I grew up in post-war Vienna. I felt unsettled living there as a child, as I had an inner sense of not belonging to the family I lived with, that my parents were not my real parents; there were often vague memories haunting me in the back of my mind, and I was given to fits of sadness and frustration, during which I would lock myself in the bathroom and bawl my eyes out. During one such session, I heard a soundless voice within tell me that I was living in the best possible environment for the time being and that my life would change later. Although I was a young child, I understood, and this message relaxed me into being able to function in the way my family and society were expecting from me.

Only after I had become completely immersed in the ways of traditional Vienna society, with a husband-to-be lined up and a successful career to boot, did I fall madly in love with another man, cut all ties with Vienna, and moved to Northern Germany in a matter of months. I was certain this was the life I had been waiting for and embraced the ways of my new country and my husband’s family. However, after a few years, I found myself wondering what I really had accomplished with this move. Inside, I was the same person; only the outer circumstances had changed. A deep dissatisfaction arose when I thought of this comfortable life continuing indefinitely in the same vein. I was ready for a big change.

Again, my heart spoke out first and helped me to act. When I found myself with two lovers and a husband for a while, the pressure became too much: I decided to get a divorce and told my married lover that we ought to end our affair. However, after I moved into my own flat, I continued seeing my other lover, Klaus – a “free spirit,” as we called people like him in the early seventies; he had long, curly hair, played the guitar, was an independent teacher, and was usually broke.

I had moved with incredible speed through all these changes, and once I stopped to review my life, I realised that I would end up in the same rut as twice before unless I changed something within. In the inexplicable way life offers opportunities, one came along right away. “There’s a weekend group happening, and you can still join if you want,” said Klaus, the free spirit. “What is a weekend group?” I inquired. He explained that the therapists who ran such workshops were trained psychologists who could help me in my search to find out who I really am. I was curious and signed up.

We arrived at a run-down farmhouse on the outskirts of Bremen, the grounds still covered with snow in March. A bunch of people who looked like what I believed were freaks were dancing with abundance to the sounds of drums, breathing heavily.

Feeling a bit lost, I nevertheless felt the natives to be friendly, and after a short hello, I joined the group. The therapist was a woman in her late thirties; she introduced herself as Veet Asmi, quickly explained what the next session would be about, and arranged for several mattresses and pillows to be put on the floor of the barely furnished room. One participant would lie down on the mattress, and another would sit next to it to assist in whatever was to transpire.

 

My partner was a young woman named Ursel; I lay down and cradled a pillow in my arms for a few moments, looking around: some of the participants were role-playing with their pillows, talking to them, tossing them in the air; I heard a woman cry softly.

“Express anything that wants to come up from inside!” The therapist encouraged us, but I didn’t quite know how one went about such a thing. Suddenly I thought of my father, whom I hadn’t seen in years, and felt an incredible wave of anger erupt. The therapist, seeing some feelings were coming up here indeed, put her hand on my back, and in that moment, something inside of me snapped, and I started to scream like a banshee. I was shocked to hear my own voice at such a volume! I cried and started to beat up that pillow in front of me, letting go of the control of my body, which shook while my fists were thumping the stuffing out of the pillow.

After what seemed like hours of feeling immense inner pain and anger, I collapsed, spent, with my throat hurting and raw; yet there was simultaneously a feeling of serenity and peace. I needed explanations for my totally bizarre behaviour and only began to understand when we sat in a circle and shared what had happened to each of us in that session. Every one of the participants had experienced suppressed emotions and felt the need to get them out of their system, like pus out of a festering wound.

I cannot recall too much about the rest of the day as I was going through various sessions, sometimes alone, sometimes with a partner, but I felt exhilarated and sensed an unknown freedom just around the corner.

The sleeping arrangements that night were another first: mattresses were lined up along the walls, and we were all to sleep together in that large room. There I was among strangers to whom I had bared part of my soul, and it seemed the most natural thing to do.

