I have always been different or at least I have always felt different.
Already as a child I was the over sensitive one, the one that felt and sensed things that other people did not seem to notice.
So I suffered, I was the black sheep. It did not require courage to be different, there was simply no other choice at first.
But of course, I adjusted very fast. Also that seemed beyond choice if I wanted to survive. I became a good girl, suffered in silence and trotted on from one boarding school to the next and then on to being a nurse.
I lost faith in God and religion and by the age of 26 I had received so many blows that I also lost faith in life.
A stroke of luck ( as always it was a boyfriend) brought me to Macrobiotic food, yoga and oriental healing. I started to feel healthy and energetic, that was good, but I still wasn’t happy.
Another stroke of luck ( many of my customers in the macrobiotic shop started to show up in orange clothes) brought me to Osho.
Already as a child I was the over sensitive one, the one that felt and sensed things that other people did not seem to notice.
So I suffered, I was the black sheep. It did not require courage to be different, there was simply no other choice at first.
But of course, I adjusted very fast. Also that seemed beyond choice if I wanted to survive. I became a good girl, suffered in silence and trotted on from one boarding school to the next and then on to being a nurse.
I lost faith in God and religion and by the age of 26 I had received so many blows that I also lost faith in life.
A stroke of luck ( as always it was a boyfriend) brought me to Macrobiotic food, yoga and oriental healing. I started to feel healthy and energetic, that was good, but I still wasn’t happy.
Another stroke of luck ( many of my customers in the macrobiotic shop started to show up in orange clothes) brought me to Osho.
The first words of Osho I read where on someone’s toilet door:
Always move in the direction of your fear.
That was encouraging.
His first words to me when taking sannyas were:
"To be a sannyasin means to become a friend to yourself.
And now start looking for your intrinsic potential.
Don't be bothered about what others say you should be,
listen to your own inner voice and be it!"
All of a sudden it was as if I had been given permission to be myself again, to be the different me that I had always been.
The orange clothes made me very visibly different, all of a sudden there seemed to be no other choice than to be myself, even if no body else approved of it.
With Osho there, it was easy cause he always seemed to bring that approval that had been so lacking in my earlier life.
I left my old life, my partner, moved into a commune and even though I was learning to be myself, I noticed after some years that I was also a lot like everyone else. I somehow also fitted into this new sannyas mould where everyone was happy and celebrating everything.
Somehow after all, we were again all the same.
It was shocking and a bit boring to see how we all adapted the same values, like sheep in a flock.
A few years later, Osho spoke a series: The Rebellious Spirit and his words became like a fire , like a torch on my way.
I even created the Rebellious Spirit group which focused on having the courage to separate from your conditioning.
He said:
The Rebel is one who lives according to his own light, moves according to his own intelligence. He creates his path by walking on it. He does not follow the crowd on the super highway.
His life is dangerous, but a life that is not dangerous is not life at all.
He accepts the challenge of the unknown.
These words, how I loved them. That whole discourse, I almost knew it by heart.
Again and again they helped me to take steps that made me risk to lose the love and approval of everyone else. Slowly I understood what he had meant when I took sannyas. I started to get rooted in my own truth.
A big test came when I fell in love with a woman. Now here Osho did NOT but really not approve.
Now all his words were brought to the test.
What was I to do?
Follow my own inner light like he had been encouraging me to do or follow his words? The dilemma was huge.
Until that moment I had always followed him.
The situation shook me profoundly and it took weeks if not months for me to come to terms with myself.
One day I looked at him and a big smile appeared on my face. I knew I could always only follow myself. He had raised me to take this step.
If this was a mistake, I would correct it when needed. I had to find out for myself.
I was ready to take responsibility. What a freedom that created.
May be it does not sound like much but at the time it was huge. I was confronted with a whole ashram who did not approve.
It felt so much like being the black sheep again for some time. But like everywhere else, everyone is always far too busy with themselves to be concerned about me for too long and I guess everyone got used to me like that after a while.
Some years later I had a big opening, a break through and again I had to make the choice: Either to be ME, even if nobody liked it ( and many many did not like it) or to pretend.
I truly stood alone there and made some huge mistakes.
Taking full responsibility made me so free and so open.
Of course I corrected the mistakes when I discovered them.
There have been so many other moments in my life where I was confronted with this choice.
Recently I came across the famous words of Robert Frost, that I adored in my twenties and I smiled cause they had become so true:
Two roads diverged into a wood and I, I took the one less travelled by and that has made all the difference.
Osho times asked me a few questions:
What supports me to follow my own truth?
How do I distinguish what is my inner voice, what are old patterns, what do others expect and what do I want from others?
The discovery that responsibility creates freedom was one of the major discoveries on the journey. If I am not afraid to make a mistake, what is there to lose? May be my image, but I lost that so many times by now and I am still here! After all an image is really just what it says: An image and not the real thing.
What I already explained is that Osho was the first to confirm my individuality and that he was and is a huge support to be who I truly am. He awakened the fire for truth in me.
I recognize that fire to be true when I am present. Presence is a verticality in my system, which connects me to the whole and to the here and now. It connects the three main centres in the body: head, heart and belly. When all three are in resonance I know that what I experience is in alignment with who I am. I trust it.
In verticality there is always clarity.
Old patterns move in a horizontal plane. They come from the past and move into the future. When I am not present they run by themselves and I identify with them.
The old patterns are the make up of my personality. Their main focus is to survive and to be loved. They are not so much in favor of me standing out of the crowd. They like me to adjust , be nice and to please people around me. They have made me into a cameleon that can adjust to any situation very quickly. It is so easy to be fake from that perspective. In my mind authenticity is not helpful when it comes to survival. For survival you do what needs to be done to get by. True or not true.
