Category Archives: Music

Japan Autumn Tour

These photos are from my visits to the south main island of Kyushu.
It has beautiful nature. And volcanos!
Other stops along my way included the city of Hiroshima.
Here I had an opportunity to visit the Peace Park.
It is something I recommend to everyone — especially the world’s leaders.
More words about my experiences are posted here http://www.oneskymusic.com/reflections-from-the-peace-park-in-hiroshima/.

Into the Light – Europe & USA Tours

 
Giving myself to the sky
I let my spirit fly
Like a bird on the wing
I dance on the wind

High with the clouds above
I disappear in love
With a song in my heart
I’m letting go

Into the light
Like a moth to a flame
Closer and closer
Ever so bright

The Festival – Varazze, Italy	The Festival – Varazze, Italy
The Festival – Varazze, Italy	The Festival – Varazze, Italy
The Festival – Varazze, Italy	Stockholm, Sweden
soundcheck – Amsterdam	Celebration – Amsterdam
RISK Summer Festival	Brothers
Swagato – Sedona	Who’s watching the road?
Portland Event	Nataraj Dance Meditation – Cleveland
Cleveland Event – with Atmo	Gitam and Shunyo – beloved cooks
Sedona Party	Prem Isa – drums / Europe

Japan – Spring Tour

Karaoke singing with Vimal	… pandemonium

One of the biggest faux pas I ever committed in Japan happened in Osaka after an event. It was evening and I was sitting around a table with some Japanese friends waiting to have dinner. I was feeling tired and a little spaced-out from the day’s activities when drinks arrived. I had been in Italy only a few days before and without thinking picked up my glass and said, “Cin-cin!”

The red faces and shocked looks all around indicated something had gone terribly wrong. Then someone leaned close to my ear and whispered ‘cin-cin’ means ‘prick’ in Japanese.

“Skål!” I quickly said.

Oops, wrong country again.

“Uh … Kampai!” I shouted.

Everyone laughed nervously and drained their glasses in one gulp. Very politely, of course.

In Japan, as with other modern cultures, celebration is simply ‘skål!’. You clink your glass of beer together with friends and hope for a better day tomorrow. A friend of mine who teaches English in Japan was sharing how beautiful and full of life the young children are who come to his school. Yet he observed how quickly the society seems to crush them, squeezing out all their joy of life.

I have heard Osho say most people in the world die around the age thirty. Maybe not physically, but spiritually. They just give up. And the rest of their life is a long, boring march to the grave. One can find many beautiful temples in Japan – perhaps once upon a time they provided shelter and inspiration to real meditators. But nowadays they are simply museums to a dead past. Within their aesthetic gates, you’ll find no music, no dancing, no singing. Only the silence of a graveyard. A kind of silence, yes. But there is no celebration in it. Things look beautiful on the outside but are very seriousness on the inside. Is this not the nature of the world we live in?

I have always puzzled why Osho made celebration the last stage of Dynamic Meditation. Why it doesn’t just end in silence like Kundalini or Nadabrahma. Is it because Osho realized not only is mankind incapable of silence, but has forgotten the language of celebration too? This koan unraveled during my most-recent tour in Japan.

One particular morning, I was participating in Dynamic Meditation with a group of enthusiastic Japanese. The fourth stage (silence) had gone very deep. Then, as the first notes of music heralding the fifth and final stage pierced the stillness, the roomful of meditators began to pulse with joy and dance. In that moment, I suddenly remembered how it was to be a child again: innocent, a clean slate — tabula rasa; how I came into this world before the society, the priests, my parents, my teachers all got hold of me. And in a flash, I had insight into the deeper meaning of kampai.

One can think of kampai like the last stage of Dynamic Meditation. As one progresses through the different stages, one reaches the fifth and final stage — kampai — via silence(stage four). In the silent stage we remember who we are again and from out of this silence, we become the small child we once were — dancing and singing in the sun and rain, our life worth living: full of magic, laughter and joy bubbling spontaneously from deep sources within. Once we know who we are, real celebration — the real kampai — begins.

