In this life, I was born in Berlin, about three months before Adolf Hitler decided to attack Poland with his propaganda campaign, “The German army started shooting back at the German-Polish border.”

I remember my mother, my one-and-a-half-year older brother Manfred and I visiting my father in the summer of 1941 in the village of Altheide, splendidly surrounded by beautiful red poppy fields; he was stationed there as a German army commanding officer with his battalion. I also remember that during one visit, low-flying Russian airplanes attacked us on the open field; the soldiers hit the ground faster than us kids, and seemed more afraid than we were.

I remember sheltering in underground cellars with bursting walls and flickering emergency lights during Russian air raids on Berlin. When they became more frequent and dangerous, we abandoned our flat and moved for the following war years to my mother’s parents in the countryside.

I remember playing there with an air rifle, targeting Russian airplanes headed for Berlin, I was marching like a soldier around the living room table, an air rifle resting on my right shoulder, and facing an impressive framed maxim hanging on the wall: “Life is a fight, take care to be the winner.” Later, the memory of this sentence would very often influence my motivation to fight to the uttermost!

One day during the summer of 1945 – the war had just ended recently – a friendly looking undernourished stranger in shabby army clothes stood in front of our door, asking for my grandmother; it was my father who had just returned from Russia in a daring escape: swimming over and under the river Oder towards the West while he was shot at by the Russians and hit in one leg.

We moved back to Berlin, where I had the first visionary dream of many others to follow. I am dreaming how my mother is wrestling ruthlessly with a man dressed in black; both are standing in the open kitchen door, and in the dream, I explain to my brother that our mother is wrestling for her life when suddenly they both fall down on the floor. Then there is a big thump, both within and outside the dream, interrupting my sleep. My father and brother also wake up and find my mother lying unconscious on the floor near the kitchen; she really had been fighting for her life against death (the man in black). Being intensely absorbed in reading the book Gone with the Wind, she had only noticed in the last moment that gas had been leaking out of the rubber hose leading to the stove, and in spite of being already weak and semi-conscious, she had been able to drag herself to the door.

During the transition from primary school to high school, I chose the technical branch but later switched to the scientific branch, and it was then that I wrote my best German essay about “flying” in the Lilienthal School (Otto Lilienthal was a German airplane pioneer similar to the Wright brothers in the USA), where I also touched upon the idea to fly only with wings attached to a person’s arms or a turbocharged engine carried on the back of a body.

Being a rather lazy student, I barely passed the final high school exam, but I was good in sports, especially gymnastics, soccer, and handball. I was also very interested in boxing and liked to visit the popular professional middle-weight boxer Bubi Scholz in Berlin-Grunewald and tried to train there.

Shortly before the final high school exam some of my class mates asked me why I was applying at all, because I had been so very often absent from class. My introverted mind helped me out… in a dream: I would be examined only in English and Physics! Without much other choice and because of my intensive inner experiences, I trusted this dream and prepared myself only for an oral exam in English and Physics.

As it were, I only had to undergo an oral exam in English as the one in Physics was called off for personal reasons by the examiner – and passed.

Undecided about what to study at university and considering practical reasons, I signed up for Civil Engineering at the Technical University of Berlin in 1958. In-between studying I was working on construction sites to make some money, and kept my body in shape with boxing training, as I played with the idea of becoming a professional boxer. When I was set to box for the first time as an amateur representative for Berlin, the coach of my amateur club in Berlin-Schoeneberg, the famous winner of the silver medal in lightweight boxing, Harry Kurschat, was eager to prepare me properly; he asked for more action in the third sparring round with my friend Dietrich Draeger, whose left jab I underwent and responded to with a right jab to his heart. Dietrich turned pale, lifted his hand to signify his trouble, and sank to the floor. The next morning, I read in the papers that his heart had failed.

This fateful accident made me want to drop my intense boxing training and future plans, but to stop boxing totally could have caused harm to my body and mind; therefore I decided to compete only between students of our universities and to look out for less brutal sport disciplines such as karate; the specific karate fighting rules are all much more humane than in boxing.

While studying civil engineering, I also immersed myself in private research on the optimal use of steel in concrete for special static forces and published it as a patent, realising soon enough that it would be difficult to sell this to any construction company because once the simple original facts were known, they would use this method anyway, and sure enough, this happened since then.

Soon after that I started my new teaching job at the university as a tutor in Professor Istvan Szabo’s Institute for Technical Mechanics, which offered many opportunities and I had lots of fun. One late night I went to the famous disco-bar Old Eden and met a very exotic Indian looking girl called Indie (Indira), the daughter of Spoony Singh Sundher, the famous owner of the Hollywood Wax Museum. She invited me to visit and live with her in Los Angeles, and a kind of dream came true: during my vacation from the university, I visited her from then on regularly, acquainted myself with Hollywood and Malibu, which I had so often seen in American movies, and made some money by working at Spoony’s Hollywood Wax Museum on 6767 Hollywood Blvd., one block east of Grauman’s Chinese Theater, as a manager, cashier, and floorwalker.

