the next level…perfect for me: The Art Pimp…but ya know…even I wondered if I could pull this off in public…so I put on the coat and headed to town…when pulling into the parking lot in San Miguel, who should I spy? My therapist getting into his car…and after all these years of therapy…I hid..Why? I don't know…maybe I wanted him to believe that I am on the road to "recovery"…I guess I just have to marvel at the Creature I have created…there are pluses and minuses…I love to adorn…my art and myself…but sometimes the attention is too much and I want to flee to a cave in Tibet…so…ASD has its high points and its perils…..I ride the wave…Life is like a Big Wave…when you catch it…your Sitting on top of the world…if you miss it…time to bury your head in the sand…so the Middle Way is my horizon line…..searching, seeking and questing for the ultimate ride on a perfectly imperfect wave…..
A New Year…A New Dawn…
…35 years ago this morning…after a night of dancing….I walked out of 12West on the far west side of Manhattan Island…I felt a confused exhilaration and a lonesome connection while experiencing a descent from some extremely righteous acid…I meandered out to the end of one of the abandoned piers…knelt down above the water…and embraced the dawn…now all these years later I feel so blessed for these extended dawns…all continues to be revealed… I am grateful for this relationship with Richard and my work…still connecting the dots…Blessings on this Year!