Kampai is our birthright. Kampai is our empty cup — empty, yet full; overflowing with love and the wine of life. Sound Zen? Let’s just say, Kampai!

6:30am, Colorado time. I roll out of bed and peek through the blinds. It’s been snowing all night. Everything outside looks like a winter wonderland. The sky is totally clear. Looks like it’s going to be what the locals call a bluebird powder day. In this neck of the woods that translates as the world’s best skiing conditions and certainly an experience not to be missed.

Aspen Mountain

I put on some Quaker oats, grope my way to the bathroom, and tentatively begin the morning’s first meditation, one that will require all the awareness I can muster up at this early hour. It is a meditation, done with open eyes, steady hand, and begins by me navigating a very sharp device known as a men’s razor across my face. It effectively removes a new layer of roughness from my face that has mysteriously appeared there overnight. The sleepy-eyed reflection looking back at me in the mirror is saying: “You must be crazy. Are you really doing this? Don’t you realize it is minus 18 degrees outside?” I feel my warm, cozy bed pulling me back like a magnet. Well, it could be worse I tell myself. It could be an hour earlier with me on a bicycle pedaling to Dynamic Meditation. Looked at from any angle this morning, it’s early. Too early! The mind is the mind is the mind …Freshly shaved and in my thermals, I tuck into a bowl of steaming-hot oats. Looking outside my window, I watch the first rays of sun just catching the top of Aspen Mountain. The snow cats have been up there most of the night grooming the slopes, leaving them with a silky-smooth finish called “corduroy”. If I’m lucky, another few inches of snow will have fallen since the grooming. My intuition is telling me this is going to be a very special day.

I kiss my girlfriend goodbye and she mumbles something like, “You must be nuts!” then quickly disappears under the warm covers with our family of stuffed bears. Opening the door to our apartment, I am greeted by the coldest blast of air I have ever felt in my life. Good morning, Mother Nature. Humbled, I find myself in an unusual position: in absolute agreement with my girlfriend. Imust be crazy.

I walk to the base of the mountain, only four short blocks from my house. The air is so cold I can feel the hairs freezing in my nose. The ski lift opens in ten minutes, so I decide to sharpen-up my nervous system with a double espresso in my favorite cafe. Glancing through the local paper, I read where ski-related deaths are up this year, on-track to set a record in Colorado. They happen mostly from people hitting trees, or disappearing in deep snow and avalanches. The Rocky Mountains can be a dangerous and unforgiving place to the unaware. “Can’t be too careful this morning,” I think to myself as I finish-off my coffee.

I board the gondola and prepare for the ride up. Aspen, my home since two years, sits at 7910 feet elevation. When I reach the summit in twenty-minutes, I will be standing over 12,000 feet, literally on top of the world. These mountains are BIG.

This morning, the views on the way up are nothing short of spectacular. The sky is incredibly clear. Perhaps the reflection of light off the snow makes it so blue. To the south, I have an awesome view of Independence Pass which is closed about eight months of the year due to snow and landslides. Two years ago while on tour, we drove over it with the band. While taking a break to stretch our legs, Simant, our keyboard player, had his picture taken by a local photographer. The following day, it made the front page of the Aspen Times with the caption: ‘Mountain Meditation with Swami Anand Simant, Japanese musician living in India’. Later, when I went to the newspaper office to get some copies, they were surprised how many people had been calling in to order the photo. Simant, it seemed, had become something of a local legend. Overnight! I still like to think of him as Osho’s Ambassador to Aspen.

The gondola has arrived at the top and people are putting on their skis. We are few this chilly morning. I think most opted for the cozier, and aruably perhaps saner, option and stayed in bed. My little packs of chemical hand-warmers have kicked in, but they are barely competing with the sub-zero temperatures. My bindings click and lock me onto the long pieces of hi-tech planking which will soon be carrying me down the mountain at speeds up to 35 miles per hour. Note: racing skiers in the recent Salt Lake Olympics traveled at speeds up to 90 miles per hour. Personally, I prefer to enjoy this kind of speed watching it on TV. In ski jargon, I am known as a “cruiser”.