Back in Berlin, I received the black belt in Shotokan, and on weekends, I worked as a bouncer for Big Eden and experienced stressful encounters with the public in exchange for fast cash. The rigid and sometimes very unfriendly manager Erich Wieck asked me during training at the Taekwandoe School to be his bodyguard at the disco, and the salary I demanded for that job was unexpectedly granted by the owner and notorious playboy Rolf Eden. Several months later, Erich Wieck’s enemies shot him dead in the night in the elevator of his home in Berlin-Mariendorf while I was sleeping at my home in the dormitory.

Meanwhile at said dormitory, a colleague and physics student bragged about his progress in “meditating” and “flying” thanks to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s techniques of Transcendental Meditation. The flying phenomena piqued my scientific curiosity because, as a physical engineering student, I should be able to put the flying phenomena into formulas like any other natural phenomenon; thus, I accepted the challenge and signed up for TM. For a considerable amount of money, I received from their representatives my “mantra” and the technique how to use it.

They explained that chanting the mantra mentally again and again for one hour would harmonise my brain waves and prepare me for the advanced Raja Yoga techniques, like practising the Samyama on the Akasha Sutra (“flying” technique), but without mentioning that one has to be very careful chanting inwardly repeatedly any mantra, because the sound of a mantra triggers a characteristic feeling specifically for this mantra; consequently, one has to be very careful what mantra to use. For example, if chanting a “death mantra” it will create in the person the feeling of the desire to die, and the person will leave the body after a relatively short time! However, the inner chanting of a harmless, mediocre mantra will simply lead to a restful, deep sleep.

Therefore, do not chant repeatedly any tone or mantra, unless it is given to you from a spiritual Master, who knows what feeling it creates!

My given mantra fortunately supported my inner growth, triggering remarkable spiritual experiences and outer wellness naturally, not accidentally, because the instructors of TM gave out only mantras selected from a spectrum of absolutely positive ones recommended by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and his deceased spiritual Master.

The more advanced technique in TM is practising Patanjali’s Sutras, and when properly initiated, one advances to the state of a Siddha… but Maharishi Mahesh Yogi focused mainly (at least in public) on the ”Flying” or Akasha Sutra for promotional purposes.

During my two weeks participation in the intensive “Siddha Flying” workshop, practitioners of the “Flying Sutra” were neither flying nor levitating, just screaming and hopping joyously on the mattresses, but my deepened practise of the “Flying Sutra” in this workshop materialised in my subconscious, and I started flying in my dreams – something I used to do as a kid quite often without using any techniques!

While attending TM seminars, Yogi Paramahansa Yogananda caught my attention, maybe also because he was teaching Kriya Yoga – mainly in Los Angeles, where I was still visiting my Indian-American girlfriend Indie every year. For two years I studied his Kriya Yoga letters, but his worshippers seemed very dull to me. I realised that Kriya Yoga, the path of total surrender, was not my way.

After my brother and I received our diplomas, my father left his body. He told me before I left again for Los Angeles that he was so happy now and that he had waited so long to know that both his sons would complete their studies; he looked exhausted, and I had the feeling I wouldn’t be seeing him anymore. In the States, I dreamed of him jumping and diving into a pool without coming up again. As I pulled him out to save him, he complained, saying, “Please, let me go!” Two days later I received a telegram informing me that he had died at the time of that dream.

Back in Germany, I joined the Hindi Course at the Free University Berlin to be able to read sutras in Hindi, recommended by the TM teachers; there I met a disciple of the Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, and she promptly invited me to the Vihan Rajneesh Meditation Center in Berlin-Kreuzberg to participate in the meditations offered there. I was intrigued and went there, enjoyed the nice atmosphere, and started to read the books of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. To my surprise, I didn’t spot contradictions right away. I also participated in the daily meditations and found them a great, fresh alternative to my daily Raja Yoga TM routine.

I had a great time: in the morning teaching mathematics at the Technical High Institute of Berlin, in the evening meditating at the Vihan Center, participating in most of the techniques offered, and finding more and more the courage to really let go in the chaotic second phase of the Dynamic Meditation with strong emotional release.

Of course I was playing with the idea of coming closer to Bhagwan and visiting him in India, but I had no time off from my lectures. There was the possibility to take sannyas by mail, however, and shortly after I had sent my letter, I received a reply on Valentine’s Day in 1980, and Bhagwan had given me the new name Swami Anand Guenter.

When I got the new name in the mail, I didn’t feel very “special” because it was more or less my “old” name; however, when I asked Bhagwan in Poona about the meaning of my name, Guenter, he told me that especially for me, Guenter (which has several meanings such as “weapon carrier”) means “bold in battle.” This moved me deeply because I’ve been fighting bravely in boxing and karate for the past 23 years.

The new addition “Anand” in front motivated me to be more playful in fighting, and I became faster, lighter, and better…so it took me quite a while to get a special understanding and confident feeling about my new name!

