In the early 70’s, my life, which had never really come together, began to fall apart. Living in Sydney in a crazy never-functional marriage, my husband was producing the album for “Hair”, and stoned actors and musicians were all over our house. One night while digesting a mind-altering chemical, I heard John Lennon’s screaming post-Primal Therapy album, “John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band”, and went, “I want what he’s having.”

So I left my husband and headed off with my hippie boyfriend and younger sister to California in search of Primal Release. Lying on mats in dark rooms screaming was absorbing for a while, but then peculiar bliss stuff started happening during sessions, and no amount of therapists’ prodding to “Get into it! Tell your Mom how you feel!” could wipe this new smile from my face.

I spent two years squandering my inheritance on therapies, workshops, groups, and ‘enlightenment intensives’ in California, followed by 6 months in a mini-Esalen in southern Spain. After a 3-day isolation and sensory-deprivation experience (I cheated by smoking, drinking, and reading), we were led out of our rooms. I was dressed in white clothes and had a phoney spaced-out expression, and the first person I met when my blindfold was removed was Poonam, down from London with her boyfriend of the moment, to lead the next group session. She asked, was I feeling particularly spiritual in my radiant whiteness? And I knew the piss was being taken.

Poonam then introduced Dynamic Meditation. We had to breathe like freight trains, scream, cathart, howl like dogs, jump, rave, and dance for what seemed like hours (actually only 30 minutes) until suddenly silence and an Indian man’s voice instructed us to “Es-stop! Now go deep in this bliss.” This was the first I heard of Bhagwan. His voice took whatever was left of my breath away, and my heart was never mine again.

Turned off by the idea of India, wearing a guru’s picture around my neck, changing my name, wearing stupid orange clothes, I tried for 6 months to forget that voice. Had an unhappy affair with a Jewish-American Rolfer/body-worker (later Swami Prageet but that’s another story) who took me from my beloved Spain to freezing London, where we stayed in palatial luxury with his Mill Hill millionaire sponsor friends. I was miserable, broke, lonely, insecure, and afraid – though of what I knew not.

Mister Rolfer returned to the States and I found some work cooking for groups at London growth centres and weekend country retreats. Found myself again one day blindfolded and deep breathing doing Dynamic in an Encounter Marathon led by Veeresh and Asha, group leaders and orange-clad devotees of the same mad Indian guru, after which I gave up the struggle. I mailed a letter and photo to Bhagwan in India, thinking/hoping he might turn me down, and cried for days at my pathetic failed life.

While waiting for Bhagwan’s reply, I continued to stay with the Rolfer’s rich London sponsors. After his departure they kept me on as nanny for their three kids, translator for their Spanish housekeepers, and companion and confidante for each of them while their marriage disintegrated.

Orange was never my colour. Yet I boiled my clothes in orange dye in Le Creuset casserole dishes (the millionaires used only a microwave and had no normal saucepans). My name came from India. Poonam read it out to me at her London home while Shyam Singha (Anglo-Indian sannyasin and renowned medical practitioner) sniggered, “Why’s He given you such a bloody silly name!” which helped a lot.

My flight mate from London to Bombay was diva-Divya , a Primal Therapist from Puerto Rico whom I’d met at Quaesitor, the London Growth Centre.

As I was a Primal devotee and new sannyasin, she offered to escort me to India. Divya exclaimed “caramba!” whenever annoyed or irritated, which was often. She was already an India-visitor-veteran, so forewarned me of Bombay’s beggars, heat, and aromas, telling me most Indians were in a bestial stupor and totally lacking in our western need for personal space.

After the 3-hour taxi ride up the long hill to Poona with constant nerve-shattering horn honking between all vehicles on the road, we were deposited at Ma Shraddha Bharti’s, where Divya had arranged for us to stay.

Shiva, ‘Proper’ Sagar, Chaitanya Hari (Georg Deuter), and Swedish ex-model Gandha were all residents at MSB’s. Pankaja, a professional novelist – witty, cynical, yet soon to dissolve in dewy-eyed devotion – came from England during my first months living there, contributing to what was already a house of strong individuals all destined to become long-term ashramites. We infuriated Shraddha Bharti by befriending the servants, whom she treated with traditional Indian disdain. MSB would return from morning discourse at the ashram in weeping bhakti mode, then start snapping at the servants as they squatted on the kitchen floor cooking dal and pounding chapatti dough. We – particularly ‘Proper’ Sagar – made it clear her behaviour was unbefitting of a sannyasin and devotee of Bhagwan, which enraged her.

On arrival in India, my mental state was one of insecurity, turmoil, and dread. At 25 I felt old and washed up, a nervous, unattractive nobody. Divya used her Highly Evolved Seeker status to get us a darshan appointment the same night as we reached Poona (I would have gladly agreed to a few days’ postponement). Thus, we attended darshan that evening with a small group of 6 or 7 sitting in a small circle in the area behind Lao Tzu House, where we met and spoke with Bhagwan and His doe-eyed consort Vivek.

I had brought medicine for Vivek from Dr. Shyam in London, which gave me something to do with my hands. I looked in Bhagwan’s eyes and saw nobody there – only vast emptiness – and this only increased my dread.

Bhagwan asked me how long I was staying. I said one month. (I had promised Poonam to come back and help with the new London centre and had left all my belongings at the Mill Hill millionaires’, promising to come back to nanny their three kids.) Bhagwan smiled and said, “Es-stay a little longer.” Little did I know that “longer” would become seven years…

I began doing daily Dynamic at dawn, cycling over from MSB’s in the cold darkness. During these early weeks, my spirits and disposition lifted. The meditation shook me awake, released my heart, I started to laugh and dance. I wrote to my beloved mother, who to this day loves, supports, and encourages her crazy daughter unconditionally: “I am so happy! Thank you for giving birth to me!”

Many at-the-coalface activities have involved me during the 25 years since Poona, surviving and supporting myself in the marketplace. Life has been rarely comfortable, frequently intense, yet the connection has always been there. Working in theatre, promotions, music, catering, image-consultancy, fashion, marketing, counselling, advertising and – most recently – new-age publications, the experience of stepping aside and letting it happen, knowing nothing I do is mine or personal, has continued.

A close friend asked me recently, “What did Osho really teach you?”

I had to think about it because my first remembrance of Osho is He ‘taught’ nothing.

Yet He did teach me to live without restraint, to allow creativity and expression to flow through me, and to not censor the wildness of my heart.

Osho took off the lid.

“Prayer is true when it comes out of gratitude. Prayer is false when it is just a means to persuade God, to seduce God, to ask for something from him – even if you are asking God himself, then too your prayer is full of desire. And when prayer is full of desire, it is too heavy, it can’t have wings. It can only grope in the darkness of the earth; it cannot soar high in the sunlit sky.

When prayer is without desire it has wings, it can reach the ultimate. And when prayer is without weight, when it is out of thankfulness, not desiring anything but just to show your gratitude for all that God has already done for you….”

Osho, The Fish in the Sea is Not Thirsty, Ch 8, Q 1

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