Vineeto ~ Selected Writings

Apart from having a good time with other sannyasins living together in communes I was eager to pursue my dream of a life without misery – which enlightenment was supposed to bring. Over the years I realised that to achieve this dream I had given up career, a possible marriage and children, a place to settle as well as financial security – in short, everything my parents and society had expected me to accomplish. Also, like most others, I had little contact with non-sannyasins. Not that it was a problem at the time, but it left me dependant on living with other like-minded people to feel secure, strengthen the belief and keep away the doubt.

This I only experienced fully three years after Rajneesh died when I left the commune to live in Australia, outside the familiarity and security of the ashram – ‘in the real world’. Although I was desperately looking for friends in this new country I nevertheless restricted my close relationships to similarly devoted Rajneeshees. I was, in fact, quite suspicious and afraid of people who were ‘non-believers’. The path to the promised ultimate freedom, to enlightenment, seemed to be becoming narrower and narrower, away from being at ease in the world, from happiness and the physical delights of life. Something didn’t match with how I had imagined my life to be – a life of freedom I had sought on leaving home, all those years ago.

Throughout all these stages in my life, although I was looking for freedom, I always found limitations in the offered solutions. However I could not, nor did I want to, settle for any compromise, for something that did not show success – for anything less than an actual and permanent freedom.

So when finally I came across Richard and found a simple, straightforward method to actually get rid of emotions, instincts, the ‘self’ as well as the illusion of the very big ‘Self’, I was really interested! Here was someone who stated that there was more freedom possible than even enlightenment offered! Having come this far, having explored so many other approaches in my life and moved on when I saw that they failed, I did not want to turn away from this opportunity.

More freedom than enlightenment? Yes! More freedom than believing somebody else’s experience and trusting His method of meditation, despite seventeen years of no reliable results? Yes! A practical simple method, and the tangible lasting success that I was increasingly experiencing living with Peter in a way that far exceeded any relationship in the past? Yes!

After I had seen through the fairy-tale of God and the subsequent power of the authority figures I was finally able to question my relationship with the Master. When Peter and I first met I was firmly rooted in the search for enlightenment, was part of the local community of Sannyasins, and in love with Rajneesh. For months this subject was taboo between us and we agreed ‘not to talk about the war’! At the time there were still lots of other interesting issues to explore but the joy and obvious success of examining and eliminating them finally gave me the courage to investigate this stronghold of my last seventeen years. I decided to find out what could lie behind my love, loyalty and devotion for the Master, and what were the evident results and facts of my search for enlightenment.

I had already dismissed the idea that love was a necessary and basic ingredient for a happy relationship with a man – quite the contrary was the case! Now I started to question the idea of higher love and compassion – whether they were values that still had any significance for me on my way to freedom. Given that I had seen through the belief in the ultimate authority of God I could now more easily explore the nature of the bonds with the Master and face the fears which came along with dismantling my relationship with Him – he who claimed to represent the ‘Absolute Truth’ in the spiritual world. I now set out to compare his promised ultimate goal of enlightenment with my already experienced delightful glimpses of freedom.

My only knowledge about enlightenment had consisted either of what I had heard and read from the Master or of the borrowed bliss or ‘energy’ that I felt when sitting devotionally at His feet. He had been ‘big daddy’ for me, he knew what was right and wrong, he told me what to do with my life, where to search and what to find! But then ‘big daddy’ had died and I had not found any tangible evidence of my being closer to enlightenment despite a lot of intent and effort. Also, there existed no consistent pathway or map, which could establish my position relative to the goal.

Finally, a minor car-accident shocked my spinning mind to a halt. It was followed by a peak-experience on the same evening that shed some light on my dilemma. Having smoked some marijuana I wandered off into the vast spaces of my imagination, exploring the ‘psychic world’, as I tried to make sense of the diametrically opposed options that had presented themselves in my life.

