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My spiritual journey started in 1972 when I began to practise Hatha, Mantra and Kriya Yoga. In 1975 I wanted to deepen my practice, but importantly, I wanted to find a teacher who I felt was rooted in Samadhi, who lived it constantly. Therefore, I did what many seekers before me did. I packed my bags and went off to the Himalayas to look for that teacher.

Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (Osho) and disciples

Having arrived in Rishikesh in February 75 was an astounding experience, and I soon spent time with yogis in ashrams and caves. Being in Rishikesh felt surprisingly like I had come home. However, the search was not easy. There were enough sadhus who promised me the big Samadhi in six weeks; intuitively I turned them down. During six months of being there, my search had narrowed down and I found one disciple of Nityananda by the name of Charanananda and another man close to the Tibetan border, Paramananda Avdhoot. Both turned me down when I asked them to be my teacher. Nevertheless, I was blessed with profound experiences in their presence. Of course, later on I understood why they turned me down.

During my stay in Rishikesh I began to hear stories about Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (Osho). People told of encounters with him that catapulted them straight into most expanded states of consciousness. Being quite full of myself and my 3 years of yogic discipline, I was not impressed. Later in New Delhi I went to the famous bookstore Motilal Banarsidass and found a book by him. I read it, found it clearly brilliant, but also was not entirely impressed.

I returned to the West and deepened my personal practice, adding Zen Seshins (retreats of 8 hours and more of meditation practice per day) to my sadhana and doing everything possible to find avenues deeper into my being, looking for the center of my consciousness.

Along comes one night in February 76, one year after my arrival in Rishikesh. I went to bed after many hours of meditation. The body was quite tired. As I slept I had a dream.

I saw a man. He looked at me and said, "You have an appointment with me. You are getting late. Come." I rushed off immediately to meet the man at the proper place and found him again in a forest, in the middle of a clearing. However, he sat behind a mirror. He looked at me and pointed to the mirror and said: "This mirror is for you to see yourself. Do you not want that?"

I nodded and said, "I want that very much."

Then I sat down in front of the mirror. However, the mirror was placed in an awkward position. I could not see anything. Then, the man behind the mirror started touching the mirror and shifted it into place. When he had shifted it into correct position for me to properly see myself, I looked into it; the moment I did, everything exploded. An explosion of nuclear dimension ignited in my consciousness that I cannot describe. The drop exploded and expanded in a Big Bang type of mode. One moment, everything was normal, the next moment this explosion turned everything into Infinity. There were no limits to consciousness and at the same time there were many different aspects to the Experience. There was Luminosity and Radiance. There was the unexplainable Presence of Knowledge, as if everything was clear and understood, though without the sense of a specific understanding or focus. There was an all-consuming, enormous sense of power that felt like electricity, like an infinite fire. Simultaneously, there was the complete absence of any sense of self.

The experience broke the sleep state. The body 'woke up'. However, the experience continued. My entire body was filled with this electricity, in my feet and hands, my stomach, my chest and my brain.

To say that this was shocking does not even get close to describing it. I looked over to the corner of my room. There was the book I bought in New Delhi. The back was placed to the front and there was a picture of the same man who I just met in dream and who was the cause of this nuclear explosion of my consciousness. It was Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.

Now I was impressed. Six months later I arrived in Poona, India and lived in the daily presence of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh for 5 years.

Written in honour of Bhagwan, on the 9th day of December in Paris 2009, two days before his birthday.

Afterword

This article describes my essential connection with Bhagwan, which lasts all the way into the present. To this day I receive from him transmissions, inner Darshans, that astound and uplift me in ways that I cannot express. At this point I have no connection with the organization that now claims to represent his work and words, and my connection with the organization stopped in 1981.

My entire focus since 1972 has been the practice of meditation and the tangible results of that practice. My connection with Bhagwan is on that level and I realize that many people who nowadays associate with his teachings as they are spread through the current organization, do not share my world of meditation and the experiences that come to me.

I did not live at Rajneeshpuram in Oregon. While I do acknowledge that even in my view Bhagwan made choices of trusting and given power to people that should not be trusted, this does not change the experiences that came to me (and still do today) as a result of knowing Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. What this means, ultimately, is that Buddhas retain their humanness, in the sense they are not perfect and are not infallible. They do not become Superman. This is something I have learned over time.

My words here are aimed at describing realities that represent the most sublime modes of meditation that this man does indeed represent, regardless of any outer perception or interpretation. And they are aimed at expressing my gratitude for all this man did for me.