I check my boot buckles for tightness. Every little step along the way this morning needs absolute attention. In this sport, a moment’s unawareness can literally mean the difference between life and death. I pause to look at the range of jagged peaks to the west of me. They are covered in a pure white blanket of snow, shadowing what is known as the Conundrum Valley, a wilderness area famous for its natural hot springs at 11,000 feet. In this moment, the beauty of the valley and its surrounding peaks is truly spectacular, a real conundrum, simply too beautiful to comprehend with the mind.

I take a deep breath of the cold, thin air. I feel a big ‘yes’ welling up in me. Another deep breath and I’m letting it all in – all the beauty, all the nature, all the splendor. The words to a song suddenly come to mind: “There is so much magnificence …”.

I am ready now, so with a few kick-outs and a pole push I’m on my way. There is absolutely nobody on the trail. I laugh to myself at its name: ‘Bellissimo’. A unique combination of weather conditions in these high mountains produces a kind of snow extremely soft and light called “champagne powder”. Just as I was hoping for there are a few fresh inches on top of the groomed slopes this morning. The rhythm of my turns starts to create a natural intoxication in me. I’m making “first tracks”, a skier’s dream.

Ecstasy. I glide down the rolling slopes, the sharp edges of my skies cutting perfect arcs in the new snow. There is silence all around me. The landscape looks spectacular with the morning sunlight on the trees. My face is numb and eyes watery from the wind-chill factor. I round a corner and a breath-taking view opens up before my eyes: the entire Sawatch Range to the east, peak after peak over 14,000 feet; and the vast Western Slope to the north. They don’t call this the High Country for nothing. Breathing, opening, letting it all in, so much magnificence. Those words again.

4:00pm. Apres ski. I find myself once again in my favorite cafe, warming-up my weary bones with a cup of hot chocolate. I like to think it is the long day of skiing causing every one of my muscles to ache and not my forty-nine years of age. Whatever. It’s the kind of tiredness that feels really good. My mind wanders back to those magical moments earlier in the day: on top of the world, breathing, opening, letting go, nature filling me up, all that magnificence … I take another sip and close my eyes. It’s all still there, those first tracks, the sound of my edges carving graceful turns, the sunshine, the endlessly clear views, the azure blue sky, and pristine silence all around me. You know? It’s not that I’m all that tired. I’m think I’m just drunk on life.

Waves are coming in, waves are coming in . . .

Drive-By in Oregon 1985
Milarepa center/right, holding drum sticks

I’m not really into music for the sake of music. In fact, I have never really considered myself a musician as such. During the ten years I lived in the Commune, I loved all the work I did there. Each job had its own flavor and mirrored me in a different way. I was in the Commune to grow and discover myself, not necessarily to become a great musician.

Looking back, music feels no more special than any other job I ever did: whether sweeping the path outside Lao Tzu Gate, cleaning the public toilets, cooking, or operating a backhoe. Some may not have been the most glamorous jobs, but being near Osho had a way of transforming even the most mundane task into something miraculous.

In the Ranch era, we had a nightclub in Portland, Oregon called Zorba the Buddha where I played in a band every weekend for a year-and-a-half. It was a unique opportunity to explore the performance aspect of music and being a musician in a worldly sense; also a time when I burned through many of my ambitions and trips around music.

When Rajneeshpuram finished, I moved to Los Angeles and flexed my Ranch-learned skills as a bulldozer operator, leveling one hilltop after another in the Simi Valley. One day out of the blue, I received a phone call from Uruguay (of all places.I had to look at a map to see where it was!) and was invited to join Osho’s World Tour.

