The other day, a seeker sent me an interesting question: Have you ever reached a meditative state while reading?
It is really a significant question, because, in most cases, the spiritual journey starts either by reading spiritual books or by listening to the spiritual discourses of certain realised souls, we call them the gurus or sadgurus. There is another possibility also in some cases that a seeker is blessed with a quest in his heart to seek the real meaning or purpose of life. It is also possible when the worldly life that we are given to live within our social atmosphere does not satisfy us; it becomes too difficult to handle or we go on living with utter boredom, we do become filled with a burning desire to renounce it, and start a spiritual journey. In short, every seeker begins his journey in his own unique way.
My spiritual journey started with one book when I was 20 years old. But before I got this book, I had read one article–Kya Manushya Ek Yantr Hai– “Is Man a Machine”–an excerpt from one of Osho’s discourses, published in the popular weekly of those days: Dharmayug, Hindi magazine of the Times of India group. It was a holistic magazine. Such magazines do not exist anymore. Now, most of the magazines are dominated by Sex, Money, and Power. It is mainly the politics of the day that dominates India. Politics has become a curse to this country. It has ruined the lives of thousands of students, and they have got lost into the politics of destructive dimension.
Kya Manushya Ek Yantr Hai–this article opened a new dimension in my life. I started reading more such articles being published in Saptahik Hindustan, Kadambini, Navneet–weekly and monthly magazines. The more I read the more thirsty I became to read more. Luckily, I came to know from Dharmayug magazine about one book Samajwad Se Saavdhan — Beware of Socialism–by Osho, who was known as Acharya Rajneesh those days. I read that book a few times and came to know that all social revolutions had been failures, killing thousands of people without transforming them into better individuals. What was more important that there should be a transformation in the life of an individual, which helps society to change. And it will be a rebellion–not a revolution.
Osho tells us the difference: The first thing to be understood is the difference between rebellion and revolution. Revolution is an organized effort to change the society forcibly, violently. But the trouble is, you cannot change society through violence, because it is violence that is the very life current of society. That’s why all the revolutions have failed. And there is no possibility of any revolution succeeding, ever. Rebellion is individual, nonviolent, peaceful. It is out of love. Rebellion is not against something, but for something. Revolution is against something, but not for something. Revolution is so much engaged in being against, it forgets for what all this fuss is being made. It is anger. But anger cannot create a better society. Rebellion is not oriented against society but is oriented towards a new man, a new humanity. Revolution is fighting with the past. Rebellion is meditating for the future. I said rebellion is out of love, silence, understanding, compassion – all the qualities that make man divine. Revolution is based on all the qualities that make man again an animal. Because rebellion is individual, there is no need for any struggle, of the fight. The society will not even be bothered by one individual being different than others. But even single individuals meditating, loving, hoping for a new sunrise, can create the possibility of a new society. Their very presence will be enough to transform others. Their love cannot fail – love never fails. Their understanding, their intelligence, their compassion are bound to succeed.
The next book that I got was Osho’s most controversial book Sambhog Se Samadhi Ki Or– From Sex to Superconsciousness–and reading that book at mid-night, very mysteriously I got transported to another realm of existence–a glimpse of some unknown realm of consciousness, of beyond the physical existence, where I was in bliss for a long time. This bliss continued with me for many days and made me travel to Mumbai to Osho in September 1971. He initiated me into his Neo-Sannyas. In the meanwhile, I had read another book Jin Khoja Tin Paaiya–In Search of the Miraculous!
Here’s one of the questions from this book and Osho’s answer to it:
Question: You were saying that mere sex will go on producing only more and more children; but what do you produce when you join sex with meditation?
Osho: You will produce yourself anew. You will find that you are not finished as you are. There are higher levels of your intelligence. of your consciousness; as you start producing those higher levels of your intelligence and consciousness, you will be surprised—your interest in sex starts disappearing, because now sex is producing something far greater than life, it is producing consciousness. Life is a lower thing; consciousness is a higher thing. And once you are capable of producing consciousness, then there is no barrier that says you cannot make love, but it will look very dull. It won’t give you any joy, it will look like a sheer waste of energy. You would rather use your energy to create higher and higher pyramids of consciousness in yourself until you reach the ultimate point, which I call enlightenment.