The next day was filled with more exercises, feedback, encouragement, laughter, and companionship. In one day, I had made a dozen friends, and I knew I would continue to pursue my inner world with all that it would take.

Thus began my double life: during the day I was the responsible IBM employee, dealing with computer configurations and contracts. After work and on weekends I plunged into a completely different scene; instead of mixing with the more conservative and stiff-upper-lip-Bremen I was accustomed to, I hung out with new friends at Greek and Italian restaurants, drinking ouzo and eating souvlaki, listened to Klaus singing and playing songs on his guitar, taking fun-filled weekend trips to Amsterdam, becoming acquainted with the teachings and writings of Fritz Perls, Carl Rogers, Wilhelm Reich, LeBoyer, Erich Fromm, Aldous Huxley, Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, and Black Elk, attending controversial underground theatre plays, drinking huge amounts of Valpolicella while discussing psychology and the world in general, listening to Leonard Cohen and his German equivalent, Hannes Wader. And I stopped wearing a bra.

I fell in love with the writings of Hermann Hesse; I had a book of quotes by him in my car and would read them while waiting for the traffic light to change. I devoured Siddhartha and Steppenwolf. I watched every Ingmar Bergman movie shown in the theatres and participated regularly in what was now “our group” every six weeks or so. I was flying; therapy was the way to go.

The highlight of that summer of 1976 was a fortnight spent in an old castle in Grenoble, France, participating in a group held by Gerda Boyesen and her son and daughter, based on Wilhelm Reich’s psychology. But it was after that experience that I began to feel dissatisfied, as if all of this was insufficient, as if there had to be more.

Returning to Bremen I found out that Birgit and Wolfgang, who were part of our group, had sent a postcard from India and signed it with new names they had acquired, namely Kadambari and Navanit. I was intrigued and asked Veet Asmi, our weekend group leader, to explain what this was all about. She said that Poona, the place they had written from, had to do with meditation and that they had found their master in Bhagwan, who had an ashram there and who had given them their new names.

I stared at her. It had never occurred to me to ask why she was always wearing orange or rust-coloured garments and a long necklace with a kind of amulet. I had also never questioned her unusual name; I had been so absorbed in my therapy experiences that I obviously hadn’t looked much into it.

Seeing my curiosity, she said, “If you want to find out more about what meditation really is, I can conduct a meditation weekend if you manage to get the participants together.” Excited, I spoke with the present group members, and we arranged to have a weekend in October. Only Klaus bailed out, as he had a previous appointment to lead a rhetoric seminar.

It was shortly after my birthday in October that our group met as usual on a Friday evening, this time to learn all about meditation. We did several one-hour meditations, and I liked the accompanying music and the spontaneous, free-flowing body movements of the more active ones. Veet Asmi explained that Bhagwan was a spiritual master and that he had devised these more modern meditation techniques to be particularly suited for the western mind. She told us that he gave daily discourses at his ashram in India and showed us a book containing such lecture series. On the cover of this book, I saw a picture of Bhagwan in profile. She also played a tape recording of a discourse, but not only was the quality of the tape poor, I had a hard time understanding his English pronunciation and promptly fell asleep.

On Sunday, we started the morning with dynamic Meditation, followed by dancing and lunch. After that, we were to do the Nadabrahma Meditation. We sat cross-legged and with closed eyes, and we were to hum for thirty minutes with music playing in the background. Then the music would change, and the next stage of fifteen minutes was divided into two seven and a half-minute sections: for the first half, we were to slowly move the hands, palms up, in an outward circular motion, giving energy outward to the universe. After that first half and to the changed tune of the music, we would turn the hands, palms down, and slowly move them in the opposite direction to take energy in.

In the third stage of 15 minutes, we would sit still and be quiet. It was during the humming phase with my eyes shut that I saw a chorus of men standing in a group and chanting, all of them wearing high black hats. There was an incredible sense of familiarity that arose inside of me, a feeling of well-being, and simultaneously I felt my heart quiver. Suddenly, this delightful vision changed, and the face of a bearded man filled my inner screen; Bhagwan looked silently straight at me. This vision shook me to my core, and an agonising longing took over; I felt in shock and could hardly sit through the remaining stages. I tried to analyse how it was possible that I had seen this face so clearly, although I had only seen a photo in profile earlier and kept quiet about what I had seen.

