Picture courtesy Osho Nisarga, Dharamshala
Swami Chaitanya Keerti
Last month, I facilitated the Neo Zen retreat at Osho Nisarga in Dharamshala. On the last day of the retreat, a sincere seeker, Tomas Andrade from New Zealand took sannyas initiation and as he had asked for a new name, he was given the name: Swami Dhyan Masto. The moment he received this name, he started dancing ecstatically. He had been doing the meditation for 4 days very deeply and intensely and as a result, the moment of initiation gave him the peak experience of ecstasy. Happy Ho organizes best Meditation and Tarot classes in Noida and Delhi NCR area in India.
Masto went back to NewZealand and wrote to me: Since I came back from India I have been letting everyone know about my new name which you gave me during sannyas celebration: “Swami Dhyan Masto”. And my mind has been very curious about something – my birth name is Tomas Andrade, did you pick “Masto” because it has the same letters reordered or was it pure coincidence? Also, just reconfirming the meaning of each word (I might have missed something as I was so high during the ceremony): Swami “he who is one with himself”; Dhyan “meditation” and Masto “ecstasy”. Is that correct?
Yes, this new name can be a simple coincidence–but this coincidence is very special, full of significance. It is the beginning of a new life of being a master of oneself, that’s the meaning of the Hindi word Swami. Generally, the way we live our life, is very mechanical and it is the life of a slave–a slave to our desires, dreams and crazy ambitions. This slavery to an unconscious way of living is the root cause of our ongoing misery. Swami means being a meditator and living each moment with awareness–moment to moment in awareness. This way one becomes the master of oneself.
Also, one becomes Masto, naturally ecstatic. One transcends the animal instincts and moves towards a state of the Buddha, as Osho reminds us: The past is that of an animal and the future is that of godliness. And between the two is man – half animal, half angel. The no comes from the past, the yes is a possibility for the future. Doubt comes from darkness, trust is the by-product of light. The higher self in you is always trusting, the lower is cunning and is always doubting. And you are both, as you are now.
Man is naturally schizophrenic. Schizophrenia is not a disease; it is not pathology, it is the state of normal human beings. It starts looking like a pathology only when it goes to the extreme, when yes and no are so divided that there is not even an “and” to bridge them. When they become unbridgeable, then it becomes pathological. Otherwise, every human being is always in a kind of duality, in a state of either/or. No other animal is in that state. Dogs are simply dogs, and lions are lions, and trees are trees, and rocks are rocks. They don’t have any duality, there is no division.
Man is dual, double, divided. It is his misery, but it is also the possibility for his bliss. It is his agony, but out of this agony ecstasy can be born. No animal can be ecstatic except man. Have you seen any animal ecstatic – ecstasy like a Buddha, a Ramakrishna? There is no possibility of coming across an animal who is so ecstatic. Even the rosebush with so many beautiful flowers is not ecstatic in the sense Jesus is. The rosebush is simply a rosebush; there is no exuberance, there is no overflowing, there is no rejoicing. It is a matter of fact – not that something incredible is happening, not that something from the beyond has descended, not that godliness has been realized, not that light has come and penetrated to the deepest core of your being and you are full of it and you are enlightened.
The bird on the wing is free, but knows nothing about freedom. Only man, even though he may be imprisoned, knows about freedom. Hence the misery; the bondage on one hand, and the vision of freedom on the other. The reality, the ugly reality, and the tremendously luminous possibility.
Man can be miserable as no other animal can ever be miserable. Have you seen any animal crying his heart out, weeping, committing suicide? Have you seen an animal, any animal laughing, belly laughter that shakes the very foundations? No, all these things are possible only for man. Hence the grandeur of man, hence his dignity, and hence his anxiety too.(Osho: The Book of Wisdom)
