What Does it Mean

to keep Osho 24-karat gold?

by Ma Dhyan Amiyo

hat does it mean to keep Osho 24-karat gold? This question has been burning in my consciousness a lot lately – especially since I interviewed Inner Circle member Swami Satya Vedant on this subject. (Vedant Gold)

I’ve always hated authority. I’ve always believed in doing my own thing. It’s always pissed me off when people told me what to write, how to think, how to express myself. Now suddenly I find myself being accused of doing these things to other people. Hmmmmm. Interesting.

So what about it? What am I up to?

In coordinating an Osho centre and editing this magazine, I come up against these questions all the time: what about other masters? What about other traditions? Someone wants to mention a new master in this magazine. Someone else wants a self-proclaimed enlightened man from another tradition to give satsang in this house, the Osho Samaroha Meditation Centre.

What to do?

When someone wants to describe a new path in these pages, or sit with a new master in this house, my heart says, “no.” Or is it my heart? Can the heart ever say no? Isn’t it really my controlling mind wanting to repress a sincere investigation into the truth wherever it may lead? Am I acting out of a “religious mind”? I’ve been told that I am.

When questions like this come up, now that Osho is no longer in the body, I have to answer them for myself. I have to look inside as honestly as I can, own my own control trips (which are huge) as courageously as I can, and find my own wisdom. Now that Osho is no longer in the body I have to trust myself more than any other human being. And of course he tried to tell me that when he was here in human form.

In a direct written answer to one of my questions he once said, “To take sannyas and to be physically around the master is the first step but it is not all – it is only through meditation that life becomes meaningful.” Well, that’s pretty clear. Did I follow his guidance? No, I did not. Like a lot of other people (I suspect) I sat blissed out in his presence and didn’t do my homework with myself. That’s why it hit me so hard when he left the body.

I almost missed. (Of course I tell myself sometimes that I did miss – who am I kidding with this almost?) In September 1989 before a meeting of the newly instituted White Robe Brotherhood, Anando announced to us in Buddha Hall that Osho was very ill and had had several teeth removed the night before. “But he’s coming out tonight,” she said. “So don’t miss now.”

At her words a chill rose up my spine. My eyes filled with tears. Suddenly I knew what was happening. Osho was dying. This was it. He’d told us he would hang on to his body as long as he could for us – but he was getting tired. He was nearing the end of his time on earth. I remembered hearing him say that we needed to connect with him deeply before he left the body in order to maintain the connection after he left it. And somehow that night my tremendous resistance finally melted. When Osho came out on the podium, so frail and yet so unbelievably energetic and blazing with light, I finally let him in.

Which brings me back to this question of keeping his presence and his message 24-karat gold. How do we do it? Can we do it? Can I do it? I know I am not enlightened (unlike a number of other people who seem to be popping up all over the place), but I also know that I’ve tasted something very precious. As Osho says, “I can give you the taste, and then the taste will take care of you.” What does it mean to let the taste take care of me? I sense, for me, it means keeping the taste undiluted, unmixed with anything else.

Osho has said, “My interest is not only in this humanity, my interest is in humanity as such. Keep the message pure, 24-karat gold. And soon those people will be coming for whom you have made a temple.” The 24-karat gold metaphor is a significant one. 24-karat gold is just gold, pure gold – not mixed with anything else. When I look into this, all I can do is allow my heart to tell me what Osho is trying to say. And to me, it seems to mean just what it says: keep me pure, don’t mix me up with other elements.

I remember hearing him say that it’s better to travel with one master. If you don’t want to stay with him, fine; go somewhere else and be totally with that person. But don’t run around to a lot of masters at once. I remember hearing him say that traveling the path with one master is like drilling for water through one hole; you’ll never find water with a lot of shallow holes all over the field. (Discourse – Different Flavours)

Osho is my master and I am with him as totally as I know how to be. I am coordinating this center and editing this magazine in order to share an indescribable glimpse of the beyond. I was so afraid of Osho when he was in the body; I had so much rigidity and resistance and pain; it took so long for me to allow myself to finally feel him, that I want to do all I can now to preserve the taste I was finally privileged to receive. I want to preserve it for myself and (if I can) share it with others.

When Ramakanta invited me to attend her Osho energy school in Canada last year, I learned a lot about how this works. I learned a lot about how energy is leaked and how it is conserved. Essentially, Ramakanta said to all of us: We’re here to work with Osho energy. That’s the kind of energy we’re going to work with. If you want to work with other energies, that’s great, that’s beautiful; there’s nothing wrong with that at all. But what we’re all working with here is the energy of Osho. And if you can’t accept that, you can leave.

Wow. Part of me thought: What a power trip. Another part said: Hmmmmm. This is interesting. Let’s see what happens. And what happened was amazing. What happened was that I tasted Osho’s bodiless presence as deeply as I had been able to in Poona. What a blessing, what a gift: to feel this so deeply right here, in Canada where I live. So I learned to trust what I was able to taste in meditation rather than what my mind told me was going on. And what I learned from my taste of meditation in Ramakanta’s energy school was to keep Osho undiluted. So that’s what I’m trying to do.

That means keeping this house and this centre and this magazine for Osho. That means doing Osho meditations, watching Osho videos, having Osho celebrations. Osho is the great love affair of my life and I need to stay true to it – no matter what anyone thinks, including me.