In class, I started wearing the mala hidden beneath my shirt and dyed my clothes a subtle reddish-brown colour, but quickly switched enthusiastically to brighter rainbow colours. From that time on, I was also asked to lead the meditations at the Berlin Vihan Center. What a present that was, and what a pleasant job it was to combine that with my professional lectures! I could work in Vihan’s office on the preparations for my classes, adjacent to the meditation room; this alive Buddhafield energy carried me along quite wondrously!

Finally, during my semester break in July 1980, I flew to India to meet Bhagwan for the first time in His body. After a few weeks of participating in workshops and meditations, I heard Bhagwan say in discourse during the series of Theologica Mystica, “And Jesus walking on water… I don’t think that he was so foolish as to walk on water.”

Unconsciously, I had been waiting for just that kind of challenging remark, because I was still firmly clinging to the TM Raja Yoga program, which was running through my mind rather continuously during the calm meditative phases of Bhagwan’s meditations… and when I heard Him say that, I immediately remembered the Udana Sutra and dashed to the Question Desk to write to Bhagwan: “I understand what you said… But by practising the Samyama on Patanjali’s Udana Sutra, is not man able to do this?”

A few days passed. One morning, while waiting in Buddha Hall for the Master, I noticed a ringing in my ears. I was almost nodding off when Bhagwan entered Buddha Hall and looked smiling into my eyes. Again, I nodded off. All of a sudden, I heard the last words of my question, but mostly my name, Anand Guenter, with the correct German umlaut pronunciation! By answering my question, Bhagwan helped me tremendously to free myself from the TM-routine, and I felt clearly that he absolutely knows what he is talking about and sees the essential.

Before flying back home to Berlin I had a leaving darshan in Chuang Tzu Auditorium.

I knelt in front of Bhagwan and He pressed firmly on my third eye, making me feel drowsy, but also confident as if I had known Him much longer and closed my eyes without delay… and I fell backward while a Swami behind caught me cautiously… female sannyasins were dancing and whirling around Bhagwan’s chair, creating a very strong energy field… while everyone else outside in the ashram were dancing and singing in Buddha Hall until the blackout – the moment when Bhagwan shut off the lights – and in an incredible silence and in darkness nobody moved, just experiencing the energy within and without. I was totally knocked out in front of Him and recovered slowly, more or less, once outside the auditorium.

“I say again that there are no miracles as such, because the whole existence is a miracle. What more miracles can there be? Each moment, each event, is miraculous.

The religious person is one for whom everything, from the most ordinary to the most extraordinary, has become a miracle. A seed growing green leaves, is it not a miracle far greater than any guy walking on water on the Sea of Galilee? A bird flying in the sky, on the wing, is it not a greater miracle than anybody walking in fire? The roses, the lotuses, the marigolds, the millions of flowers… and you don’t see any miracles in them.

And you look for stupid things. Somebody materializing a Swiss-made watch – that is a miracle, and a rose is not a miracle. Somebody producing holy ash – that is a miracle, and the man who produces holy ash is nothing but an asshole! – and a cuckoo calling from the distance is not a miracle. You are blind, utterly blind and insane. You can only believe in childish things. You are not in search of the real magic of life; that’s why stupid magicians can deceive you.

Just to be is more than one can believe. To be able to breathe, to be able to see the rising sun, to be able to hear the chirping of the birds, to be able to feel love, prayer, gratitude, silence…. This very moment – this is a miracle. The silence that encompasses you, the love that transpires between me and you, the communion, the satsang, with open hearts like lotuses – you are drinking me with such vulnerability, with such immense trust – what more miracles are needed to prove that existence is a mystery?

[…] You ask me, Guenter: Osho, I understood you said the other day in the lecture that Jesus did not walk on water….

Yes, because I respect Jesus so much, I cannot believe that he was so stupid as to walk on water.

And you say: You also said there are no miracles as such.

Yes, there are no miracles as such because the whole of life is miraculous. Your being here and nowhere else – is it not a miracle?

[…] Why are you here? Why does this whole existence exist? Is it not tremendously mysterious, miraculous? And you are asking for small things. Those small things are all invented; they are small magic tricks – or those things exist only in stories.

I have heard a story that Jesus, Luke, John, all three were going to the boat that was in the middle of the lake. Luke walked over the water, then John also walked over the water; they both reached the boat. Then Jesus followed them and started sinking.

Luke said to John, ‘Should we tell him where the rocks are?’

[…] Patanjali’s Sutras certainly mention miracles, but for a totally different reason, not for the reason, Guenter, that you think. Patanjali has written a separate chapter about siddhis, miracles, for the specific purpose that nobody should get involved in such things. It is to debar, prohibit. It is not his purpose that you should become interested in miracles. His purpose is very clear.

He says those who get lost in miracles are lost in a jungle. Certainly there are powers within you, hidden powers within you, which you are not aware of. And when you start going deeper into meditation those hidden powers start manifesting themselves, and there is every possibility you will be tempted by those powers. There is nothing miraculous about them; they are as natural as any other law. We just don’t understand the law underlying them, hence we call them miracles.”

Osho, Theologia Mystica, Ch 8, Q 1

From the book, Past the Point of No Return by Ma Anand Bhagawati