The Adventures of Bindi Girl: (2012) by Erin Reese Read Free Book Online Page B

environs of the beach paradise I’d just left. By simply observing goings-on while sitting in the cafe outside the Osho Commune International, I got the sense that this enormous ashram was Big Business at its finest and most clever. Unexpectedly, I was hit with a massive dose of culture shock: I felt as if I had been prematurely ripped away from the India I have come to adore. Everything at the ashram was so orderly, so costly, and so clean to boot. Where were my cows? My cheap thali plates of rice and dal lentils? I felt as if someone had catapulted me back to the West without warning—Western prices, clothing, rules and regulations, and a palpable, lingering thirst for a different sort of distraction hung in the air, Euro-American style—here at Club Med-itation.
    Still, I’d come all this way and as I don’t back down easily, I figured I’d go full gangbusters and see what it was all about. I paid an exorbitant amount (the equivalent of what I could live off in “local” India for one week) just for entry into the resort-cum-ashram on the initial “Welcome Day.” This “welcoming” included mandatory passport photos for I.D., mandatory HIV test (to be renewed every three months), an orientation “sampler plate” of meditations, and a tour for “Osho newbies.” That would be me.
    But before the orientation began, I had to buy the famous robes: two maroon robes for day wear, one white for the special “meeting” in the evening. Luckily, my budget traveler’s nose sniffed out an opportunistic little Indian man who had set up a cottage industry selling second-hand robes, squatting in a corner of my apartment complex. I scored three robes for a total of one hundred rupees instead of shelling out five hundred rupees each at the snazzy “Galleria” shop located inside the ashram grounds.
    The next day, however, I didn’t get off so cheap. I had to purchase a mandatory maroon bikini in order to use the swimming pool and the official ashram shop was probably the only place in the entire nation that would sell such a thing.
    Now properly outfitted with robes and bikini, I’d do my best to fully immerse myself into the experience. While keeping one eye on my sanity and inner compass, I endeavored to keep a beginner’s mind—an open mind—and an open heart. The thousands of devotees (the most by far were Germans mixed with smatterings of other northern Europeans) were so sincere. Serious sannyasins have dropped their given names in place of an Osho-blessed name of Sanskrit origin, such as “Shakti,” “Ananda,” or “Prema.” My question was, now that Osho is gone, who chooses the names? Half-jokingly, I thought to myself, they’re probably randomly generated by computer.
    I felt alone and estranged, pressured from the inside and out when I tried to get to know some of the devotees or expressed my concerns, doubts or criticisms. Often they just seemed to look at me, or through me, as if I just hadn’t “got it” yet, whatever “it” was. A few sannyasins explained from their vast wisdom that I needed to stick around for a few weeks—or months —so that my energies could synchronize with the energy of Osho and the ashram. Okay…I’ll do my best.
    Wearing maroon robe at all times, I participated in several different “active meditation” sessions over the course of the week—all techniques approved by Osho before he died, including Sufi (dervish-whirling), Kundalini, Nataraja (Shiva’s dance), a variation of Vipassana, and Dynamic Meditation to start the day.
    In case you thought meditation was about staying still and keeping quiet, you haven’t come across anything like “Dynamic Meditation.” Starting at six a.m. was one wild combo of: (1) intense nose-clearing pranayama -type breathing with mandatory handkerchief handy—great for eliminating Pune pollution; (2) jumping up and down with arms held high overhead, shouting “HOO HOO HOO HOO!” over and over and over again, enabling the