I seemed to perceive my questions in a wider context and had intense sensations about pains and processes in different parts of my body. Watching the people around me I had a deeper understanding of their behaviour and how they related to each other. I could even see the ‘energy-lines’ between the people relating to each other. Each presented a protective shield of a particular personal image, and this ‘image’ would act and operate, relating to the others while the actual, fearful and aggressive person remained hidden. At the same time that I was watching this I was distinctly aware of my thinking and my journeying in this magical ‘inner’ world.

At one stage I even experienced what it is to be mad. I understood the temptation of staying forever in an easy, illusory world of psychedelic wonders, where the mad person is the magician in his own world enjoying the power and safety of his dream. But anybody who dares to question this dream has to be considered a deadly enemy. However, I was always aware that I had the choice to stay in this imaginary world or not.

When I tried to tell Peter about my experiences and insights his simple response gave me quite a shock. ‘But all this is just inside your mind, it is simply your own interpretation, it may appear to be real, but it is not actual.’ Yes, that was true. I could easily see that I was inside the ‘mind’, roaming about in the different chambers of my assembled beliefs-systems, trying to find the one that was ‘right’ and ‘true’ – while in fact, I was just having a little grander and unusually complex perception of this huge labyrinth of thoughts and feelings! I could see more of my ideas or concepts and other people’s ideas, but they were simply ideas. None of them had any relevance to the actuality of the physical world!

At that time I was reading a book about J. Krishnamurti written by the daughter of his life-long mistress who described, vividly and sincerely, how she had experienced him and his life behind the public facade. She wrote about how he was in everyday life, how he related to other people and to those he called his closest friends. I was shocked and appalled to find that he was as jealous, malicious, vindictive and treacherous as one can be! The idea that an Enlightened person was without flaw turned into a myth. J. Krishnamurti was moody, insecure and even power-hungry, glorified by the power of Enlightenment and his teachings, who could not live up to the image he created!

So slowly and hesitantly I started to investigate my own religious beliefs. Surprisingly, after taking away the love and loyalty I had felt for Rajneesh I did not find much left of his great myth and wisdom. When I listened to his discourses without the infatuation of love I discovered the underlying power structure. I saw him weaving his net in the ‘psychic world’ – he had called himself the Master of Masters – and I saw the whole construct from the outside. I had wanted to belong to the best master and best group of all, hoping to change the face of the earth along with my life. I had wanted to be loved and to be free of misery, and for that I had been willing to pay with devotion, loyalty and undoubting trust – anything but be on my own in the world. In throwing this last authority overboard, I am now on my own – free of the need to rely on or believe in anything.

Later on that night I went into an exploration of what enlightenment feels from the inside. In all my year of spiritual search I had been vitally interested of what exactly this enlightenment is that I found so desirable at first. I had investigated descriptions from the different ‘holy’ men and spiritual Scriptures, but could never quite grasp this mysterious ‘state of being’. Now it was obvious. The intense pulsing of the heart, the love and compassion for each and everyone, benevolence and concern mixed with the grandeur of ‘Divine Love’ or ‘Universal Love’. It is a very seductive state with this cozy warm sensation filling the whole chest- or heart-area continuously and an utter at-ease-ness, because every aspect of personal concern, ego or identity is non-existent. And there is no doubt, whatsoever. No doubt about any theory or philosophy running in my head as I try and make sense of this new state. In this cock-sure security I could write Scriptures, poems, treatises on each and every spiritual subject, make up an illusory world of heavens, hells and Divine Laws and methods how to get there. As long as I keep the ‘Love’ flowing, there is no fear involved either. I am convinced I found the Truth – if only there wasn’t this nagging concern that maybe I am cheating myself!

I recognize a satisfaction and pride of finally standing equal as a woman besides all those superior men I have aspired to emulate, copy, obey, surrender to or at least understand. Now I know exactly where they are at. Big deal! Seeing the Power and Glory in action and its impact on me I turn away. This is not the perfection I am searching for, this is not the purity that I know from peak-experiences.

