Love and Bliss

It started 7 years ago when I just happened to be waiting for the same bus as her, Ma Prem Madhuri. It was an unfamiliar name at the time, though now she calls herself Azia. But now I know ‘Madhuri’ is a very common name in India, meaning ‘sweet’. ‘Prem’ is an even more common name, meaning ‘love’. Ma means ‘A woman who is a master of themselves’. Not that Madhuri is Indian born, she came into her body in New Zealand from European descent. Was named by her parents ‘Louise’, but later on took on these new names.

She saw me carrying my didgeridoo and guitar in West End, Brisbane. She struck up a conversation, intrigued by the instruments I had with me. I explained that I had been busking on the streets with some friends. She thought that was pretty cool. She mentioned that she was going to a group meditation, I asked her about it as this was something that intrigues me. I had been trying to meditate by myself, just researching Tibetan Buddhist ways to meditate, but had trouble ‘disciplining’ myself. I definitely needed some help. And meeting this young lady seemed to be a perfect opportunity. She said “We meet twice a week on Thursdays and Sundays, just a small group of us. You’d be welcome to join if you like. I can give you my number and you just let me know when you’re ready.”

Not more than a couple weeks later I decided to text her and see about coming to one of these group meditations. Her text reply said “Wow, amazing timing! We’re having a full meditation day this Sunday if you’re interested?” “Hell yeah!” Was my inner response, but I just replied, “sounds good, how do I get there?” She put me in contact with her friend who would drive me there on the day, his name was ‘Swami Anand Manan’, another strange name from India for a presence that came into a body in England in a very English family. ‘Swami’ means ‘A man who is a master of themselves’, ‘Anand’ means ‘bliss’ and ‘Manan’ means ‘Right use of the mind’. His parents had names him Andrew, but that was a long time ago as his body is now 72 years old.

It came the day of the meditation, I decided to wear some faded maroon pants and my favorite pink hoodie that I used to wear everywhere. I had agreed to meet with Manan at Fruitgrove Train Station, now far from where he used to live. I was expecting a young Indian man to be picking me up, but l looked in the car and it was a 60 something year old white skinned person with a kind of English accent. He was very friendly and smiled and looked at me as I got in the car.

We went between sitting quietly and talking and getting to know one another. I quickly put together that he is very much into meditation and I was amazed that this very simple and ordinary looking man was so into it and very happy when he was talking about it. He had an aura of peace and silence around him, utterly simple and ordinary yet somehow extraordinary.

After a 40 minute car ride, we arrived at the Kallangur Community Centre where we’d be meditating from 8am until 4pm, with a wide variety of meditations throughout. It wasn’t until I got there that I realized that Manan was sitting out the front of the room and explaining the meditations we were going to do and acting as a facilitator. I couldn’t have imagined that this very ordinary man was running meditation programs. It also turned out that wearing the reddish colors was perfect as everyone was wearing red/maroon colors as this is a significant colour for helping transformation when doing active meditations.

We started off with the craziest meditation I had ever experienced. It was called ‘Dynamic Meditation’ it went for an hour and in 5 stages.We started with a box of tissues being passed around for people to blow their nose. I was wondering why we need to blow our nose before starting a meditation. But once Manan explained the meditation we were about to do it all made sense. Soon we began the first stage which was ‘chaotic breathing’, pushing the breath out with great force in a non-repetitive way and just allowing the breath to come in by itself. This went on for 10 minutes when a crash of symbals played on the meditation music track and then everyone went nuts! We were screaming, crying, laughing doing gibberish. This is catharsis, throwing out all the garbage that goes on accumulating in our bodymind. It was exhausting but felt really good and lightened me up nicely. Then another crashing sound came and we all started jumping up and down on the spot with our hands up high in the air and every time we’d land on our feet we’d shout ‘hoo!’. It’s a Sufi power word that brings you to your centre at the naval, makes you very present. This went on for 10 minutes and then a voice in the recording shouted “Stop!”. We all stopped on the spot and did t move for 15 minutes when the music started and we danced in celebration for 15 minutes. By the end of it I was amazed and feeling very refreshed.

We did so many different kinds of meditations, some energetic and others very soft and relaxing, it was a lot of fun and really refreshing. The last part of the day we watched a video, which on the screen was an old Indian man with long white hair and beard, wearing the most amazing and extravagant outfit. He came in through the Ashram gate at Pune, India surrounded by hundreds of Sannyasins (Ma’s and Swami’s) giving Namaste hand gesture to him in his Rolls Royce or dancing madly. They threw flowers all over the car, you almost couldn’t see the car anymore. Then out came Osho from the back seat and stroking his long white beard so it was neat and tucked out of the way, he turned here and there exchanging the Namaste hand gesture with everyone, with a big smile on his face. He danced all the way into the Buddha Auditorium where everyone came to sit silently and listen to Osho. I can’t remember what he said in the discourse, but I was profoundly amazed and in love with this man and his people I had seen in the video and the ones I had just spent a day meditating with.

By the end of the day I was feeling a way I hadn’t felt in my whole life. What an extraordinary experience! I continued to go to those monthly meditation days and also meditating at Manan’s house in South Brisbane starting every fortnight, soon I was going once a week, then twice a week, then I was coming even when there were no group meditations and I would sit and talk with Manan who I had grown to love his company. Sitting in his lounge room I was transformed and teleported to another planet it seemed. This went on for 6 months when I found myself heading with Manan on a meditate retreat in Pokhara, Nepal where I took the Sannyas initiation at the Osho Rahasya Meditation Centre, Madhuri was there too along with many other Ma’s and Swami’s. Manan have me my mala, a kind of necklace with 108 wooden beads and a picture of Osho hanging in it. I was given the name ‘Swami Prem Anand’ a far cry from the name my parents gave me ‘Nicholas’. I loved the name as soon as I heard it. It meant ‘Love-Bliss’. And that is what I’d been feeling through this whole experience. A loving, blissful, ecstatic dance towards the silence of being.