The Road East to India

by Devika A. Rosamund

  Wednesday, 11th August 1976

  Here I am lying on a hospital bed recovering from hepatitis! The name of the hospital is Jehangir Nursing Home. What a climax to my travels!

  The last thing I remember is coming to this hospital for tests for dysentery with my friend, Veetrag, from the house. She has been such a good friend to me. I felt so ill that I begged the nurses to let me stay in the hospital so that I could get away from the damp house. However, they refused. Then when we came for the results of the tests a few days later, I collapsed and fainted at the reception desk so I was taken in after all. I cannot remember anything after that.

  They tell me I was unconscious for three days, but apparently I was delirious and moving about and getting out of bed. I have no memory of it at all. They tell me I was a very difficult patient and apparently I locked myself in the bathroom and refused to come out, I shouted and screamed and spat all my pills out.

  I must have been having a real catharsis in my unconscious state. The only inkling I have of it is that when I woke up on the third afternoon, I heard myself screaming at the top of my voice because I was being injected. I was being fed with an intravenous drip which I was trying desperately to pull out! I was very startled and embarrassed to hear my own voice screaming. I never would dare to do anything like that in my conscious state. I stopped myself immediately but I had no idea where I was at first!

  Two of my River House friends and a nurse were standing by my bed. Everybody was smiling because I had woken up – nobody was angry at me for screaming or for trying to pull the drip out. The doctor told me that they thought I was going to die because I was so seriously ill with dysentery and hepatitis.

  I looked up and saw that my friends had placed a picture of Osho over my bed. It was very comforting to look up and see it here. A deep peace came over me and is still with me. In the night I dreamt that one of my friends from the ashram was sitting at my bedside.

  Since the day I woke up, I have been seeing rainbow colours like auras around everything. Everything looks so beautiful and the world looks magical and new. I feel so happy and joyful to be alive.

  I know now that I nearly died. If this is what death is like, as blissful as this, I am not afraid of it at all. Perhaps I really died and have come back to life again!

  Something wonderful happened on the afternoon that I woke up when I was alone. Suddenly I heard a voice outside of me speaking close up near my cheek. Very clearly and out loud I heard the voice say: ‘I am with you.’

  I have no idea where the voice came from. Now I know that miracles are possible in this universe. How it happened I don’t know, but I am so grateful.

  The doctor told me that a telegram was sent to my parents saying that I was dying! Of course, I have sent another one now to say that I am all right. They must have been horrified!

  Friday, 13th August 1976

  The ashram doctor has brought me a gift from Osho – it is a beautiful little wooden box like a treasure chest with two of his hairs and his finger nails inside. He has sent me the message to place the box on my forehead when I am meditating.

  I have had so many visitors from the ashram and Veetrag has been wonderful – she slept on the floor by my bed every night in the hospital when they thought I was dying, and now she visits me every day and brings fruit and runs errands for me. Many Indians sleep on the floor by their relatives in hospital here. I like the food in the hospital – it is very simple – mostly boiled vegetables and rice and dal (lentils) without spice. I am not allowed to have butter or cheese. The nurses are so gentle and kind. There are only a few beds in the ward – not many. I sometimes talk to the other patients, all Indian women.

  I have lost so much weight that my legs are very thin and it has been difficult for me to walk to the bathroom. However, they are getting stronger now. I don’t know how I managed it in my delirious state!

  Saturday 14th August 1976

  A funny incident happened a couple of days after I woke up from my unconscious state. A group of local Indian people from a nearby Christian church came and stood around my bed and started singing hymns. I asked them what it was about and the man who had brought them to visit another patient, replied, “You must turn back to Jesus. I saw the devil and all his angels standing around your bed.”

  It reminded me of a time when I was at college in Bristol and a woman from the Christian Union there told me they were praying for me because I had said I believed in other religions besides Christianity. They told me I was on my way to hell!

  I started to laugh because I feel now as though I am in Heaven. What this man was saying is a lot of rubbish. However, I feel so happy that I cannot be angry about anything. To placate him I replied: “I have not turned away from Jesus. Osho is the same to me. I love both.” I pointed to his picture over the bed.

