I left McLeod Ganj on a 12hour bus ride, twisting and
turning, jerking and twerking, down the Himalayas as if I was stuck on Big
Thunder Mountain in Disneyland with Miley Cyrus for an entire day. It was that
bad! I had severe motion sickness most of the time as I curled up in the fetal
position with my OM scarf tied over my eyes and mantra music playing in my
ears, hoping I wouldn’t reach the stage of vomit. And as if the motion sickness
wasn’t enough, we can’t forget about the maniacal use of horns in India. This
bus had the most asinine horn I have ever heard in my life and I’m pretty sure
it was louder on the inside than out. Basically, every time I almost drifted
out of my misery this horn, that was fit way more for a traveling circus of
clowns, would blare its ridiculous carnival-like jingle causing me to jump up
in disarray thinking I’ve won some sort oversized stuffed teddy bear. But no,
I’ml just on a bus in India.
I was heading to Delhi in the middle of the night to wait in the airport
for 5 more hours before catching a flight to Pune. I had been nervous about
making this journey by myself for a couple days leading up to it. However, once
again I was shown complete protection and safety by God. There were about 50-60
people on this bus and I just happened to sit across from this lovely Brazilian
girl, named Maria, who also just happened to be going to the exact same location
as I was and was even on my flight!! I mean, what are the chances?? In all of
India, here we sit two solo female travelers, from different parts of the world,
divinely connected and just like that I am no longer alone. It’s amazing how
the two of us immediately shifted into the friend role with each other. You
would have thought we’d known each other for years and it felt like it too.
Instant radical trust. We were now a team on this adventure that took an entire
24hours to complete.
Our destination was the Osho Ashram, well more like, The
Osho Institute for Higher Meditation. Osho is a very famous Guru who passed in
the 90’s but has left quite an imprint on society. He’s known as the “spiritually
incorrect” Guru. He allows drinking and smoking in his ashram! He also teaches
different, far out techniques to meditation and believes the mind can’t really
be silent until you release it first- get the energy out. Go mad. Then sit
still. Be and see the presence as the observer instead of the doer. He also has
a lot of controversy over being labeled the “sex guru” and before you’re even
allowed into the Institute you have to take and HIV test. Yes, I thought that
was super weird and was resistant to it at first but I’m here for the
experience, right? This place was on my agenda because Jillian’s boyfriend
spent 7 years here- it’s like his Golden Temple and I was meeting them. Now, I don’t know what went on in the
70’s, but I can assure you nothing sexually weird happened while I was there for
the 7 days.
This place was certainly not some barebones ashram either.
Instead it’s a state-of–the-art, technologically advanced, ecologically
renowned sanctuary/ resort center. Seriously, like a slice of heaven on earth
cut right out of India. Of course the place was about 90% Westerners. In fact,
when I was there we had people from 100 different countries visiting. At any
given time there are anywhere from 500-5,000 people at this Institute and it’s
expensive. Upon arrival, Maria met
up with a Buddhist, Japanese Brazilian woman named Michele. She too was
traveling India alone and the two of them were connected through a mutual
friend but have never actually met. They went off to their expensive,
pre-arranged hotel and I caught a tuk-tuk to take me to this place called
“Popular Heights” that was supposed to be a cheap but decent place outside of
the Osho Ashram. Definitely not so popular.
And I should have known better when it had the word heights in the name. I arrive and it looks like a low-income
housing unit you’d see in the seedy areas of the US. Thank God it was 3pm in
the afternoon, giving me 3 hours of sunlight to find a new place ASAP! The guy
was really nice about it and understood I was clearly not going to stay there.
He let me store my massive bag with him and I just started walking up and down
the street looking for an Internet café to get on Lonely Planet. Jillian is
nowhere to be found and I can’t rely on her to help me find a place. At this
point, our trips are very much separate ones now. I have no idea where anything
is in relation to the Osho Ashram on Lonely Planet and I’m a little frazzled. I
don’t even know where the ashram is at this point. But once again, I am always
safe. The owner of the internet café picks up on the alarmed look I wear on my
face and tells me there’s a great hotel literally around the corner and we’re
only 4 blocks from Osho. He walks me over to the Surya Hotel and it’s perfect! It’s
another westerner’s haven with this popular restaurant known as the Yogi Tree
attached to it. I bargain with the guy and get my usual $17 a night rate and he
sends a boy to get my luggage for me. Now I’m ready for this Osho business.
After the HIV test you are then taken to the red robe store.
Everyone on campus is only allowed to wear maroon robes so we're all on the
same vibration. And when I say robe, I mean like those long dresses/kurtas they
wear in the Matrix, not a bathrobe. Yep, hundreds of people in matching floor length maroon
dresses walking around, high on meditation… and you thought the white rat was
bizarre. Ha. We had a half-day orientation all newcomers are required to go to
and I have to say it’s quite surreal. There’s about 20 people in our group from
Russia, Brazil, Germany, the Netherlands, England, Japan, India, and
Australia. They take us to this
room where we learn Osho’s wild techniques for the major meditations, which
consist of oooh… speaking in gibberish, screaming, shaking, twirling, jumping, and
dancing. It’s like Kundalini Yoga on crack and Kundalini’s already quite
cracky! They had music from every country in the world and we all got in a big
circle as they played what would be considered popular songs for the country
each person was from. They had to then lead everyone else in showing us how
they dance in that country. It was great! Hilariously enough they played Madonna's
“Like a Virgin” for the US. The
coolest part was at the end when we went around the room and shared our different
ways of greeting one another that is custom to our country. It was so
interesting to watch from the Australian’s one hand up- G’day mate to the Japanese bow to the Russian’s giant hug and
triple kiss to the German's strict arm fully extended, hearty handshake to the
Indian’s hands at heart, namaste. Cultures are so different yet here we all are,
in one room together, bonding through the vehicles of English and dance. This is a
place where humans can come and allow their conditions to melt, bringing us
back to our child-like nature, which is a lot of what all spirituality is truly
about. Letting go and in letting go you get to truly feel and see our oneness.
No matter where we’re from we all desire the same things and those are love and
happiness. As we all danced our last orientation dance we naturally made a
train around the room… All countries effortlessly linking up with our smiles acting
as the chain that allow us to remain connected on this path we all share, and I
knew in that moment this Osho business was gonna be one extreme ride.
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