When I arrived in Uruguay, Osho was speaking twice a day in an intimate setting of about 20 people. It was like a dream-come-true to be with him in this context, listening to his words, drinking his silence. After four years in the Oregon desert, I felt like I had arrived at an oasis – in the ultimate sense! The thing I had longed for during those unrelenting hours of work at the Ranch was now a reality. My heart was screaming to tell all my friends and fellow travelers – come! – but Osho’s presence in Uruguay needed to be kept secret because of the sensitive political issues involved. It was the hardest secret I ever had to keep.

Living in Osho’s house was an absolute delight. I could have lived like that for eternity – happily enjoying the discourses twice a day; my small job of keeping the downstairs of the house clean; the occasional tennis game or walk on the beach. Osho’s message to us was relax, enjoy, and do just enough work needed to keep things functioning smoothly. Wow!

One day Nivedano, Osho’s beloved drummer, showed up at the door, not only looking for his master but his girlfriend as well – Gyan, Osho’s seamstress. He was welcomed and quickly became a part of the household. Before long though, in his inimitable style, he began trying to organize some musical instruments for us to play on for the discourses. Something inside me said, “Oh no! The silence with Osho is just too precious. It has been so beautiful up to now. Why should we disturb it?” But Nivedano persisted, and before I knew it I was in a car speeding toward the nearby town to look for music shops.

Meanwhile, Osho had been inquiring from Vivek, his caretaker, whether I had brought a guitar with me. On hearing I hadn’t, he said it would be better if I got one; otherwise, I would make trouble by chasing the women and this would not be good for my health. Such a practical master!

After a whole day of running from shop to shop, I eventually found a guitar and Nivedano found his drum. That same evening, we played and sang as Osho walked in for the discourse. The way he danced with us, smiling and swinging his hips as only he knew how, created a strong contrast to the silent evenings we had been having up to then. As our singing and his dancing reached crescendo after crescendo, it began to dawn on me: The silence Osho speaks of is not the silence of a graveyard. It is a living silence. It is the silence of life – a life full of laughter, songs, dance, and all the ecstasies of the heart. This was big insight for me at the time and one I have never forgotten since.

I love to sing. Singing is one of the most beautiful mediums I know for expressing the language of the heart. Singing celebrates the festive dimension of life. When a man sings from his own sources of joy, he plugs into the very center of existence, the place from where the whole universe is singing its song. Words feel inadequate the closer one comes to this space. As a poet, a musician, I know very well Van Morrison’s ‘inarticulate speech of the heart’. Finding words to express something so vast, so inexplicable, so much bigger than oneself is a great challenge. Maybe that’s why when I am able to express and share something of my innermost being, I experience such tremendous fulfillment, a divine contentment.

It is said that in the life of a disciple, the master’s death is his last, and perhaps greatest, gift to his people. When the experience contained in the master is suddenly released from the body, it spreads all over existence. If a disciple is there and is sensitive to it, he will know intuitively what is happening in the master: He will feel it immediately. The moment Osho died, or left-the-body as they say in the East, I realized he was never a person, a body, a form as such, but just a pure presence, a consciousness, an emptiness.

Osho’s World Tour, Portugal, 1986

This insight is particularly relevant to me now. Songs I once sang and directed to this flower of a man, I now sing and address to the whole universe: the sky, the mountains, the ocean, the trees, the stars. Not that I am singing to anyone in particular. In reality, I never was. I simply didn’t have the awareness to understand. I must have listened to Osho a million times say “Look! The chair is empty.” Yet from my point of view, seeing his beautiful form sitting there in front of me, seeing all that radiance with my own eyes – well, to my ears he might as well of been speaking in riddles because an enlightened consciousness shining through a body has to be one of the most beautiful things in life to behold. But an enlightened master is a koan, a divine paradox, and presents every disciple with the ultimate dilemma: How to let go?

