00:00:01.160 --> 00:00:03.159
Kris Ashley: Just just to say, there's no pressure.

00:00:03.700 --> 00:00:04.700
Kris Ashley: Yeah, right?

00:00:05.030 --> 00:00:29.950
Kris Ashley: Hi, everyone. Welcome to the change. Your mind podcast. Where we explore the intersection between personal development, spirituality and science. We are gonna dive deep into the spiritual component today. And I'm really excited to do that. I have 2 amazing, amazing guests. But before I introduce them couple of quick announcements, if you head to the links in the show notes you will find all sorts of goodies. You'll find a link to my book. Change your mind to change your reality.

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Kris Ashley: You will find links to my guest links. You'll find courses free downloads, live master classes

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Kris Ashley: all sorts of things. And then, as always, this, podcast is part of the Los Angeles Tribune podcast network, we are doing a lot in the personal development realm. We're starting to have events. Things are getting really exciting. So be sure to check us out there.

00:00:51.470 --> 00:01:08.479
Kris Ashley: Okay, I am so excited for today's episode because I have 2 of the most special people on with me. I have Saban and Shanti, so Subon and Shanti run the world of Meditation Center in Seattle, where they share the meditations and wisdom of their teacher Osha.

00:01:08.808 --> 00:01:33.150
Kris Ashley: They have been practicing meditation for over 40 years, and have traveled the world both as students and teachers of spiritual study. And just on a personal note, these 2 humans are 2 of the most beautiful people that I've ever met. I consider them to your friends and teachers. We've I've gotten to work with them over the years, and they are just phenomenal. So tune into this episode like comment, share, subscribe

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Kris Ashley: Suvan and Shanti welcome. Thank you so much for being here.

00:01:36.830 --> 00:01:40.014
Subhan: Thank you, Chris. It's it's a pleasure to be with you.


00:01:40.620 --> 00:02:03.080
Kris Ashley: Pleasure is all mine. Okay? So I start off every single podcast episode the same way. And that is by asking my guests what their origin story is so I wanna hear from both of you. You know. What is it that led you to Osha's teachings in the 1st place? And how did you even get started? I think you both met him in India? Right? So tell me, tell me that story, for both of you.

00:02:03.870 --> 00:02:05.389
Subhan: Alright. Well

00:02:05.740 --> 00:02:06.559
Subhan: for me.

00:02:07.470 --> 00:02:09.430
Subhan: I I actually

00:02:10.130 --> 00:02:12.610
Subhan: had moved to California

00:02:12.660 --> 00:02:20.899
Subhan: when I was around. I can't remember 22. I lived in Mendocino, California, and I heard the word meditation.

00:02:22.550 --> 00:02:29.578
Subhan: and the minute I heard the word I it was like, I've gotta learn that I've gotta do that. I didn't know what it was.

00:02:29.950 --> 00:02:34.450
Subhan: I would read a few books, couldn't understand a word of it.

00:02:35.720 --> 00:02:50.049
Subhan: but I just knew I had to do it, and I I A friend of mine was into the zawsin, and th that's 1 of the books I read, even though I didn't understand it. That's what I wanted to do. I wanted to sit sauce. And

00:02:50.630 --> 00:02:55.074
Subhan: and so my 1st time, sitting Zazin.


00:02:56.160 --> 00:03:04.480
Subhan: I sat on a cushion. It was in the countryside, Mendocino. It was yeah in Mendocino. And


00:03:05.960 --> 00:03:10.530
Subhan: I felt all this pain shoot up my spine.

00:03:11.040 --> 00:03:15.209
Subhan: and though I didn't know anything really

00:03:15.230 --> 00:03:17.760
Subhan: of this realm.


00:03:18.117 --> 00:03:44.472
Subhan: I had heard the word Kundalini and I went, wow! Is this my Kundalini rising? I didn't know what it was, you know, but this pain was in shooting up my son, and then, after a a sec, I I would say, like the most 2 min I my legs were hurting my. This pain was up and down my spine, everything, and I I rolled off the cushion. These little black cushions you sit on.

00:03:45.050 --> 00:03:49.020
Subhan: and there was a bee I had sat on a B.

00:03:49.020 --> 00:03:50.320
Kris Ashley: Oh, my! Gosh!

00:03:50.910 --> 00:03:52.140
Kris Ashley: Oh, my! Gosh!


00:03:52.140 --> 00:03:53.769
Subhan: Okay, going up, Mike.