About an hour later, to celebrate the end of the weekend, we danced to Rod Stewart’s song “I am Sailing.” I felt strangely affected, and tears welled up. By the time the song had been repeated for the third time, I fell apart, crying desperately with an aching heart.

“I am sailing, I am sailing, Home again, ‘cross the sea.

I am sailing, stormy waters, To be near you, to be free.

 

I am flying, I am flying, Like a bird ‘cross the sky.

I am flying, passing high clouds, To be with you, to be free.

 

Can you hear me, can you hear me, Thro’ the dark night, far away.

I am dying, forever trying,

To be with you, who can say….”

 

I approached Veet Asmi, and when she saw my eyes swollen from crying, she asked me what the matter was. I mumbled something about missing Klaus being here this weekend. She looked at me searchingly and said quietly, “I don’t think so.”

 

Still, I couldn’t tell her about what I had experienced; it felt so immensely personal and precious that I wanted to keep it in my heart until I could sort out all these emotions. Instead, I asked, “Is it possible to write to Bhagwan?” She confirmed that, and when she wrote down the address of the ashram in India, she added, “Send him a photo.”

 

I drove home in a daze. My heart felt heavy with inexplicable yearning. I sat down and wrote a letter to Bhagwan, telling him what I had seen during that meditation. I also wrote on the spur of the moment that I felt I needed to see him in person, but that this would have to wait until the beginning of next year because I had no holidays scheduled before then. I included a passport photograph and sealed the envelope.

 

Klaus came home from his seminar and paled when I told him I was planning to travel to India. “You can’t go alone; I am coming with you!” he insisted.

 

I called Ursel to tell her about our plans. She listened and then asked, “Can I come with you? I too want to see Bhagwan!” I was elated; I would be travelling to India with two of my nearest and dearest within three months!

 

A week later, Kadambari and Navanit returned from their visit to the ashram in Poona and were full of fantastic and interesting stories. There was a glow emanating from their eyes when they spoke about Bhagwan. They wore orange pants and shirts and wore a mala around their necks, a beaded necklace with a locket containing a picture of Bhagwan.

 

They cheered when they heard that Ursel, Klaus, and I would be travelling to Poona soon and predicted that probably more of our group would follow—this to the staunch denial of Markwart, George, Claudia, and several others. As it turned out, they were right.

 

Coming home from work one dark November evening, I gathered up the mail, and my heart stopped beating for a moment when I saw an envelope from the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh Ashram. It was addressed to Ma Anand Bhagawati with my legal name in brackets! I opened it with shaking hands and stared at a piece of cream-coloured stationery embossed with the name Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh; on the left side, near the bottom, the name Ma Anand Bhagawati was written in English and in a writing that looked kind of abstract but I found out later was Hindi. I turned the page, and on the back it said “bliss” and “divineness.”

 

The friendly accompanying letter informed me that Bhagwan had accepted me as a sannyasin and given me a new name; from now on, I was to wear a mala and orange clothing at all times. It also stated that I was welcome to visit the ashram and that January and February would be good times. And in the right-hand upper corner was a quote that unnerved me:

 

“The gates of the temple are wide open,

and it is only after thousands of years

that such an opportunity presents itself on this planet.

Know well that they will not remain open forever;

the opportunity can be lost very easily.”

 

I made a dash for my purse and pulled out a votive picture I had been carrying since my confirmation at the age of fourteen. It had been given to me as a memento by the pastor, and since then it has remained firmly lodged in my purse, in spite of the fact that in the meantime I had officially resigned from the Protestant church and didn’t think highly of religion in general. I’d come across the picture on occasion over the years but couldn’t bring myself to throw it away, even though I wondered why I was bothering to keep it.

 

It pictured Jesus standing in front of a temple gate with the following quote:

 

“Ask, and it will be given to you;

seek, and you will find; knock,

and it will be opened to you.”

Luke 11

 

Now I just knew. I looked at the little picture one more time and disposed of it. The next step was to call Veet Asmi in London to ask her if I was now called Anand or Bhagawati. She was delighted to hear the news, told me I would be using the name Bhagawati for short (pun intended), and she would bring me a mala on her next visit. In the meantime, I should start dyeing my clothes or buy new ones in orange hues. And the words on the back of the name paper were the translation of what my name meant: bliss and divineness.

 

It took me a while to get used to the sound of the name, and then I called all my friends to share my news. It was much later that I found out that Pluto was precisely in conjuncture with my natal sun when Bhagwan gave me my name on November 11th, which in Germany was also the official beginning of carnival!

 

And a carnival of colours began when I went in search of orange-coloured clothing in wintry and dark Northern Germany. I felt uplifted when I found at least some rust-coloured items as a compromise.

 

I bought boxes of orange dye and set about dyeing all the light-coloured garments I owned. My bathroom was full of damp, over-dyed clothing, and about half of the garments came out streaky. There were also a number of persistent orange splashes all over the tiles and the floor.

 

Veet Asmi arrived two weeks later and rang the bell when I was just coming out of the bathroom draped in bath towels. Grinning, she held up the mala, and I made her put it on me right away. I felt overcome by an incredible rush of elation.

 

The planning of our trip was full steam ahead, and Navanit and Kadambari gave us several recommendations. I booked my year’s holiday with the personnel manager at IBM, who looked at me strangely when he heard I was going to India. He most likely had noticed that I was wearing unusual colour combinations lately but didn’t let on about this or the mala around my neck.

 

We decided to fly to London first and buy our tickets there, as much cheaper deals were available in England. Traveling at a low cost seemed to be an unavoidable part of the experience. Veet Asmi invited us to stay at her place for the few days it would take to make all the arrangements.

Klaus and I celebrated New Year’s Eve together in my flat. We prepared a fondue with many gourmet side dishes and good wine to celebrate this coming year and our travels to India. After we’d indulged eating piles of delicious meat morsels I abruptly felt disgusted with eating meat; I felt a strong urge to stop eating meat and had a sudden sense of having indulged in cannibalism unto that day.

I arrived in London with Ursel and Klaus. Veet Asmi’s basement flat in Chalk Farm was charming, decorated with many things made in India. I looked in admiration at the beautiful silk saris she had brought, the tasselled pillow covers, and the Indian carpets. On a shopping spree through London, we saw many shops carrying colourful Asian goods and got so turned on that I returned to the flat in an orange-coloured, full-length Afghani dress with wide sleeves and a narrow bodice, feeling like an oriental princess.

We left London on Air Iraq during a new moon night and were surprised when we were told we would have a stopover in Baghdad. Together with all the other passengers, Klaus, Ursel, and I were trooped to a shed built out of corrugated iron on the perimeters of the airport. I felt extremely uncomfortable looking at the weapon-clad soldiers who were pointing the way with their guns. In the shed, we were made to sit down on hard and rough wooden benches. As an answer to everybody’s questions, we were told sternly that “the airport is being renovated; this is the transit area; you will wait here.”

The two weak light bulbs in the middle of the shed caused the light to be very dim, and another lowlight was several large-bodied women in short-skirted black uniforms with handguns attached to their wide hips who patrolled the area, looking at everybody with unveiled suspicion. Did they think we were spies coming in on a commercial flight? Images of female Nazi soldiers patrolling the German camps kept flickering within my inner eye, and the future looked unknowable and rather bleak. We were held without being offered any water to drink or snacks to eat. It was very quiet; when passengers were talking, they did so in low voices. No official announcements were made. Suddenly, about three long hours later, several uniformed men walked in and told us in broken English to get out of the shed and into the plane. And wonder of wonders, the plane took off with the pilot announcing the continuation of the flight to Abu Dhabi.

