Inner and Outer Reality

  Stop Sweeping that Weird Stuff under the Carpet  

Strange things happen to me sometimes. And to you too, I reckon.

Whenever I have an established practice of daily meditation - watching my breath for an hour every morning, let us say - I find that the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune give me less trouble than at other times. Scientific materialists would say that my meditative practice causes neurological changes to my brain, so that my mind perceives the external reality I encounter to be less upsetting; they would deny any possibility that the world is actually changed for the better.

Another example: in my youth I experimented with psychedelics, mostly LSD. The first few times it was about 45 minutes before the drug took effect, but then I experienced a remarkable change. Typically I would make a tentative plan, with a friend or two, to drop acid together on a particular day. But if the weather was poor, or some other difficulty intervened, then we would postpone our trip to a more opportune time. So there would be a first moment at which the decision to trip was confirmed, and I would find myself already tripping at that moment, before ingesting the drug. Again the scientific materialists have a ready explanation: I was simply deluded.

Of course, we can and should be sceptical about this weird stuff, but I find the rational accounts patently unconvincing when applied to my own experience. It seems that the subjective and objective realms can sometimes overlap and interpenetrate, especially if we dabble with meditation or psychedelics. This intriguing lead needs to be followed up: there is a crack in the wall of this dark cave we live in…

  

Reconciling Reality

I have written before about our everyday understanding that there are two realms of reality, and it also seems to us that two distinct kinds of event exist, so we are naïve dualists. There are outer physical events (dogs barking, Federer winning Wimbledon, an exploding supernova, etc.) which are objectively accessible to others; and then there are inner mental events (thoughts, memories, feelings, etc.) which remain subjectively personal. Superficially, both kinds of event appear capable of influencing and giving rise to other events, of either kind, but a brief examination reveals some formidable difficulties.

Inner Causes Outer - I feel good, so I call my friend

What kind of mechanism could forge a causal link between the non-physical and the physical? Would it be part physical and part mental? Then nothing has been resolved, we still need to bridge the same gap. A popular work-around assumes that mental events are “really” physical events   ¹ ,meaning that consciousness as such is illusory – I’m just imagining that I’m imagining that I’m imagining…

Outer Causes Inner – My friend calls, so I feel good

Some people find this easier to accept, it seems like obvious “common sense”. Well, perhaps we can establish a chain of causes as far as a specific brain-state inside this head, but we still can’t understand how my conscious experience arises. Again, the issue can be avoided by simply ignoring our own direct experience of subjectivity. This is clearly absurd: I may be entertaining any number of false notions concerning the nature of my identity – Who am I? – yet any experience at all, howsoever misinterpreted, necessitates the existence of a subject who perceives the experience. Even if  everything I thought I knew is actually wrong, I still can’t doubt the fact of my own existence.

Outer Causes Outer – The glass fell on the floor, so it broke

Surely this seems incontestable – science depends on cause and effect, right? I’ll return to this later.

Inner Causes Inner – I smelt roses, so I thought of my mum

This is difficult to characterize until we take a position on the other cases. If mental states are caused by correlated brain activity, then sequential mental states could be causally independent, resulting simply from a causal link between brain activities   ² .

Enough Philosophy, Already!

Anyone who has actually looked   ³ , to try and understand the origin of inner events, will find that they are never observed to be generated by any preceding event. They simply arise in consciousness, inscrutably. There’s a thought, and then another thought, and another following. Of course, successive thoughts may be related, indeed they usually appear to be, but the occurrence of any particular thought provides no definite information concerning which thought will next occur. I’m suggesting that all inner events manifest atomically, with complete independence from any and all other events, whether inner or outer. A little introspection is enough to show that don’t, in fact, choose our own thoughts.

