The Love in your Heart is the Source for Enlightenment

Interview with Veeresh by Geetee. Interviewed for German Osho Times

Veeresh, I see you as a very peaceful and silent man, centered in your heart. How did you reach that space of silence within yourself?

That is the result of 73 years of living. But if I look at my life until the age of 28, I wasn’t peaceful at all. I was warlike. I was on a complete survival trip. From military academies to mental hospitals to jails, I learned how to control and manipulate my world. I had no time to look inside. I just arranged things on the outside so that I could feel safe.

I remember getting off the train in Chicago, a city I’d never been to before. On my way to the University I stopped in a black neighborhood, and found a dealer who was scoring dope. That’s mad – going into a situation like that in a strange city. But I knew how to arrange it.

Then at the age of 28 I discovered therapy, and later on meditation. I took the same energy and put it into the search for “Who am I, where am I going and why?”

Today I’m still searching, looking and exploring, which is what I want you to do also. Each day life is showing me something new. So after so many years, I can sound enlightened and say, “I’m still dealing with issues inside of me from my life, and I’m willing to look and to go there.” I can now go into an AUM meditation*, while people are screaming their lungs out and feel silent inside. I can walk over to a participant and say, “Straighten your back, bend your knees, keep the focus, be here and now,” in the middle of the chaos.

I don’t have to prove anything or be anything. The way I am is enough. That creates the peacefulness and silence inside. Yes, I found it, but I had to work for it as the love in your heart is the source for enlightenment.

Osho speaks about the three pillars of meditation: relaxation, non-judgement and awareness. What way of living supports a balanced foundation for human beings?

The way we live here at the Humaniversity is unique. We’re an example for the whole world. If you want to create a total human being, appreciating all aspects of yourself – mental, physical, spiritual, social and sexual – this is the place to do it.

We’re helping people to develop and be their most beautiful selves. I don’t know a better place to do that than here. Look at the people around us – they’re all so loving and caring. You can’t pay for that. That’s just our way.

At the Humaniversity we live according to the values of love, awareness and responsibility. What place does silence have here?

I believe silence has to originate from a lot of noise in your life. Before you can be silent you need to let go of all the history and expectations in your brain. So especially here in the marketplace of Europe and America, you have to scream a lot. You have to let all that negativity out and then you can say, “Alright, what’s happening inside?”

I screamed a lot in my life. Man, have I screamed. I screamed so much that I can go into a primal in three minutes if I decided to. And I can be total, because I know the way.

In India you can drink a lassi and sit under a tree and meditate. Here at the Humaniversity we do emotional expression and move all the blocks out of the way first, so that people can actually hear themselves and find out who they are. You can’t teach people to be silent when they’re full of negativity inside. Then they just mindfuck about where they’re going next or get disturbed that somebody’s coughing. They get caught up with what meditation and silence is supposed to be. We do silent work here, but only after we squeeze all the negativity out of them.

During the month-long workshop, WOW, you said to the group that the only position in life is to come from a loving heart. How is that related to being silent?

Once you express the pain, there is more space to feel your heart. Then there is joy, happiness, and finally you go into ecstasy – you’re just so happy to be alive! It doesn’t matter if there’s a band playing, you feel this silence inside, this bliss. I’m not saying your mind is not going blah, blah, blah, but the silence is also there – you can feel it. You have to do a lot of work, over and over, and then it just happens.

The more I develop being in my heart, the more I enter a space of silence within myself. Words seem to become unnecessary and I don’t feel like playing social games anymore. Some people find it difficult to relate to me, don’t know what to say and feel insecure around me. I feel expectations of how I should be and that they would like me to be more accommodating and outgoing. Can you comment please?

Somebody in the group came up to me and said, “I want you to be my guru.” I looked up and said, “Ok, but you have to do exactly what I tell you to do.” And then her face changed as if she thought, “Oh, this game is over.”

I said, “Guru takes you from darkness to light. I’m ready to do that, but you have to do everything I say.” Then she gave me a smile, but it looked like she wasn’t so sure.

I’m ready to be social. If it’s important for them, I can be a guru figure. I don’t let it get in the way. Later on, if they come and say, “I would really like to be your friend,” I would like that even more.

You have to develop the character, personality and way of being which is yours. And that’s what people can learn from you. They can see a reflection of themselves in you by you being honest with them.

I am where I am at, I see where the other is at, and I give her what I feel is right. And if she can take it, that’s great. It’s a big responsibility to be yourself, Geetee. Maybe you don’t feel like saying anything, maybe you feel an expectation. All you can give is your uniqueness, your way of responding to a given situation from your heart.

According to you, what are the biggest hindrances that prevent people from meditating?

For me, I became a sannyasin because I knew that meditation was a way to get enlightened. I wanted to meditate fast so I could get enlightened fast, because I didn’t want to be doing Dynamic Meditation forever.

I heard that when you get enlightened, the kundalini energy travels up from the base of your spine, explodes out of your head or your third eye and opens everything. Later I discovered that it’s not the kundalini going up my spine, or my seventh chakra exploding. I understood my heart is the source. Osho showed me that.

Your own expectations of how you should get enlightened can hinder you. One of the mistakes of meditating is trying to imitate other people who have been enlightened: Osho fell off a tree**, Buddha sat under another tree, Bodhidharma cut off his eyelashes, Hotai danced in a circle. If you’re comparing yourself to others, you’ll never find the perfect setting to meditate.

Go into your heart. That’s it. Sometimes your heart is really beaming, and sometimes it’s not. It sends blood and energy to everything in the body. When your heart is open, you’re home. Electricity is everywhere.

So don’t think of your head exploding with light, but see your heart exploding with love. It doesn’t’ matter what technique you use.

Would you like to add anything?

I just completed the month-long WOW workshop, and the experience helped me to expand more. I feel I was able to touch everyone, and that is a WOW for me.

The participants can go home, improve their lives and make this a more beautiful world to live in. Hopefully they look into their diaries from the workshop and say, “Oh, I remember, I’m doing the same thing again! I’m going to change now. I will stop blaming my parents and society and take responsibility for my life.”

I’m very happy with the result of the WOW and the exceptional teenagers in the Tan-Ju Program. I send a big thank you to everyone for enriching my life.