Compared to Baghdad, landing in Abu Dhabi felt like seeing a fairy tale city. The marble airport was lit up like a Christmas tree, and the Arabs in their white jelabas seemed friendly in spite of toting machine guns and an abundance of ammunition belts strapped across their chests. The duty-free shop appeared like a glittering treasure chest straight out of 1001 Nights. It was a short stopover before we boarded yet another plane to proceed to Bombay.

Sahar International Airport in Bombay. Warm, moist heat and a melee of smells hit me the moment we disembarked in the early morning hours. Together with hundreds of tired passengers, we trudged through filthy tiled corridors and queued at the immigration counter. After shuffling along for a while, I was astounded to see the immigration officials entering the travellers’ data in handwritten ledgers.

We changed money at a counter, and shouldering our large backpacks, we emerged outside the building. Tattered figures hurled themselves towards us, offering their transport services and snatching at our luggage. We wanted to go straight to Poona from the airport, but after some feverish discussions, it transpired that we first had to drive to a taxi terminal at Dadar Station in the city and hire a taxi to Poona from there.

We left the airport in a black taxi with a suspiciously low carriage – the springs were obviously ancient. Dawn cast a greyish light on the shanties lining both sides of the road. I saw ragged people emerging, some with metal buckets in their hands, small children wearing only a torn top playing outside a makeshift tent, and a horrible stench enveloping all. To close the windows meant suffocation; leaving them open meant possible poisoning. It was only later that we found out that the smell had come from burning corpses.

An hour or so later, we emerged at Dadar Station. After our experiences at the airport, we were a bit better prepared for the fights that erupted among the drivers over who would get the fare. I felt utterly wretched and couldn’t be bothered to haggle; finally, Klaus and Ursel chose a fairly solid-looking vehicle, and we set off on a five-hour odyssey over the Western Ghats towards Poona.

After a couple of hours on a bumpy road at breakneck speed, I felt so unnerved that only the thought of having come so far kept me going. I couldn’t bear to look out of the window anymore. Around lunchtime, we spied a sign indicating we were entering the Poona municipality. After another hour through the outskirts of the city, the taxi driver pulled up at the railway station. Now familiar with the transport system, we hailed a rickshaw and told the rickshaw wallah to take us to the Hotel Shalimar, which had been highly recommended to us by Veet Asmi.

The entrance to the place looked alright, and at this point all we wanted was to lie down and rest. Two tiny and skinny men clad in worn cotton singlets and khaki shorts hoisted our heavy packs, and we walked up with them to the third floor. Our rooms seemed light and airy and equipped with two metal beds, a rackety chair, and a cupboard. A door with the paint chipped off obviously led into the bathroom; I went in and shouted cheerfully to Klaus, “There are such cute little golden-brown bugs all over the floor!”

I washed my hands, went back into the room, and sank on the hard mattress, feeling a bit faint. Behind half-closed lids, I saw Klaus going into the bathroom, only to turn around with a jump and yell, “Those are cockroaches, how gross!”

After dinner, we bought some candles from a small roadside stall, lit them, and put them on the window sill while we relaxed on the beds and talked until we fell asleep.

When I woke up the next morning, I was unable to open my eyes. The candles on the window sill in the open window had attracted swarms of mosquitoes, who fed on my face and particularly my eyelids during the night. We obviously needed mosquito nets.

I bathed my eyes for a while with cold water and was then able to open the slits. Nevertheless, we energetically set out to walk to the ashram, which, we had been assured, was close to the hotel where we were staying.

The walk took us an hour and a half. I kept smelling what seemed like roasted kidneys (a typical Viennese dish of my childhood) until I realised it was the urine-soaked walls we were passing, where men relieved themselves throughout the day.

