OSHO Living Tao #5

This is from the OSHO meditation center next to my flat here in Pune.  It is a beautiful and tranquil place to free your mind.  I would really like to see Roger come over and don one of the flowing, maroon robes that you must wear inside!


“In Zen they use many methods to teach people meditation. They use art also: painting, calligraphy and other things. A student will learn painting for ten or twelve years until he becomes absolutely technical, with not even a single error in the technology of the art. When he becomes perfectly technical then the master says, “Now drop it. For two or three years completely forget it. Throw away your brushes, forget anything that you know about painting and when you have forgotten it completely, then come to me.”




Two, three, four, five, sometimes even more, years are needed to forget. It is very difficult. It is difficult first to learn a thing, and more difficult to unlearn it once you have learned it. The second part is very, very essential, fundamental; otherwise you will be a technician, not an artist.




It is said it happened that a great archer trained his disciple to the very perfection in archery. And then he told him, “Now forget everything about it.” For twenty years the disciple used to come and go to the master but the master would not say anything, so the disciple had to wait patiently. By and by he completely forgot everything about archery twenty years is a long time, he had become almost an old man.




Then one day he came and as he entered the master’s room he saw a bow, but he did not recognize what it was. The master came near him, embraced him and said, “Now you have become a perfect archer, you have forgotten even the bow. Now just go out and look at the flying birds and with just the idea that they should drop, they will.”




The archer went out and he couldn’t believe it. He looked at the birds flying, almost a dozen birds, and they fell immediately to the ground. The master said, “Now there is no more to do. I was just showing you that when one forgets the technique only then does one become perfect. Now the bow and arrow are not needed, they are needed only for amateurs.”




A perfect painter does not need the brush and the canvas; a perfect musician does not need the sitar or the violin or the guitar. No, that is for the amateur.”



Raigad Fort Trek

So Raj promises it's a 1 hour drive to the fort, a 1.5 hour trek, the day starts at 7 a.m. and by 1 p.m. I'll be back poolside and happy in Pune....  Reality: 2 hour drive (4 hours total in a small, Ford Icon), the trek is closer to 3 hours up and 3 hours down.  Although Raj's concept of time is more aligned with local time standards as compared to my concept of time which involves a watch and a standard 24 hour day, the trip was still a success and a lot of fun.


Here is a little description of the Raigard Fort history:


Raigad (Marathi:रायगड) is a hill fortress situated in the modern day Raigad district of Maharashtra, India. The Maratha king Shivaji made the fort his capital in 1674 when he was crowned King of a Maratha Kingdom which later developed into the Maratha Empire eventually covering majority of modern day India.

This was the drinking water available:-(  You'll notice it is gray in color.  There was also a lot of trash floating in it.

While beginning the trek I heard thundering foot steps and was scared to death!  I thought elephant, hippo, monster, but it turned out be buffalo!

 Some children we passed on the truck with two small lambs.

This was a tiny hotel / restaurant at the base of the mountain.  It was really inspiring to see the children's father that was running this establishment.  He only had one arm, but was all smiles and you could tell he was proud of his establishment.

 The fortress.

 Another view of the fort showing just how far reaching it is.

 Some new friends that insisted in a group photo with me.  

 Another view of the mountain the fort is on showing just how imposing it must have looked to invaders centuries ago.

This girl was along the trek selling lemon water.  Her father replenishes her supply multiple times a day.  Their home was almost 2 km away down the mountain and yet the father could trek it in almost 15 minutes!

 Getting closer!

 Some of the monkey "guards" that surrounded the fortress

 Here is a woman carrying pots of water on her noggin.  These women walk from the local villages to the well in the earlier photo for water.  Very tough women!

A point on the fortress where prisoners were thrown to their death!  There aren't many ways I would really enjoy to die, but probably one of the least favorite ways would be being thrown from a cliff!

Home sweet home....

Our PDC is finally starting to look like a building and less like the surface of Mars!  Columns are being erected and the first three trusses have been welded in place.  It is so much nicer going out to the site now than it was 2 months ago when I first got here.  Seeing columns, trusses, docks and the general layout of the PDC take shape is really exciting.

 3 trusses up, 57 to go.

The first truss that was erected.  This truss took 2 days to erect, the second truss took 2 hours!  The guys are getting better and the ceremonial coconut cracking ceremony certainly helped to speed things up!

 Who is the handsome American man with all those Bengali construction workers?

Where my office will be on April 5th.  It doesn't look like much now, but with some posters of the latest cricket and Bollywood stars it will really take shape.

This is one of the gentleman that welds the trusses to the columns getting all strapped in before heading up 15m to weld.

Hoisted up 15m in the area there are two men working in a tiny cage welding the truss to the column.