  The man seemed content with that reply. I suppose he became afraid when he saw me in my delirious state having my ‘catharsis’. I feel so blissful and peaceful now and it must be because it released a lot of repressed emotions in me. I was not inhibited in any way because I was unconscious. Hepatitis has really seemed to trigger a very deep therapeutic inner process for me.

  I am sitting up in bed drawing and colouring pictures in a book given to me by my friends. This is like a meditation for me, and the pictures look beautiful to me because of the rainbow colours I am seeing around everything! I feel very blissful, as though I have been through death and out the other side again, and touched the heights of Heaven in the process. Perhaps I had a ‘near death experience’ as they call it, but I can’t really remember it. I have written and illustrated a poem about life and death being the same thing. It begins: ‘Life and Death, you showed yourself to me; the same sweet lady with the beauteous face’.

  I feel so much tranquillity. I am going to return to England to recover properly, because my body is still very weak, and also because my money is finished. I will go to college in the town of Bath and finish the last year of my degree course with Bristol University. The money I have brought here has all been spent on hospital bills, and I will have to be repatriated from India. I have contacted the British Consulate and they will lend me the money for the flight. I can pay back the money later.

  Wednesday, 25th August 1976

  I have so much to write about! I am now on the plane going back to England. Here I am sitting on the seat in my long cotton orange Tibetan robe that I made, still feeling weak from hepatitis but well enough to travel. I wonder if my attire looks strange to the other passengers! I know that my parents are meeting me at the other end.

  I will continue the story from where I left off:

  I stayed in the hospital for nearly three weeks altogether and somebody from the British Consulate visited me and arranged my flight home. I did not have quite enough money to pay for the hospital bill and even though the British Consulate had agreed to lend me the money, it did not arrive before I left, so my friend lent me the extra money I needed which I will pay back when I get home.

  On the morning of the flight, I got out of the hospital bed early because I wanted to go to the morning discourse in the ashram for the last time, but the nurse came and told me I could not leave until the doctor signed me out. They had originally told me he would be there early, so I was all ready to leave but I was then informed that he was not coming until nine o’clock, too late for the discourse, so she said I couldn’t go. This was unbearable for me, so I waited until she had left the room and then made a dash for it. I wanted so much to go to the discourse and hear Osho speak one more time before I left!

  My legs were so weak that I could hardly walk but I managed to get up the road and hail a rickshaw. The nurse caught up with me and tried to stop me. I begged her to let me go, and promised I would return after the discourse to have the doctor sign me out. Finally she agreed.

  The other nurse on duty commented, “I mus
t go and see this man!”

  I got to the discourse in time. I felt so much at peace with myself and with the world – so happy to be alive. I walked slowly up the little winding path through the garden to Chuang Tzu Auditorium in the early morning sun with such a quiet mind, gazing at the lovely plants growing all around me. The world looked so green and fresh and so beautiful in the monsoon light.

  It seemed so long since I had been out in the world (since before my illness) and everything seemed extra heavenly as though there was a white light in the air which hung around us and over us from a different realm. The plants looked to me as though they were pointing towards the heavens in an act of worship. I cried throughout the whole discourse as I listened to Osho speak about Gautum the Buddha and his teachings on non-attachment.

  Before I left Pune in the evening for the night flight, I was allowed to have a ‘Leaving Speaking Darshan’ with Osho. I sat in front of him in Chuang Tzu Auditorium and apologised for not being able to cross my legs as they were still too weak.

  He asked me if I had received the small box that he sent in to me as a gift, and I said, “Yes.”

  I told him, “I feel so blissful,” and he replied, “That is because you have been very close to death.”

  I realised then that he knew how ill I was. I told him about the ‘voice’ I heard in the hospital, and lastly I told him that I am going back to England. Seeing how weak I am, he replied, “It is good.”

  At the end, he asked me, “When are you coming back?” and I answered that I am not sure. Then he said, “You will come back.”

  I know I am weak and that I need to go back to gain strength, but I also know with my whole heart that I will come back to India again. There is no doubt about that!

  Veetrag and another friend came with me on the train to see me off on the plane at Mumbai* Airport. I was so weak that I could hardly carry my bag, even though it is very light. When we arrived at the airport, we were told that the plane was going to be delayed for a whole day! The airline put me up in a hotel for the night. It was a luxury hotel with a revolving restaurant at the top and was near to Mumbai beach! I have never stayed in such a luxurious hotel before!