Other events have helped crystalize my understanding of Osho in the context of my life and music. In 1989, Osho was still known to the world and his people as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. During a remarkable series of discourses No Mind: Flowers of Eternity, Osho dropped his name and said that he had now become one with the vast ocean of existence and his old name was no more relevant, that if people needed to address him they could do so as Osho. He went on to explain how William James (a Western mystic) originally coined the word ‘osho’ when looking for a way to define the oceanic experience of enlightened consciousness. Also, in the Zen tradition, disciples use the word ‘osho’ as term of respect for the master. Although it has been some years since he left his body, I still use the word Osho when referring to him. But have also come to think of Osho more like a quality of meditation. In my understanding, enlightened consciousness has no particular name or form. Osho is to me meditation at its most refined.

When speaking about what transpires when I sing, words can be a little poor. Whether one sings Osho, Bhagwan, Beloved, Kabir, Jesus, God, or one’s girlfriend’s name is not the point. These days, the lyrics are even more absurd: ‘baby, baby’ seems to be the mantra of modern music. I don’t let myself get too serious about words in music. They are just something to play with. Music shouldn’t be a serious thing. The important thing as far as I’m concerned is: Who is singing? Who are you? And what is your quality of meditation?

After my events sometimes I’ll hear someone say: “Oh, I could really feel Osho tonight.” Perhaps they are feeling a mysterious thing that happens when they are being total in their energy, absorbed in their dance, their egos dissolved in singing and celebration. I call this phenomenon ‘Osho’ and it seems to happen when people’s energy goes really high, like an energetic boiling point, and they drop from their mind to the heart. From the heart, it is just a very short step to one’s being. Someone familiar with meditation will recognize this space in themselves. It is most-certainly an experience beyond words, but if one has to use a word for it, one could call it ‘Osho’.

New people sometimes ask me what was it like to be with Osho when he was in-the-body. Actually, I believe if you know the fragrance of your inner world, you know as much about Osho as anyone ever has or did. Osho is a timeless phenomenon. I’m speaking about Osho, not the man, but Osho as a refined quality of meditation. For example, in this moment now, if I close my eyes what I’m experiencing inside myself is qualitatively the same as what I experienced my very first time in Osho’s presence. Before I met Osho, I wasn’t aware I had a silent world inside me. I grew up in a western culture with no idea about meditation. Hence, I had no context for my first inner experiences around Osho. But, a master is a mirror for one’s inner world. Now I can see it was something that was there inside me all along. But I first had to develop a sensitivity to it, an awareness of it. This is why I meditate. It reminds me of who I am. And in this crazy world we live in, this is something very easy to forget. Straying too far from it, one is bound to suffer life and miss out on its many blessings.

If I see my inner being like an instrument, meditation helps keep the strings in tune. If I have learned anything from my years of playing music in Osho’s presence, it is how to disappear when I play. Music simply provides an excuse to disappear. There is no greater ecstasy as far as I am concerned. I think people get high when I play – not because of the words I sing or my musical expertise – but because of what is happening inside me when I’m playing, the space I go into when I’m singing, the ecstasy I experience when I close my eyes in meditation and sing from my center. The vibrations of meditation are highly contagious.

These days I rarely give concerts. What I love most are my weekend events. I travel with a band, a group of musicians who know the language of music and silence. We create music which supports meditation and the people doing it. The music keeps things fun and non-serious, and helps people dive deep inside themselves. It gives them courage to explore and be nourished by the spiritual dimension of their being. In this sense, music becomes a springboard for something bigger, something very mysterious, which happens in people when they meditate. If you ask me, music in the context of meditation is the real soul food.

I’ve had people ask if I see myself as some sort of missionary or vehicle. I just laugh. I have no interest in changing anyone or converting anybody to my way of seeing things; nor am I interested in pushing any political or spiritual agenda. I am not a missionary. I simply play music and meditate because I love to. I love to sing. I love to dance. I love to be around joyous people who know the value of meditation in their life. And I have discovered a simple truth: The more I share my songs, my music, and myself with others, the more I have of it. It’s the economy of the inner world: The more you give, whether it is love or whatever you have to share, the more riches you discover you have within. In this respect, my life feels abundant, full of love and more blessings than I can count. Existence has showered me with its greatest gift: An awareness of myself. And that’s something worth singing about.