But why stop there? My practice of meditation has encouraged me to play with the possibility that all outer events also arise atomically, in just the same way, from the same mysterious source. And whenever I find myself able to relax into this understanding, it’s wonderfully liberating. Of course, I accept responsibility for everything I “do”, and even (in my better moments) for everything that happens to me   ⁴ ; yet I also see that I’m not really controlling the stuff and the situations I encounter in the world around me. You may be reluctant to go along with me here, so just to give you a helpful nudge I’ll mention a remarkable experiment. People in a brain-scanner were told to push a button whenever they felt like, and as often as they liked, but also to note the position of a rotating display at the moment when they were first aware of the wish or urge to act. So here's the thing: the machine operator was able to predict what their “decision” would be, seven seconds before they were aware of making it. Still think you’re doing it?

So by allowing the possibility that every event which impinges upon my consciousness is effectively independent, the difficulties with outer events being caused by inner events, or vice versa, simply evaporate. But what about cause and effect? Why am I even considering abandoning this mutually-agreed framework which so nicely accounts for the obvious connections between outer events? Aren’t I throwing the baby out with the bath-water? Actually, I’m not endorsing occasionalism, where god intervenes continuously to move every atom: I’m suggesting that a causal relationship among events, both inner and outer, does indeed exist; but beyond our field of view. I‘m very sympathetic to the ideas of David Bohm, a physicist of the first order who was also inspired by J. Krishnamurti. The events we perceive devolve from a subtle substratum of reality which Bohm terms the "Implicate Order". There is a delightful physical model which provides some clearer understanding of this process   ⁵ .

Advaita: An Integrated Perception

The expression of cause and effect, then, is mediated via “hidden variables” existing off-stage. This doesn’t prevent us from constructing conceptual descriptions of reality to predict the connections among external events. Science still works perfectly, except in some particular circumstances. Quantum mechanics has already obliged us to relax the simple classical view of cause and effect to accommodate a probabilistic interpretation of the physical world – we just can’t explain why this uranium atom, rather than that one, spontaneously breaks apart. Many strange truths have been uncovered:

• Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle places absolute limits on what we can know.
• Bell’s theorem demonstrates that our local reality is fundamentally interwoven with the most distant parts of the universe.
• Wave function collapse accords a pivotal role to subjective observers, without which all-and-everything exists in the endless limbo of quantum superposition.

In practice, all these bizarre ideas can be ignored as irrelevant; so long as we limit ourselves to the sort of things we generally encounter in normal daily life: middle-sized, warm and slow   ⁶ . We have evolved to operate comfortably within this familiar sector of reality, and outside of it we are utterly boggled.

In a similar fashion, I suggest that our understanding of cause and effect, while entirely sufficient for our mundane lives, needs to be further extended to deal with the kinds of experiences that come up when we are involved with any species of subjective enquiry. Whether systematically, through meditation; experimentally, through psychedelic drug use; or idiosyncratically, through those marvellous moments when we spontaneously find ourselves in harmony with nature – we are all capable of noticing the weird and wonderful connections between our inner and outer reality.

If we are satisfied to limit the scope of our enquiry, without asking the hard questions, then string theory reduces to quantum field theory, for example, and Einsteinian relativity reduces to Newtonian mechanics. Well, the really hard questions concern the nature of consciousness; and the limitations of dualism can only be escaped by integrating the study of the inner and the outer   ⁷ . A comprehensive account of our internal and external reality therefore has to be informed by subjective investigations, as much as by objective ones. The scientist must also become a mystic, and reason must go hand-in-hand with insight, or our understanding will be half-baked, and the task will remain half-done.

So, the next time reality goes a bit wobbly on you, take the opportunity to do some research. There will never be a better moment…

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  ¹ Philosophers of  consciousness and cognitive scientists go much further than merely correlating mental states with physical events in the brain, they assert that the two are, in some vague way, identical. Among the exponents of this view, Daniel Dennett provides some of the least unconvincing arguments for his own non-existence.

  ² Not Inner₁→Inner₂, but Outer₁→Inner₁ and Outer₁→Outer₂→Inner₂.

