In Wonder with Osho

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December 11, 1931: Osho is born in Kuchwada, a small village in the state of Madhya Pradesh, central India.

March 21, 1953: He becomes enlightened at the age of twenty-one, while majoring in philosophy at D.N. Jain college in Jabalpur.

1956: Osho receives His M.A. from the University of Sagar with First Class Honors in Philosophy.

1957-1966: University Professor and Public Speaker.

1966: After nine years of teaching, he leaves the university to devote himself entirely to raise human consciousness. He starts being known as Acharya Rajneesh.

1970-1974: He lives at the Woodland Appartment, Mumbai. At this time he is called Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and he begins to initiate seekers into Neo-Sannyas or discipleship.

1974-1981: Moves to the ashram in Pune. During these seven years he

gives a 90 minutes discourse nearly every morning, alternating every month between Hindi and English.

1981-1985: Moves to the US, A model agricultural commune Rajneeshpuram rises from the ruins of the central Oregonian high desert.

In January 1986 he travels to Kathmandu, Nepal and speaks twice daily for the next two months. He leaves Nepal and embarks on a world tour.

1987-1989: Moves back to the commune in Pune, India.

19 January, 1990: Osho leaves his body. Written on his Epitaph over his samadhi in Kathmandu, Nepal and Pune, India are his own words: .

The book you hold in your hands is a love story, a love story that has a beginning but no end.

This story begins in the spring of 1969 when I first met Osho, the beloved of my heart. It covers the days I spent with him between March 1969 and May 1981. Its forthcoming sequel will cover the days between June 1981 and 1990.

For the last twenty-seven years I have been pregnant with the idea of this book, but as it was not taking shape, I was in an almost three-decade-long labour pain. Today when you hold this book in your hands, it gives me immense joy inexpressible in words. I would like to thank Swami Dhyan Yatri, Ma Bodhi Mudita, Swami Anand Suvam, Swami Atmo Neerav, Swami Anand Arhat, Swami Anand Saurav and Ma Prem Sampada for their dedicated effort in manifesting this book.

From my very childhood, a kind of restlessness and searching plagued my soul. It was the same search that took me to various gurus and ashrams. But only when I met Osho, did I feel assured that there was a goal to this quest. Osho personified everything | was searching for. Only when I met him did my restless soul find its calm. Most likely I won't have to take a human form again and drift in this mirage-like world.

There is no doubt that the punya of my past lives led me to Osho, but my fear and unawareness kept me anchored to misery, which I had mistaken to be my destiny and my home. Back then it was hard to believe that such unbounded joy awaited to unfold in my life. Krishnamurti couldn't have been more correct when he said the fear of freedom itself prevents us from taking the jump into it. In October 1974, I finally mustered enough courage to take the jump, and took sannyas. This jump proved to be an entrance through the portal of the boundless sky of freedom, not only for me, but for thousands of seekers who are walking along with me today.

Meeting a real enlightened master is the most fortunate moment in the life of a seeker. But even after meeting a master, we continue to cling to our miserable past. Our investment in our miseries is so huge that we don't want to let go of them. Only a few dare devils can become disciples, and risk to efface ego and ignorance, which are at the source of all our misery and suffering. Liberation is not difficult; it is our very nature. The real difficulty is to find enough courage to walk out of the hell we have created for ourselves and the people around us. And this courage can only flower in the presence of an enlightened master. Nanak had a penetrating insight, and he said,

"Nanak dukhiya sab sansaar”

(Except for a few godward souls, Nanak sees that the whole world, without exception, is suffering.)

Kabir said, "Raja Dukhi, Praja Dukhi, Jogi ka Dukh Duna. Kahat Kabir Suno bhai Sadho, ekauGharnaSuna."

("The king is suffering, The subjects are suffering, The yogi is suffering twice as much, Says Kabir, listen o seeker, Not a single house is spared as such.")

The first realization of Buddha was,

"This life is suffering."

All those who are born in this part of the world have heard these types of couplets since childhood, but hearing is not enough. Despite hearing them countless times, we still fail to grasp the true meaning of such visionary verses. By Osho's grace, today I am not only seeing this truth, but also living it and understanding it. Just as Osho has said repeatedly, right vision is enough to transform. When we see things as they are, in their real nature, one doesn't need to do anything else. Seeing the truth is becoming the truth.

This universe is infinite. Billions of suns are being orbited by billions of planets, and yet in this vast expanse of existence we are yet to come across a planet where life has manifested in such eclectic and lively forms - where there are forests, rivers, lakes and mountains - where there is poetry, love, music and meditation. Up to now, in spite of great searching, scientists haven't found another planet where life has reached such a crescendo. However, we are also in that period of time when our prejudices, blind nationalism and fanaticism are also at their peaks. If not checked in time, our madness can turn this planet into a lifeless desert.

This earth is endlessly beautiful, but human stupidity is as endless. We are on the brink of global suicide. Unless the human psyche goes through an extensive revolution and there is a great shift in the human consciousness, we cannot prevent the destruction that we are heading towards, and that, too, at an alarming speed. Osho is the harbinger of this revolution, the revolution of giving birth to the new human consciousness. The more that people read and listen to Osho, the more readily can they divert from this death-centric approach, and head towards a life of greater creativity, celebration, love and gratitude - and this book is just one such flower of gratitude.

I am grateful to my master for giving me this realization that "this very body is the Buddha, and this very Earth, the lotus paradise." We do not have to seek a paradise after death, but create one here by our own understanding, creativity and awareness. Dedicated disciples of Osho have created few such oases in this dying world. I bow down to my master for making me an instrument in creating such oases around the world. Our Himalayan paradise, Osho Tapoban, is one such oasis where I spend the majority of my time. I invite all sincere seekers to come and experience this buddhafield for themselves.

What you hold in your hands is a love story for which I have risked my all. It is a poem of my lifelong affair with my beloved.

It is the memoir of my romance with the man who not only dreamt, but materialized, paradise on Earth. If these stories sound otherworldly to you, they are otherworldly!