Although the truss was secured to this enormous boulders, the workers were kind enough to at least appear to be busy during my visit and pull on the rope a little more;-)

Phaltan Pizza Party

On Friday Raj and I treated the construction workers that are building our PDC with a pizza party.  It's hard to believe that was I was 16 or 17 I was delivering pizzas in Fostoria, OH for Red's Pizza (+1.419.435.2224; still remember the number) and now 12 years later I'm delivering Domino's in Phaltan, India!  Times have certainly changed and I can say without a doubt that this was by far a much more enriching experience than delivering pizzas to the citizens of Fostoria was back then.  

The smiling faces of all those hungry men and women that spend their days toiling away in the scorching sun at our site and their nights in tragic shanty towns was really emotional to witness.  I would have never expected that this simple act would have touched me as much as it did.  I spend a lot of time at this site beating up on all of these employees' bosses so it was a nice change.

Bats, Muslim Clerics and Sweet Corn: Happy New Year!

For New Years I traveled to Aurangabad (The City of Gates) to visit the Ellora Caves, which are a UNESCO World Heritage Sites, as well as Bibi Ka Maqbara.  Bibi Ka Maqbara is a maqbara built by Prince Azam Shah, son of Emperor Aurangzeb,one of the Mughal Emperors, in the17th century as a tribute to his mother.  Both of these sites were some of the coolest places I have ever been in my life, asides from Walton, KY of course!  


As usual I was quite a hit with the locals and many insisted on having their photo taken with me.  Niti suggested that I begin charging a small fee to be photographed along side the "White Tiger!"

This tomb was originally planned to rival the Taj Mahal; however due to budget constraints that never happened and has since been called "The Poor Man's Taj."

A couple of my adoring fans...  Maybe it's the pink shorts?  Generally my only competition to these photo shoots are English women.

The lattice work is incredible!  It is hard to believe that this is stone, that was sculpted by hand in 1660!

Above is the actual tomb where Dilras Bano Begam was buried.  Now it serves as an area for people to throw rupees at.  There is actually a sign in the tomb that states "Silence Please;" however there is a guide there that repeatedly blows very loudly on a whistle for people to hurry up.  It was a really nice and somber experience.....

This fine lady sold me some of the best sweet corn, cooked over an open flame that I've ever had.  It was a bit of a gamble, but at this point in the day the threat of an explosion in my stomach was overcome by my desire to devour sweet, sweet delicious corn!

This is a view of the ceiling in the entry way through the gates leading to the Bibi Ka Maqbara.  The attention to detail here was amazing!

There were also some Buddhist caves near the Bibi Ka Maqbara that were cool to see.  The Aurangabad Caves are 12 Buddhist caves, dating back to 3 A.D., that depicted Avalokitesvara, in another - Bodhisatva.  The depiction of Avalokitesvara was really awesome.  It represents the Bodhisatva Padmapani as "Saviour of Eight Great Perils" - Fire, Theft, Demon, Elephant, Lions, Shipwreck, Snake, Monkey.

After viewing these caves we also visited the Ellora Caves which were amazing!  Not so much a cave, but better described as a huge group of temples cut out of a mountain!  These were built between the 5th and 10th century.  There are he 12 Buddhist, 17 Hindu and 5 Jain caves all built in close proximity to one another, demonstrating the religious harmony prevalent during this period in Indian.

These caves were full of BATS!!!!!!!  The sound and smell from the bats was unmistakable, but when I looked up and saw the furry little guys looking down at me that's when I had seen enough of these caves!

Cave 16, also known as the Kailasa or the Kailasanatha, is the centerpiece of Ellora. This is designed to recall Mount Kailash, the abode of Lord Shiva– looks like a freestanding, multi-storeyed temple complex, but it was carved out of one single rock, and covers an area double the size of Parthenon in Athens. Initially the temple was covered with white plaster thus even more increasing the similarity to snow covered Mount Kailash - Thanks Wikipedia for helping me with this description:-)

This guy came out of nowhere and scared Zenia and I!  Niti told Zenia that the monkeys would steal her milk so she had to wait until we got into the car to have it.  Once in the car Zenia fell asleep, but as soon as she woke up she asked if the monkeys had stolen her milk while she slept!

This monkey and I shared a granola bar.  It was a very enriching experience.  We also exchanged Facebook contact info, but I have yet to hear from her.  I think she was only after my granola bar.


The visit to Aurangabad was topped off with a trip to the Panchakki.  This is a medieval watermill that was used to grind grain for the pilgrims in India.  Not much to see, but I did meet with a Muslim cleric while visiting a mosque with a Muslim friend.  The cleric blessed me and thanked me for coming to see God's work.  


This was a very humbling experience and certainly stuck with me that two different people, of two completely opposite cultures can come together and unite at a holy spot.  It also made me question myself because initially while meeting this gentleman I had my doubts whether or not he would acknowledge me at all as I am an American.  I was very wrong with this judgement and it showed me just how foolish our assumptions can be.


The last update is from today....  While leaving the Lonikand facility this afternoon my driver hit a large boulder that ruptured our gas tank!  Diesel spewed out all over the road and I seriously thought the car was going to blow up.  Fortunately, it did not blow up and after a 3 hour delay to patch the gas tank Shashikant, myself and the Ford Ikon were back on the road!