  ³ Sorry about all the philosophical language. Describing the meditative life in scientific terms makes it sound like philosophy, but it isn’t. You really need to suck it and see. There are no shortcuts to meditation; thinking about thoughts won’t help.

  ⁴ I suspect that this all-encompassing acceptance is a necessary step, without which it’s not possible to make any useful sense of my remarks: a kind of surrender is required. I intend to return to this in a subsequent post.

  ⁵ Imagine a large cylindrical glass container of glycerine mounted on a turntable. We place a spot of black ink in the glycerine, near the edge of the cylinder, then we slowly rotate the container, causing the ink to disperse throughout the glycerine until it has effectively disappeared. If we now slowly rotate the cylinder in the opposite direction, the spot of ink gradually re-forms; in its original position, after the same number of turns. (Yes, it really does work!) OK, now imagine placing a series of spots. We place the first as before, then rotate the cylinder until the ink has thoroughly dispersed. We place a second spot of ink just beside where the first spot was, and rotate to disperse. We place a third spot beside where the second was, and rotate to disperse. We continue this for a few more spots. When we reverse the direction of rotation we see the last spot coalesce, then disperse, then the next-to-last one appears right beside where the last spot was, and so on. This analogy implies that when we perceive a particle moving through space, we might in fact be experiencing a series of particles, distinctly and independently manifested from a deeper reality.

  ⁶ Macroscopic (though not cosmic-scale) phenomena, possessing non-trivial thermal energy, and moving at non-relativistic speeds.

  ⁷ Others, who’ve passed this way before, have termed this approach advaita, meaning “the non-dual”.

Science and Mysticism

  Rivals or Colleagues?  

Some of my friends view the world through the lens of science, and others are inclined towards mysticism. The first group generally fails to distinguish between “religion” and mysticism, and the second habitually confuses science with pseudo-science. Frankly, I find both groups complacent.

For me, the two endeavours are of a piece: I am both a scientist and a mystic¹. I therefore find myself in a kind of no-man’s-land, where some part of my vision is routinely discredited. This post is an invitation, especially for the scientists, to reconsider their smug certitude.

What Is? (Ontology)

Scientists² assume³ that an external reality exists, and that events occurring therein can be shared (at least potentially) by every human alive. As individuals, we also enjoy direct experience of an internal reality: what it is like to be me, which does not, at first glance, appear to be shareable in quite the same way. Just as scientists explore and characterize the outer world, mystics explore and characterize the inner world.

If I say that my experiments have shown water to be H₂O, you can check the truth of my claim by doing your own experiments: the shareability of the external realm allows reproducibility, one of the pillars of the scientific method. Claims about the external world can therefore be accepted as provisionally true, and used as elements in the construction of further such claims, unless and until they are shown, by evidence, to be false.

Whenever I say something about the internal world, however, there is a difficulty to be overcome. We have to consider the possibility that I’ve been misled by some unacknowledged bias or other misinterpretation. If you have no access to check the truth of my claim, then how do we know that I’m not deluded? Nobody bothers to ask this question when I say, “I have a headache”, but we must ask it if someone makes a claim like, “Love is the ground of all being”. So the problem only arises when I make a claim, based on the observation of my own internal realm, which impinges upon the external realm that we all share.

How Do We Know What Is? (Epistemology)

In the modern world, the scientific method is acknowledged as the tool of choice for investigating the outer realm: the best method of reliably establishing true facts. Even those who are reluctant to admit such facts, preferring the authority of “scripture”, are careful to apply their ignorance selectively: to the age of the Earth, for example, yet not to the principles of aircraft design.

But what about the inner realm? Remarkably, almost everybody depends upon received authority to establish true facts about their own inner world. How bizarre! Why rely upon “holy” books, “religious” leaders, media pundits, or even your friends and family, to decide what’s happening inside your own head? Why not just look for yourself?