Milarepa is best known throughout the international sannyas community as director of the Osho Institute of Music and Celebration. But moving right along with so many other changes within the Osho Commune these days, he recently accepted an invitation to run the three-day, monthly Meditation Intensive in March 2000. Rather than conducting the Intensive alone, Milarepa asked several fellow meditation leaders to join the program in order to “have as many flavors as possible in the weekend.”

“I wanted to enhance the meditations by making use of some people’s expertise in specialized areas,” he continued.

Milarepa also invited his many musician friends to provide live-music for some of the techniques. The younger participants found this particularly appealing. But the real break with convention was his idea to use recordings of Osho telling jokes. “I used them instead of quotes,” said Milarepa. “It took people by surprise and everyone seemed to agree: Having a good laugh was a great way to start and finish the meditations.”
Milarepa, accompanied by his international band One Sky will be leading meditation events all over the world this year.

Milarepa wielding zen stick on novice meditator outside Buddha Hall, Osho Commune International, Pune, India

Beloved Osho,
A hat for you and a small poem I wrote after last night’s video.

This evening!
Silence descends on Buddha Hall
Like soft monsoon mist;
And from here I listen to
Your voice
The words
The gaps . . .

A crow calls,
And the bamboos creak.
“Who is giving these commentaries,” I ask?
The silence deepens
And ecstasy overwhelms me.
Again I ask, “Who is giving these commentaries?”

Then,
Your voice
The words
The gaps . . .

A crow calls
The bamboos creak

And no answer
Becomes my answer

I love you, Beloved Master.

In deepest gratitude, Swami Anand Milarepa

An enlightened master’s love radiates like the sun, its healing rays equally available to everyone irrespective of who they are, for there is no hierarchy in the eyes of existence. How warm one experiences the sun is directly proportional to how much one is prepared to open and expose himself to life.

This particular poem taught me a valuable lesson. I wrote it in the monsoon season in India, during a time when Osho had been getting progressively weaker and weaker, coming out for the discourses less and less. Because he could not be with us so often, he suggested we start meeting each evening in Buddha Hall at 7 pm to watch videos of previous discourses. He said this would create an opportunity for us to meditate together and celebrate as a commune; that listening to his words would inspire us in his absence. This was the beginning of a meditation known as the White Robe Brotherhood.

During the rainy season in India the days are long. On this particular evening, it was still light when the video discourse ended. I had been lying down, listening to Osho’s words, the rain, and the small sounds all around me. I was in one of those magical spaces I’ve often experienced with Osho: my mind far away, yet something inside still present and alert. Like being asleep, but not. A poem had been composing itself, deep-down in my being, as if my unconscious mind was trying to give voice to something I was experiencing in meditation. When the discourse suddenly ended, the sound of people leaving the Hall startled me and disturbed my trance. The spell had broken and the poem vanished without a trace from the canvas of my mind.

I ran to my room and tried to write it down. I grasped for the words, but they were no longer there. In that moment, I experienced the angst of all creators. Sometimes a window opens for a brief instant, giving a glimpse into another dimension, another world. Then just as mysteriously, it closes again. I had heard Osho speak about it many times. His guidance was always: Don’t grasp and try to hold on. Just accept. It is the nature of things.

Remembering this, I let go. There was nothing more to do now other than move on and be grateful for the glimpse existence had provided me with. The poem, like a perfect dewdrop sparkling in the sun, had disappeared forever and I knew it. Something in me relaxed. Closing my eyes,
I began retracing my steps in the meditation. Only the metaphorical wetness of the grass of my mind indicated it had just been raining in my inner world. I could still sense the fragrance of the unknown lingering in the absence of the vanished poem. With only this faint fragrance to guide me, I started writing, knowing the poem I was composing would at the most be a faraway echo of the original.

I finished the poem. And because my experience had been so strong, I felt compelled to send it into Osho along with a beautiful hat to express my gratitude. The next day, I was told Osho wanted the poem and my accompanying letter published in the Osho Times. I took it as a confirmation of my insight. I lost a poem, but received a blessing: the Master’s love. His poetry.