  My friends were allowed to stay with me in the room overnight and they shared my food. I ordered extra toast for us for breakfast, and coffee mid-morning. We had a lot of fun. In the morning we went for a walk on the beach and happened to pass though the foyer of the hotel next door and were spotted by an Indian film company making a film in that hotel. We were invited to be in the film! We happily agreed as we were told we would be paid for it. Our role in the film was very easy. We had to sit at the back of the restaurant at a table and drink milk-shakes while an Indian actress was singing! My friend had his wallet stolen on the train so the payment for this helped him. I also sold my sleeping bag in a shop in order to get some money back for him.

  Finally this afternoon I boarded the plane, and am now on my way home!

  Tuesday, 31st August 1976

  I arrived in London wearing a thin orange robe and sandals because I did not have any warmer clothes. My parents were there to meet me and were shocked to see how I was dressed, but it was so wonderful to see them. I burst into tears, but it was through happiness!

  How can I describe how I feel now after this wonderful trip, the end of something which feels like only a beginning? How can I describe in ordinary words, my feelings, my experiences of those months that I spent wandering, travelling and exploring? I would like to do this my whole life.

  There are no words for it, no words to describe such an adventure – the journey of a lifetime. I felt at the end that if I had been fated to die as a payment for the trip and what I had gained, then it would have been worth it.

  India has drawn me like a magnet since the age of eleven. I had always thought, ‘Perhaps the magnet is drawing me towards my death’ but I had to take the risk. I didn’t care about the risk.

  I felt safe when I was travelling – not because I believed that the Divine was protecting me. Why should I be protected rather than other people?! But because I felt that I could accept whatever happened to me; that whatever happened would be surely right, would be my destiny – the will of the Whole. I had trust in that, and I felt, ‘what could I lose except my life, after all’? I very nearly did lose my life at the end of the trip when I got ill. Adventure always includes danger and risk.

  To wander the Earth and go into the unknown is the greatest adventure of all, as hopefully it teaches us wisdom and understanding – for not only do you learn about this beautiful, magical, miraculous world and everything in it, embracing all, but also such an experience, especially that of travelling to India, takes you to the depths of your own being, to your innermost centre. It is both an outer journey and an inner journey. The inner journey takes one into meditation, into one’s own soul. In India I have found my soul.

  Notes

  *Note: When this diary was written in 1976, Osho was then called Bhagwan by his disciples. This means in Sanskrit, ‘one who has attained to God’. In the earlier years, while he was travelling all over India teaching, people had called him Acharya – which means ‘spiritual teacher’ and soon they started calling him Bhagwan.

  In 1989 in Pune, he said he had become tired of being referred to as Bhagwan. He did not want to be called this anymore. The name Osho was mentioned to him and he liked it. This name Osho sounds like ‘oceanic’. It originally comes from Japan and is sometimes used in the Buddhist tradition by disciples as an address for their enlightened Masters. He said he would like to be referred to by this name in future.

  The books of Osho’s discourses now published, bear the name Osho. When I originally wrote this travel diary, I used the name Bhagwan to refer to him, as people did at that time, but since he has asked in future to be referred to as Osho, I have changed the name in my diary to Osho.

  Osho’s birth name was Rajneesh Chandra Mohan and he was born to a Jaina family in a village in central India. He graduated from the University of Jabulpur with a first class honours degree in Philosophy, and worked as a professor of philosophy at several universities in India.

  He became enlightened at the age of twenty-one in 1953 and travelled all over India conducting meditation camps and giving talks to thousands of people. Finally in 1974, he settled in Pune, two years before I visited his ashram.

  In 1989, before he left his body, Osho suggested that his ashram in Pune be renamed: ‘Osho International Meditation Resort.’ It is a place where people from all over the world can come and meditate.

  *Note: The town of Pune was called Poona and the city of Mumbai was called Bombay at the time of writing this diary. I have updated the original spellings.

  Acknowledgements

  With thanks to Veena Schlegel and Savita Brandt for their useful suggestions and help with editing. Also I want to say thank you to them for their own wonderful books.