In the same way that it takes many years to acquire a useful scientific education, conducting a comprehensive enquiry into the nature of one’s own psychology simply requires more commitment than most people are prepared to invest. Having explored both realms, I am trying to describe the process of investigating the inner world, and to talk about some of my findings, in a way which is digestible to scientists and others of a rational inclination.

There is an approach through which the inner world can be systematically investigated. Meditation⁴ is the discipline of persistently paying meticulous attention to any and every experience encountered. Or you can call it subjective science. Dedicated practice generates empirical observations⁵ capable of being communicated to (at least in outline), and verified by, anyone who takes the trouble to investigate for themselves. And there’s the rub. The discoveries of objective science only need to be made once, for everyone to share the benefits, but it doesn't work that way for subjective science – if you want the benefit, you have to do all the work yourself.

Pretending to Know What Is (Theology and Other Fantasies)

Nowadays “religious” people like to pronounce that their delusions are scientific; but they have always sought to claim ownership of mysticism, so much so that mysticism is routinely (and ignorantly) conflated with “religion”. Why do they play these games? Because science succeeds. Because mysticism works. They are simply trying to boost their power and prestige by associating their absurd delusions with truly effective practices. “Religion” gets in the way of science, and it gets in the way of mysticism.

Most people waste their lives being “religious” in ways which are easy to ridicule, and they surely deserve our scorn, as well as our pity. A very few people, however, far less than 1%, are trying to do something entirely different. We are engaged in an empirical enquiry into the nature of our own psychology. You have probably met many who claim as much, but most of these will be peddling some kind of new-age woo, and such people are simply another distraction, no more deserving of our attention than the traditional god-botherers.

A few lucky people manage to escape from “religion”, but all too often they become trapped by channelling, or chakra-balancing, or some other nonsense⁶. Until you can see through both kinds of delusion you can’t begin your own authentic enquiry. Genuine mystics really exist, and you will be fortunate indeed when you realise this.

Discovering What Is (Meditation)

Until you know who you are you can’t rely on anything else. To answer the question What is? you need first to ask Who am I? And the tool you need for this enquiry, the disciplined approach to subjective science, is meditation.

The search is arduous, and often dispiriting. Many who lack the necessary courage or perseverance disdainfully misrepresent the insights accruing from meditation as “revelation”. But in fact, such people are no more credible that those who deny the reality of climate-change, or the efficacy of vaccinations. If you don’t have a scientific education, it is foolish to express anti-scientific views on these matters. In just the same way, if you haven’t established a meditative practice, it is unwise to try to undermine those who have.

My enquiry is sustained, deliberate, incisive and coherent. I subscribe to no “holy” texts, I revere no “religious” leaders, I rest upon no authority but my own. Such beliefs and opinions as I hold are labile – readily replaceable by any better ideas which arise. All knowledge is tentative: knowledge of the outer world is falsifiable, but knowledge of the inner world is fugitive, and I pretend to none. In this moment something is self-evident, more I cannot say.

Nonetheless, it is my direct experience that meditation gradually disabuses me of the many false notions which I have found myself clinging to. The process of trying to live meditatively informs and illuminates my daily experience with a significance which was lacking when I limited my enquiry to the objective realm. I have benefited immensely from my practice, but it won’t help you at all, in fact you probably won’t even credit my remarks – unless you begin your own enquiry.

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¹When I call myself a mystic, people generally assume I’m selling something: either a belief-system deliberately designed to be impenetrable, or some preposterous new-age woo. This is a misunderstanding. Many useful words have been debased by those seeking power or profit, but the words mystic and mysticism are the best ones available in English, and need to be redeemed.

²For scientist you may read realist, rationalist, materialist, naturalist, physicalist, or any other philosophical flavour that takes your fancy, without affecting the essence of my meaning. Philosophical street-cred is not my primary concern.

³That this is indeed an assumption is rarely mentioned by scientists, who are also not generally concerned about philosophy. Solipsism has never had much support, but perhaps we live inside a computer simulation.