While thinking about what to write for this article, a poem by Robert Frost came to mind:

STOPPING BY WOODS ON A SNOWY EVENING

Whose woods these are I think I know
His house is in the village though
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake

The woods are lovely, dark and deep
But I have promises to keep
And miles to go before I sleep
And miles to go before I sleep

The Bravo America events take their name from an Osho discourse given in Uruguay. This year’s 1999 tour spanned ten weekends and about 11,000 miles of highway. I am always amazed how vast the United States is. All the event organizers chose beautiful, even magical, locations for their events. It was interesting to see how an aesthetic environment can be a support to meditation. Whether high up in the Berkshires pumping a lot of clean mountain air through one’s lungs in Dynamic Meditation, or simply having a quiet walk among the great redwoods of California – this tour proved meditating in nature is a powerful and transforming experience.

One of the most rewarding things about what I do is seeing the changes that happen in the participants over such a short space of time. Some have never heard about Osho before, some are new to meditation. Watching their faces, how they soften and begin to glow reflecting the miracle of self-discovery, always touches me and makes the long miles and all the work worth the effort.

And just as the participants dive deep into their inner world, so do we the musicians. The energy on a Bravo weekend typically moves in circles: sometimes with the musicians giving and the participants receiving, sometimes with the participants giving and the musicians receiving. Often the line separating meditators and musicians blurs, even disappears, and a tremendous melting happens, invariably followed by the deepest, most relaxing silence one can imagine. No Bravo event ends on a somber note: The shouts of Osho! Osho! Osho! linger long after all goodbyes are said.

This year we meditated a lot as a band. Dynamic Meditation helped keep the relating within the group clean and fresh. Living so intensely on the road together, traveling such long distances in a confined space – let’s just say touring in a band can be a real mirror! This year was no exception. The band was one of the most juicy, ongoing, existential groups anyone could wish for.

And a lot of fun. For instance, we visited some amazing places like Yosemite National Park where we celebrated Sureel, our drummer’s birthday while listening to every little sound in the night thinking it might be a hungry bear. Another occasion, we spent a night in Las Vegas and enjoyed a great Italian dinner in Caesar’s Palace.

The Florida event happened in a place called Spirit Springs, a tropical paradise with three freshwater springs on the property all interconnected by underground caves. One could swim through one and out another. What a delight it was to jump in those cold springs after working up a sweat in Nataraj!

Inspired by the U.S. Open, which was happening simultaneously to the tour, we had our own ongoing tennis tournament on the road. The wine always flowed when someone took a set off me (yes, it does happen sometimes). Even Yoko, Vatayana, and Shanta got into the swing of things!

Then there was the long, night drive through the desert on our way to Cleveland from Sedona, when a spaced-out driver came speeding down the wrong lane of the freeway directly at us! It’s an easy thing to do on those endless stretches of desert highway, especially at night when one is tired. People will exit off the road to get gas and take the wrong ramp getting back on. The truckers call them ghostriders. I just managed to get out of the way in the car I was driving but Mohan, who was following in the second car, had to swerve off the road to avoid a head-on collision. I followed the whole scenario in my rear-view mirror as he struggled to control his car and get back onto the highway. Yoko and I pulled off and waited until a pale Mohan and the others caught up. We all had a good laugh, thanked our lucky stars, opened some bottles of Starbuck’s coffee and a bag of Lay’s Classic chips, and were off again for we had many more miles to go that night before we’d finally sleep.

All the organizers did a wonderful job handling the risks and responsibilities of the events. Their care and loving efforts made it possible for so many people to come together in meditation and celebration. A big ‘thank you’ to all! What more to say? For me, Bravo America is about connecting with oneself and others through Osho’s meditations and music. Not a bad way to spend a weekend, wouldn’t you say?

Yosemite National Park: (l to r)Amlas, Mohan, Milarepa, Yoko, Sureel