So in a way it is very simple but sometimes the desire to be loved can be so intense that it is easier to adjust and adapt than to stand in my own light and in my own truth. These are vulnerable moments.
Not standing in my own truth brings fear then and moving into myself brings fear.
Words of a song of Miten come to me in those moments:
We’ve got the courage to be wrong and the strength of a rose.
Sometimes I make that right choice that is in full alignment with what I know is true and sometimes I don’t.
Sometimes fear takes the better part of me.
Accepting that makes me feel human, cause it makes me embrace my courage as well as my cowardice.
Ich bin so wie ich bin, und dass ist gut so.
That acceptance without failure, guides me back to presence which guides me back to that fire for truth, which brings me back to myself.
Sometimes sooner, sometimes later. But who is in a hurry?
Always move in the direction of your fear.
That was encouraging.
His first words to me when taking sannyas were:
"To be a sannyasin means to become a friend to yourself.
And now start looking for your intrinsic potential.
Don't be bothered about what others say you should be,
listen to your own inner voice and be it!"
All of a sudden it was as if I had been given permission to be myself again, to be the different me that I had always been.
The orange clothes made me very visibly different, all of a sudden there seemed to be no other choice than to be myself, even if no body else approved of it.
With Osho there, it was easy cause he always seemed to bring that approval that had been so lacking in my earlier life.
I left my old life, my partner, moved into a commune and even though I was learning to be myself, I noticed after some years that I was also a lot like everyone else. I somehow also fitted into this new sannyas mould where everyone was happy and celebrating everything.
Somehow after all, we were again all the same.
It was shocking and a bit boring to see how we all adapted the same values, like sheep in a flock.
A few years later, Osho spoke a series: The Rebellious Spirit and his words became like a fire , like a torch on my way.
I even created the Rebellious Spirit group which focused on having the courage to separate from your conditioning.
He said:
The Rebel is one who lives according to his own light, moves according to his own intelligence. He creates his path by walking on it. He does not follow the crowd on the super highway.
His life is dangerous, but a life that is not dangerous is not life at all.
He accepts the challenge of the unknown.
These words, how I loved them. That whole discourse, I almost knew it by heart.
Again and again they helped me to take steps that made me risk to lose the love and approval of everyone else. Slowly I understood what he had meant when I took sannyas. I started to get rooted in my own truth.
A big test came when I fell in love with a woman. Now here Osho did NOT but really not approve.
Now all his words were brought to the test.
What was I to do?
Follow my own inner light like he had been encouraging me to do or follow his words? The dilemma was huge.
Until that moment I had always followed him.
The situation shook me profoundly and it took weeks if not months for me to come to terms with myself.
One day I looked at him and a big smile appeared on my face. I knew I could always only follow myself. He had raised me to take this step.
If this was a mistake, I would correct it when needed. I had to find out for myself.
I was ready to take responsibility. What a freedom that created.
May be it does not sound like much but at the time it was huge. I was confronted with a whole ashram who did not approve.
It felt so much like being the black sheep again for some time. But like everywhere else, everyone is always far too busy with themselves to be concerned about me for too long and I guess everyone got used to me like that after a while.
Some years later I had a big opening, a break through and again I had to make the choice: Either to be ME, even if nobody liked it ( and many many did not like it) or to pretend.
I truly stood alone there and made some huge mistakes.
Taking full responsibility made me so free and so open.
Of course I corrected the mistakes when I discovered them.
There have been so many other moments in my life where I was confronted with this choice.
Recently I came across the famous words of Robert Frost, that I adored in my twenties and I smiled cause they had become so true:
Two roads diverged into a wood and I, I took the one less travelled by and that has made all the difference.
Osho times asked me a few questions:
What supports me to follow my own truth?
How do I distinguish what is my inner voice, what are old patterns, what do others expect and what do I want from others?
The discovery that responsibility creates freedom was one of the major discoveries on the journey. If I am not afraid to make a mistake, what is there to lose? May be my image, but I lost that so many times by now and I am still here! After all an image is really just what it says: An image and not the real thing.
What I already explained is that Osho was the first to confirm my individuality and that he was and is a huge support to be who I truly am. He awakened the fire for truth in me.
I recognize that fire to be true when I am present. Presence is a verticality in my system, which connects me to the whole and to the here and now. It connects the three main centres in the body: head, heart and belly. When all three are in resonance I know that what I experience is in alignment with who I am. I trust it.
In verticality there is always clarity.
Old patterns move in a horizontal plane. They come from the past and move into the future. When I am not present they run by themselves and I identify with them.
The old patterns are the make up of my personality. Their main focus is to survive and to be loved. They are not so much in favor of me standing out of the crowd. They like me to adjust , be nice and to please people around me. They have made me into a cameleon that can adjust to any situation very quickly. It is so easy to be fake from that perspective. In my mind authenticity is not helpful when it comes to survival. For survival you do what needs to be done to get by. True or not true.
So in a way it is very simple but sometimes the desire to be loved can be so intense that it is easier to adjust and adapt than to stand in my own light and in my own truth. These are vulnerable moments.
Not standing in my own truth brings fear then and moving into myself brings fear.
Words of a song of Miten come to me in those moments:
We’ve got the courage to be wrong and the strength of a rose.
Sometimes I make that right choice that is in full alignment with what I know is true and sometimes I don’t.
Sometimes fear takes the better part of me.
Accepting that makes me feel human, cause it makes me embrace my courage as well as my cowardice.
Ich bin so wie ich bin, und dass ist gut so.
That acceptance without failure, guides me back to presence which guides me back to that fire for truth, which brings me back to myself.
Sometimes sooner, sometimes later. But who is in a hurry?