⁴This term is often used for specific techniques, for example Dynamic Meditation, but the meaning here intended is much more general, encompassing a way of living which is structured around a process of subjective enquiry. Mystic is to meditation as scientist is to scientific method.

⁵Astronomers never do any experiments either.

⁶Hey, I’m not knocking the placebo effect. If reflexology makes you feel better then go for it, but if you imagine it will help you become more conscious, then I fear you will be disappointed.

Gurus 101

  What’s it all about?  

When I became Osho’s disciple, a sannyasin, many of my circle of friends and acquaintances were surprised. Their opinion, generally implied rather than spoken, was that I had behaved in some inexplicably foolish manner which reflected badly on them – it was embarassing, and a little disturbing. I, who had always been so subversive towards any kind of authority, had abdicated my reason to follow some guru. I must surely have been brainwashed somehow, and if it could happen to me…

Times have changed and misunderstanding has modulated, still I feel that some may appreciate a basic introduction to the world as seen by a sannyasin.

What is a guru?

Let’s deal with the labels first: avatar, buddha, god-man, master, sage, teacher, and a score of Sanskit terms. It will soon become clear why I prefer the word Master.

A master is a human being who perceives identity and reality in a qualitatively distinct way. A nematode worm has 302 neurons, while I have around 100 billion, yet the way in which we experience ourselves and the world around us is rather similar, at least from the perspective of a master.

But the worm will remain a worm, whereas I, and you also, have the potential to become enlightened. Enlightenment means the transition process through which the realization arises. Every master is (permanently) enlightened, but it seems that not every enlightened being is a master.

In parallel with the superficial history of the world, the kings and presidents, the wars and revolutions, there is another view of what’s happening, especially of who the most significant people are. Some historical masters are taken to be philosophers (Pythagoras, Socrates, etc.), and others are thought to be religious leaders (Gautam Buddha, Jesus Christ, etc.), but both these perspectives entirely miss the point of who such people really are.

Do masters really exist? What are they like?

Yes they do! And they are astonishingly diverse. The rest of us are domesticated by our biology and psychology, and by our societies. But a master has escaped from these limitations, he is a wild and untamed being.

A true master performs a specific function. What he says or does is incidental. What he is is primary. Everyone who finds themselves sharing a space with the master experiences an involuntary overlap with the being of the master: there’s this guy on a trampoline doing the most amazing stuff, and you’re sitting on the edge of it so you’re sure to get bounced around some - love it or hate it.

Ultimately, however, the focus is not on how remarkable the master is, but on being a disciple. I will have more to say about this, in subsequent posts.

Do I need a master?

It depends. Most people don’t. Do you need to fall in love with this or that person? With anyone? Either you do or you don’t fall in love, that’s just how it happens. If you happen to encounter a master who makes your heart sing then you won’t be asking this question anymore. If you don’t then that’s fine too.

The traditional answer is that the master finds the disciple, not the other way around, but few of us are ready to embrace the surrender that this implies.

I’ve noticed that people often come to the master when they are suffering some kind of psychological and emotional crisis, but they tend to fall away when their lives become comfortable once more. We are all damaged and insane, to some degree, but if you are really ready to turn and look within, then the presence of the master is invaluable.

Aren’t there lots of false masters?

You got that right. There’s always been an abundant supply of bogus god-men, and nowadays there are legions of guru-wannabes bombarding us with new-age twaddle.

It has always been difficult to sort the wheat from the chaff, and the internet hasn’t made it any easier.

The very worst are the well-intentioned half-wise; self-deluded seekers who have prematurely ceased their seeking. If somebody seems to be, perhaps is, wiser than me, then perhaps this is a useful teacher, but a master is something else.

How do I tell the difference between the real and the false?

The short answer is that you can’t.

Well, certainly not from anything external. Perhaps you have a checklist, with lots of boxes involving money and sex – then you’ve provided the master with a simple way to throw you off the scent. Any apparent lapse into “attachment” or “impurity” will blow you away, making space for others, more discerning than you, to approach.