This realization truly ripped the carpet from under my feet. While it crumbled I recognized the enormity of its implications. My certainty vanished while I still tried to maintain philosophising about freedom and death. What to do now? Where to go from here? The ground I was standing on as an identity shook considerably but didn’t disappear entirely. I was still trying to make sense of me and life.

And then I reached the door marked ‘insane’ that Richard had been talking about. Fear reached another crescendo and turned into stark terror. Frantically I try to at least keep up the reporting, the cognitive exploring entity. But I realise that if I want to go through that door, the ‘pioneer’, the ‘scientist’ and the ‘reporter’ will have to stay behind.

As I wake up after a few hours of sleep I am desolate. Frustrated and desperate that the ‘self’ is still in operation and control, that I am not able to reach my goal, I have to admit that I have failed. I had done everything I could think of, feel about and imagine of – nothing had ultimately worked. All my efforts, all my so highly valued explorations and findings have not been able to set me free. No hope, no will, no passionate intent. I am lost empty-handed in no-where-land.

I said to Peter: ‘Forget about everything that I was so cock-sure about yesterday. I have no idea of anything.’

Peter: ‘So, you got out of your enlightenment-stuff then? Congratulations!’

So I activated all my willpower to manoeuvre myself back into the physical world of the senses, where neither dread nor enlightenment exist – and I eventually succeeded. The experience left me shaking for another day, and I am glad to know that the door marked ‘dread’ is as much a delusion as the door marked ‘enlightenment’. Quite a Rocky Horror Picture Show, just more real – and yet, all happening inside one’s own head!

We found a book by Bernadette Roberts, a Christian mystic, called ‘What is Self?’ where she talks about no-ego and the no-self, only to describe that after enlightenment she gets even further lost into the fantasy of being one with Christ. And recently, when somebody asked me about Akashic Records, I experienced that bliss-state for about an hour, the state Mrs. Roberts seems to describe in her book. I finally got a grip on it – I could experience it and describe from the ‘outside’ what was happening. This blissful state seems unemotional, no love or compassion is felt in the heart, everything is a cool ‘oneness’. One feels all-pervading, ‘I am everything and everything is me and everything is divine’.

The experience can easily be mistaken as intimacy because the sense of ‘me’ is so expanded across the universe and spread so thin, so to speak, that ‘me’ is hardly noticeable. As ‘I am every thing’, one is of course ‘feeling’ intimate with the TV set or is able to intuit into someone else’s, in this case Mrs. Roberts, religious imaginations. (I had read Bernadette Roberts, a Christian Mystic’s book, ‘What is Self?’ prior to this experience). Fascinating and seductive and very eerie. I think this could be a bit like the parallel universe scientists fantasize about. One then lives in a universe where everything is a virtual replica of the actual, with the glow of divinity, unity and timeless-ness to it – and as it is virtual, it is controlled by the imagination of the one who makes it up. This ‘parallel’ universe ‘feels’ and is ‘imagined’ as intimate or not-separate, and yet it is twice removed from the physical body, the senses, this actual world. This ‘insanity’ of ‘feeling one with everything’ is the barrier that prevents one from experiencing the world as a flesh and blood body, with the senses. Boy, I really understand why these guys are so far out there, lost and locked in an imaginary space that has almost no return-ticket.

But then, you only have to pinch yourself and where it hurts, that’s actual.

It is good not to be trapped by this complete insanity. It is the same type of disassociation that people suffer from that are in an insane asylum. The film ‘Awakening’ depicted some of those people. There was one woman who could not walk to the window because the checker pattern on the floor was interrupted by a black line until the doctor painted the black line into checkers. In her ‘world’ the black line was dangerous. The religious insanity is being locked into another type of fantasy-world, where one isn’t really the body and one’s True Self will be free only after death – it is an altered state of consciousness, forever cut off from common sense.

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