Osho Is Still Alive In Australia

Vishrant – The Flower That Bloomed In Osho’s Garden

I spent many years in grief after Osho died only to find out I didn’t need to.

The same energy field I first fell in love with in 1978 is still here in Vishrant, my living spiritual master today, and I have lived just as deeply in love within that energy field for the past 25 years.

Really, it is the same Buddha field.

That might come as a shock to those who loved Bhagwan as I did. Yet Osho’s whole intention on this plane was to share the gift of his enlightenment – and he succeeded. “My master’s garden had many flowers,” is what Vishrant says. “One of them was me.”

The fact Vishrant lives and works as an enlightened teacher in my own backyard of Perth, Western Australia is just another irony. Vishrant is among a crop of Osho sannyasins who woke up under Bhagwan’s guidance or in the years after Osho left his body. They now continue Bhagwan’s work, shining the light of Beingness to those seekers who feel the call.

My Encounter With Osho

Osho first came into my life in 1978 when my boyfriend loaned me his Book of the Secrets which was Bhagwan’s teachings of the 112 Bhairava Tantra techniques. I felt I had come home as I read this amazing man’s words. On practicing one of the techniques, I began to have satoris and out-of-body experiences. At night when my children were asleep, I would sit with this book on my lap, looking at Bhagwan’s photo on the cover and weep with love and joy. From the book alone, I could not tell where he was or how to get in touch with him. Then one day, while visiting my boyfriend, we saw two people dressed in orange walking down the road. As they got closer, we saw they were his good friends from transcendental meditation Maharishi Mahesh Yogi days, and they’d come to tell him about Bhagwan. They asked if I’d heard of him and I said, “Heard of him? I’m deeply in love with him.”

I then discovered there was a centre for Bhagwan’s sannyasins (or neo-sannyasins, as he liked to call us) in Adelaide, close to where I lived at the time. I drove there and met a beautiful woman, Ma Prem Sugandha, and she immediately gave me an application form for taking sannyas so I could pledge myself to Bhagwan as a disciple. It took nine months from then to be in Poona with Bhagwan. So many miracles occurred to get a single mother with no money to India. I received so much energetic support from Osho during that time.

After two-and-a-half years in Poona, Bhagwan moved to America, and I came back to Australia. I visited him there three times, but never saw him again in India. Then after he died, I grieved for him for many years, particularly in vivid dreams where I would search for him in vain.

My Encounter With Vishrant

I had first become aware of Vishrant in 1982 when I saw him at the Rajneesh Sannyasin Centre in Fremantle. To me, he was the centre of attention and fun with half-a-dozen young men around him hanging on his every word. I had a feeling that this ostentatious, fun-loving larrikin was soon to get the rug pulled out from underneath him by Bhagwan. I think it was 1985 when Vishrant got to speak directly with Bhagwan who had changed his name to Osho by this time. As Vishrant says it himself directly, that 40 minutes changed the direction of his life completely.

It wasn’t until 1998 that I travelled to Denmark, a small Western Australian town south of Perth to see Gangaji and found Vishrant there. He was always in the front of the queue waiting to be allowed in to take a seat, as close as possible to Gangaji’s chair. I got to play with him and felt his openness and was very attracted to being in his presence. I sat close to him during the satsangs and got to witness Gangaji giving him a good whack in the middle of his chest. I can only imagine what that opened in him.

A year later, another of Osho’s sannyasins named Devamarg had woken up and was holding self-inquiry nights at his house. One night, we were all sitting around the room facing each other and Vishrant said, “Something has happened to me.” He went on to describe his experience of enlightenment and the opening of heart.

I felt the truth of his experience immediately and began attending the self-inquiry nights held at his house.

On the first of those nights, Vishrant did self-inquiry with me and I felt the piercing beauty of openness and love and truth. I have been his since then.

Vishrant’s Buddha field is exactly the same as his spiritual master’s: strong, clear and loving. I feel held in love, even during the fiercest of encounters, and my ability to listen to him and to look to where he is pointing inside of me is a sign of the maturity he has taught me, despite all of my resistance during the past 25 years.

I could never repay him. All I have is gratitude. He tells me it is the same for him and how he feels towards Bhagwan. To me, they are the same.