Some masters have a wicked sense of humour: Neem Karoli Baba sometimes made a great ceremony of catching a train to go to another city. Crowds of disciples would come to see him off, and hundreds would accompany him. Then at the last moment, when the train was already travelling quite fast, he would jump off and go somewhere else, leaving his disciples stranded.

Then how can anyone recognize the master?

It happens, somehow. From Osho I have heard that the master does not distinguish his point of view from yours or mine – to him we are all enlightened. To the extent that we are capable of sharing this understanding, we are also able to recognize the master within.

Are there different degrees of enlightenment?

For those of us who still imagine ourselves to be separate beings, holding on to our precious minds, there is little to be gained from such speculation.

Some say there are three levels, and that from the first level it is still possible to be reincarnated… oops! All this esoteric stuff is a potent distraction. Taste a little bit and you will go looking for more. Stay grounded in your own experience.

Are there different kinds of master?

More esoterica to get lost in. Some celebrated masters have made a big thing out of this, but mostly it’s just the disciples trying to get one-up. The only kinds I find it useful to consider are the master and the others. With the master you cannot helping loving him - his every word and gesture inspire delight. With the others you are not sure what’s what. And your other may be my master, and your master may be my other.

Any master will do. A few have a high public profile, and make an impression on the world at large, but most live quietly, ignored by all except a few disciples.

It may be that some masters, in addition working on their disciples, also play a broader role. They seem to be pioneers, discovering new realms of consciousness and opening them up for others to experience. This is all very entertaining, but again, it draws attention away from the real enquiry.

But my religion says that X / Y / Z was the only-son / true-prophet / last-messenger of god.

Like I said, not everybody is ready for a master. True seekers are a tiny minority.

What is your personal experience of masters? How do you know all this?

I am not enlightened. I spent weeks or months hanging out near Osho on a number of occasions, but many others were much closer for much longer than me. Perhaps some of them are enlightened - though a few are patently idiotic, or worse.

I speak on my own authority, from my own experience, trying to share my understanding as straightforwardly as I can. If I mention anything beyond my experience, I make that clear. Sometimes I’m obliged to use metaphorical language, but none of it is there to confuse you - authenticity is the cardinal virtue.

For those who may be looking, I can say that in the years since Osho left his body (“died”), I’ve checked out quite a few people who claim enlightenment, or allow others to claim it for them. I haven’t found any who struck me in the way that Osho did, yet it seems to me that there are real masters around.

What’s it really like to meet a master?

Like being home, at last.

Like feeling high, as high as sex or drugs have ever helped you feel.

Like meeting your best friend again, after many many years when you had somehow, strangely, forgotten all about them.

Like remembering what it was like to be you at the age of 3, or 2, or…

Like being in the right place at the right time, beyond any shadow of a doubt.

In resonance with the master, borrowing his eyes, you sense that something wonderful is possible; something fresh. The master is a sandpit for baby god to play in.

An Unexpected Departure

  How I became a disciple of Osho  

From my earliest youth it always seemed to me that my ideas were out of step with pretty much everyone else around me. Yet I held firm to my own opinions, indeed I fought so strongly for the rightness of my views that I found it hard to make or keep real friends. In time I found more congenial company, especially at Oxford University, where free-thinking was more socially acceptable. And gradually I came to realise that being right is less important than enjoying the freedom to form and express my own ideas.

Yet there was a method to my vehemence: the scientific method. I held no views unless they could be supported empirically, and was ready to reverse my position as soon as I became aware of fresh evidence. I considered myself a thorough rationalist, ignoring authority and eschewing superstition - let the truth be known by its merits. Yes I had read a book on Zen Buddhism, and I had even been to a few meetings with a group of Sufi mystics, but this was all part of my quest to know all that could reasonably be known. In just the same spirit I had set myself to reading as much as I could of the world’s great literature, though my formal education had been scientific, in order to complete myself as a rounded and well-informed person.