Foot-sore, we finally arrived and entered through a large wooden teak gate embellished with huge brass fittings. The place seemed very small compared to the reports I had heard, yet the atmosphere was serene and cheerful. People mainly clad in orange-coloured robes were passing, most of them wearing the mala, long hair, and, in the case of the male species, long beards. I felt very excited, and we were shown to the office, where we were told we could sign up for a darshan the next day. The administrator called Arup asked Klaus if he wanted to take sannyasa; he almost jumped out of his skin and said, “No, no! No. I just want to meet the Bhagwan. Ursel laughed and said, “But I would like to take sannyas!” I was delighted to hear this and thought, since we are similar in so many ways, she ought to have the same name I have. Chai was to be had at the small eatery called Vrindavan, as well as delightful home-made cookies. We strolled around the premises and promptly bumped into Navanit and Kadambari, who had left a few weeks before us to stay “indefinitely” in Poona. They had taken leave of their jobs in Germany.

The next day, we prepared for our exciting evening. We took a rickshaw to the ashram and arrived there in time to line up for the evening darshan. We were told that Bhagwan was very sensitive to fragrances and smells, so every visitor’s hair, neck, and armpits were delicately sniffed by two female helpers. As I had been using “Western shampoo,” my hair was declared to be smelly, and I had to don a scarf to cover up the offensive perfume. I didn’t mind; I was so thrilled that I would finally see Bhagwan face to face that I would have donned a turban if so required.

We sat on benches outside Lao Tzu, the house in which Bhagwan lived and where He also gave His morning discourses. There was a sense of expectancy in the air and, at the same time, a serene stillness. Every visitor seemed tuned in and sat quietly until asked to rise and walk in single file into the auditorium, where we sat down on the cool marble floor. A comfortable-looking overstuffed chair was placed against a wall, which we faced in a half circle. Nobody spoke. Suddenly, a door to the right opened, and a tiny Indian woman dressed in orange clothes and wearing a head scarf came out and sat down to the left of the chair, followed by an older Mediterranean-looking woman with long grey hair, who sat down to the right of the chair. A young man with red hair and a young, dark-haired woman sat next to her.

And then, into the palpable silence a slight figure with a long grey beard appeared to be gliding through the door towards the chair and sat down quietly, like a falling leaf would softly settle on the forest floor. This was Bhagwan; I was actually sitting in front of Him!

Moving gently behind him, a young woman with long hair entered and also sat down to his left. People who wanted to become sannyasins were called up first. Bhagwan would speak to them, smiling a lot and chuckling at times, writing down a name on a sheet of paper and placing the mala over their heads while explaining the meaning of their new name. It was a happy atmosphere, and my heart was beating ecstatically.

Klaus was called; he walked up to the chair and sat down in front of Bhagwan, who smiled at him and asked, “And what about sannyas?” Klaus told Him that he didn’t know, and Bhagwan smiled while writing on a sheet of paper and then said, “This will be your new name, Swami Anand Anidana.” Klaus bowed his head towards him, and Bhagwan placed the mala over his head.

When Bhagwan announced that Ursel’s new name would be Ma Antar Bhagwato, I almost jumped up and down with delight: such a similar name to mine, yes, it had to be like that!

As I was already equipped with a name and mala, I got to see Bhagwan only after all the new initiations had been made. I felt very keyed up, and when my name was called, I leaped up and walked towards Him. To this moment, I can feel how my lips split into a huge smile as our eyes met, and when Bhagwan said, “Hello, Bhagawati,” my grin hooked itself behind my ears, encompassing the entire universe, and I said, “Hi, Bhagwan!” while my heart soared towards Him, and I knew with total clarity that I had arrived home.

Today, more than thirty years later, I live with eternal gratitude for Bhagwan’s unconditional love and for what He helped me understand over the years, thus enabling me to truly embark on the journey for which I came to this planet.

“Buddha said: charaiveti, charaiveti. Walk on, walk on, till you arrive at a point where there is nowhere to go, till you come to that point, to that ultimate point where there is no way to go anywhere. Then settle – only then settle. Then you are at home. Then life is a bliss, then life is a blessing, then life is a benediction.”

Osho, The White Lotus, Ch 4, Q 1

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