The first time I came in contact with Osho (then still Bhagwan Sri Rajneesh) was in 1977 as I was perusing books in a bookstore in Florence, Italy.
In that period I was quite lost and going through a complete breaking down of my life as I knew it. Since I was a teenager I had seen myself as a warrior and an agent for radical change and my life had been dedicated to this: a social and personal revolution.
So I had spent about ten years fully involved in political and social fights against the establishment anywhere and anytime I could and at the same time I had started testing myself in the arena of Martial Arts. In 1976 all this came crashing down and I didn’t know any more who I was and what was my life about.
That’s when Osho came in. When I read his book it touched my heart, and my mind and my guts and made me feel seen and heard and wow! This man says all the things that I have felt all my life…I started feeling like water, luminous water…Tantra: the Supreme Understanding. Every word was flowing in my blood, in my nerves, in my muscles like a river of gold. And yet, I also felt that I was not ready for that and not willing to surrender my “NO” which I believed was my deepest freedom.
In the following years I lived in Mexico working as an anthropologist, met shamans and witch doctors, experimented with different kind of “power plants”, looked for my animal soul and practiced Tae Kwon Do -a Korean martial art- where I was the only Gringo (white man) in my school so the combats got tougher and more macho. In all this I had to learn to be really alert and very flexible, to trust my instinct and open my senses. Near everything in my life started turning around “Being in the moment” and letting go of prejudices, expectations and the need for security. I felt that my whole perception and experience of life was coming down from my head to my guts. Once in a while I would pick up my Osho’s book and nurture my heart as my secret little garden, but than I would go back to a much more dense world.
In those years and in the following ones it became more and more clear that I was learning about living in my Hara and preparing the soil for my heart. Back in Italy I finally came in touch with the Martial Arts that were to become my passion and foundations of my path: Aikido and Iaido (a sword technique). My Aikido teacher was the most humble and gentle man I have ever met, a carpenter and a fisherman in a small village in the South of Italy. As I saw his complete ordinariness in day-to-day life, I also saw and experienced the beauty and the fierceness of the lion when he was stepping on the mats. My sword teacher was a Japanese artist and a healer, a true samurai with great personal beauty and refinement who could move with the sword with the rhythm of a poem and the intensity of a wild wind. For the first time I felt I had found what I needed and wanted and for the first time I could sense the heart of the warrior.
One day, after a very demanding week of full time sword practice and Zen meditation with another very famous Japanese Aikido Sensei, I felt like a tree that had been pruned to the core, I felt raw and to my limit. I felt that I had to take some kind of jump and that I was ready for it even though I had no clue of what it was. In the following week I received money from a magazine for an old photo article, I bought a ticket and I found myself on a plane to the Ranch, Oregon, USA. I arrived - as Osho said later-, “in spite of myself”, wearing all blue clothes, my warrior armor, my NO and with the secret longing in my heart.
Second day, afternoon: I am waiting by the side of the road for drive by close to the University. I am on my own – the closest person at 10/15 meters. I am filled with resistance, expectation, hope, desire to be seen, arrogance and all the rest…and my body feels stiff. As I see the car approaching my anxiety grows: I long for this to be at a turning point in my life and I hate it too. When the car is at few meters from me I feel like a very strong wind hitting me and I fall on my back and while I am falling a big mouth opens in my belly and I start laughing like I have completely lost my mind. My resistance is evaporated and I feel light and joyous. After few days I ask for sannyas and I get the name Samarpan Avikal: surrender and non-action.
From 1988 to 1999 I practiced and taught Aikido and Iaido in the ashram in Pune. I loved to wake up in the early morning and drive my Bullet to the Ashram and start the day in the Osho Dojo. I don’t know how many thousands of people passed through the classes and how many nationalities but for sure all that diversity was wonderfully challenging. Also such a big turn over obliged me to stay a lot with the fundamentals of Martial Arts: centering, grounding, the dissolution of resistance and the practice of presence. As I was teaching I learnt to let go of any technique and concept. And the Arts became what they are supposed to be: meditation in movement.
I have found my heart. With the constant support of Osho and the holding of the commune, I have found my heart.
Now, even if I do not wear the paraphernalia of the warrior, I know that I am one and that I walk the path with a heart. The fear of making mistakes, of being hurt and rejected do not hide in my heart so I don’t need to defend myself anymore and I can surrender to the moment and watch in awe the mystery unfolding. I have learnt to love my aggression and honor my weakness and, hidden within them, I have found my strength and my integrity. As the discipline of many years recreated the connection with my body and a capacity to stay centered and grounded, I have learnt to open my heart and allow the vulnerability intrinsic to all sensitivity. Since 2000 I don’t practice or teach Martial Arts anymore as in my personal process it came the moment when it was clear that I had to face my attachment to the warrior-image and the only way that seemed right was to let go of it totally and watch what was happening. As the external and internal images disintegrated I felt the warrior core become more clear and fluid and I started finding non martial ways to embody that and share with others so, for example, I started working with the Inner Judge and teach people how to defend against the constant internal and external pressure of judgment and prejudice; I started working with the Satori process and share the fullness/emptiness of the Hara in the experience of sudden realization: I started working with Essence and teach how to build Peace, Love and Curiosity on the foundations of Will and Strength.
In the Zen tradition they say that if you have the courage to fall in the abyss of your soul you will abandon the sword that takes life and find the sword that fosters life. Right now my life is that sword and its core are compassion and joy. The light of the Master illuminates my path.
Discover Swami Avikal at Osho Nisarga:
