Last night I was reading a talk on Isan given by Osho on November 1, 1988. When I read this a deep realization stung my brain :
After sudden enlightenment, a certain cultivation is needed because the sudden can become a
glimpse. Your sleepiness is so deep, your unconsciousness is so vast that a sudden glimpse, a
lightning... and again dark clouds have taken over. That beautiful moment will be remembered by
you; you will start even doubting it: ”Did it happen or did I imagine it? Was it a reality or a dream?”
But the sweetness of it will remain with you. The fragrance of it will remain with you.
Cultivation after enlightenment simply means to avoid any situation that can destroy your glimpse.
You have to pour your whole energy into the glimpse to make it more and more authentic, more and
more deeply rooted in you, so that it becomes an indubitable truth. No clouds can destroy it and no
sleepiness, no inertia is able to take it away from you.
When I was 23 I spent a summer in meditation. I did not go to a temple, rather, wherever my body was, that is where I meditated - at home, at work, while walking or running through the woods and fields, while playing guitar on the bank of a creek. Zen and Buddhism were new to my mind, and I felt that if what they shared were true, that there was indeed a path and a way to inner peace and happiness, then I wanted to be a part of it. Perhaps it was all a ruse, though, but I had nothing to lose by practicing what I believed to be the heart of it all - simply focusing the mind upon the breath, with nothing else required. The determination and diligence I put into it astonishes me today - I was living the life of a monk without master and temple, without guidance from a living person, I only had the words from ancient texts to guide me through the thorny days of work and rest.
Changes began to happen inside of me, in the mind, and with it came insights and peace and smiling. On a certain day I was given what Osho calls a glimpse. At the time I did not know it was a glimpse, I only knew that a strong shell inside of me had shattered, and this allowed a radiant light to infuse my being. I was thunderstruck, overwhelmed with surprise and remember thinking as the light washed over me - "does everyone live like this, I feel so foolish to have lived with my eyes pointed toward the darkness all these years." A few moments later I knew that no, not everyone lived like this, for if they did there would be no wars, no killing, no discrimination, no sorrow - the earth would be filled with light beings who had cracked the code of the senses.
The reason I am writing about that special and rare day is because I did not know what to do with it, how to relate to it, and did not know how to sustain it. For it was only a glimpse, and after 24 hours the shell inside of me began to heal and the light was again being cut off. I fed off the memory of it, and to this day still recall the sensations and the experience vividly. When I read the above quote from Osho I was able to see where I had gone wrong - I had continued to meditate for the rest of the summer, but I allowed the meditation to slip away with the coming of a new year, and this allowed the glimpse to merely become a relic of memory, and no longer a reality of my being. It inspired me for all the rest of my days, but I was no longer living in the light. What should have been done was to continue meditating, every day, and as Isan says, cultivating the glimpse so that it can be sustained and perhaps even grow.
When I began meditating in Eugene I intuitively knew it was the key to returning to the light. The illness prevented me from focusing upon it, but now that I am healing I can begin again, fresh, given yet another chance to crack the inner hull of the mind. Whether I am successful or not is not as important as the effort. I now know that meditation is all it is said to be, I simply have to practice it with a sincere heart and a dogged determination.