A few years after graduating I got together with some old friends from college. Another friend had been out of touch for some time, and now news had been received from him. Apparently he’d gone overland to India, which in those days was a common aspiration for hippie types like us, and there he’d met some guru. This struck me as rather exotic, it had never occurred to me that I might meet such people. Well, a book and a tape had been sent to one of these friends, but when I arrived they’d already listened to the entire tape, so they weren’t very keen to hear it again. Feeling a bit frustrated, I picked up the book, and in the front fly-leaf there was a photo of Osho…

So there’s this guy with long hair and beard, wearing a long white robe, and something about the photo is super-real – like he’s shining up out of the page at me. My mind suggests that the photo has been retouched, but I can’t imagine what could possibly produce such an effect. So I’m staring at this image, gob-smacked, and I try to point out to the others how remarkable it is, without much success, except that they eventually agree to listen again to a bit of the tape.

It was just a few sentences that I heard, considerably less than five minutes, but from the very beginning, as soon as I heard Osho’s voice – I couldn’t understand much of what he was saying so I guess the sound itself was the real trigger – another process was going on inside me while I was listening, and this parallel process was essentially completed during that time. Actually I don’t think there were any words involved but I’ll try to render it understandable as a stream of verbal thinking:

So I’m going to India. How soon can I go? I’ve got to give notice from my job, so that’s three months, and I’ll have to sell my place. Damn! It’ll have to be sold to my ex-wife, since she paid some of the loan, but she doesn’t have any money! So I’ll have to arrange a meeting with her and her parents, and I’ll just have to persuade them to buy it for her. Shit! What about my parents? They’re going to be really pissed off, but they’ll just have to accept my decision. And what about my girlfriend – she’s still at college? Well she can join me later, I can’t miss this opportunity. What else? I can give most of my stuff away, my books to A, my clothes to B and C, maybe I can sell my record collection to D, the rest of it I can just throw away, anything I can’t carry. So I’ll get a ticket for three months’ time, there’s a few friends I’d like to visit before I go, but, yeah it’s all doable…

Before encountering the photo and the tape I suppose I was vaguely discontented with my life as it had been, but I wasn’t actively seeking anything, certainly not a Master! I had a job I enjoyed, and a girl I wanted to be with, and plenty of good close friends. It seems, however, that an existential crisis was bubbling under. Within a few moments the direction of my life had utterly changed. I was going to India to be at the feet of the Master, and I didn’t intend to ever return.

Sure enough, it all played out as “planned” and three months later I was sorting through the last few things just prior to my departure. I came across a leaflet with some of Osho’s words, and a photo. In a flash I realised how I had nearly come to Osho…

Some years earlier I had visited a new-agey exhibition, when such things really were new, and there I’d picked up a great many leaflets. When I got home I’d read through them all and, concluding that none of them was for me, I discarded them. All except one. I read it many times, and decided that this was something which was either completely beyond my experience and wholly remarkable, or it was such a good hoax that it was anyway worth following up. These people had a centre in London, and Wednesday night was open night. Every Wednesday I thought about going, for many weeks, but every Wednesday I was too timid. Eventually I buried the leaflet in a deep drawer, and the uncomfortable memory of my cowardice in my deep unconscious.

So he got me in the end. It didn’t feel at all like I made any kind of decision, more like he had his hook in me and was just reeling me in. This, then, is the story of how I became a disciple of Osho - but did I have to abandon my rational approach to life? Absolutely not! I remain as awkward as ever, for which some of my fellow disciples give me grief. I’m also overwhelmed and delighted to have found Osho, for which some old friends scorn me as a fool. Down through the years I’ve tried to integrate these two streams of my experience, and it’s become clear that there’s nothing to be done about it - I’m just stuck with this unusual take on reality. Hearing Something Which Is Not Said is an attempt to crystallize my own understanding, and also to share whatever can be shared with anybody else who may be interested.