00:03:54.960 --> 00:04:03.970
Subhan: And I just laugh, even though I knew nothing of meditation or anything. I went. This is perfect, for Zen


00:04:05.910 --> 00:04:15.518
Subhan: feel like I I actually feel. And I once asked, Oh, show the mystic I'm connected with. It's just that I feel I have meditated before. And he, yeah, and he acknowledged, I


00:04:15.940 --> 00:04:20.670
Subhan: I had meditate I don't know meditated before, but


00:04:21.160 --> 00:04:30.019
Subhan: but I, who I am now, didn't know anything about that world, but what I did know was I couldn't sit still.


00:04:30.420 --> 00:04:32.029
Subhan: I I just couldn't.


00:04:32.483 --> 00:04:43.749
Subhan: I tried saus in a few times, and and it was, though there was no, B. It was very painful, you know, and 2 I mean really 5 min, or


00:04:43.780 --> 00:04:46.139
Subhan: it just it wasn't working.

00:04:46.340 --> 00:04:47.100
Subhan: And


00:04:48.290 --> 00:04:51.659
Subhan: Somehow I had money saved


00:04:51.980 --> 00:04:53.750
Subhan: to go to India.


00:04:54.330 --> 00:04:56.970
Subhan: and at a certain point


00:04:57.130 --> 00:05:11.509
Subhan: my friend said, You know I think it's your time you go to India. Everything you could learn from Mendocino is is over, you know you've learned your lesson, and I felt he was right. I and


00:05:12.886 --> 00:05:13.433
Subhan: and


00:05:15.170 --> 00:05:18.389
Subhan: I didn't really know what Gurus were


00:05:19.710 --> 00:05:27.079
Subhan: at all. I didn't know at all what they were, and I actually was on my way to meet a Zen master in


00:05:27.270 --> 00:05:36.620
Subhan: in Japan. I didn't know any Zen masters. I was just gonna go to Japan and me to send master. That was my journey, but I went via

00:05:36.910 --> 00:05:39.259
Subhan: Europe, and then India.


00:05:40.680 --> 00:05:44.700
Subhan: and I always said I met my Zen master in India.


00:05:44.850 --> 00:05:58.178
Subhan: because when I got into India I was in Delhi, and I met within, I always say within 10 min it might have been longer, but I met these 2 young people who were disciples of Oshaw.


00:05:58.890 --> 00:06:02.310
Subhan: and one of them was telling me about


00:06:02.800 --> 00:06:06.430
Subhan: just mentioning how they were going to a meditation cap.


00:06:06.900 --> 00:06:07.860
Subhan: and


00:06:08.040 --> 00:06:10.240
Subhan: as she was saying it.


00:06:10.330 --> 00:06:13.140
Subhan: an inner voice inside me went.


00:06:13.510 --> 00:06:25.990
Subhan: oh, you're going to meet that man when you go to Bombay, and it's about 3,000 miles away, Delhi and Bombay, about 3,000 miles away, I, or something like that. And


00:06:26.090 --> 00:06:29.490
Subhan: and I remember. Go I you know the eye was like


00:06:30.330 --> 00:06:38.529
Subhan: not the deeper interface with the eye. I mean I I was just a hippie traveling in India, and


00:06:39.240 --> 00:07:01.989
Subhan: Well, 9 months later, like there was a long story in between, but there I was. On Christmas Day I had met a disciple of Oh, shows in Nepal, and she and I began traveling together, and at 1 point she said, I just want you to meet Osho. And so on Christmas Day, 1973 I met Osha


00:07:02.630 --> 00:07:03.670
Subhan: and


00:07:04.380 --> 00:07:05.020
Subhan: I


00:07:06.450 --> 00:07:23.140
Subhan: just sitting in his presence. I had met other some other gurus, too, and and like Nim Crow, maybe you've heard of him that was rammed us as Guru, and he just waved me away like he just went like that. And


00:07:23.430 --> 00:07:29.499
Subhan: I remember thinking he doesn't want me as a disciple, but I don't know who was thinking that thought cause


00:07:30.560 --> 00:07:39.210
Subhan: I didn't a anyway, but some part of me knew he didn't want me. It. It turned out a few months later. He


00:07:39.350 --> 00:07:42.690
Subhan: like, about 3 months later, he actually passed.


00:07:43.040 --> 00:07:54.609
Subhan: and I happened to be in Nepal, and I met these 2 young women who were crying in a in a In a very early in the morning, in a little tea shop, and

00:07:54.710 --> 00:08:10.866
Subhan: and I said and there were beautiful tears. I can't, I can't describe it. It wasn't sad, it was some beauty was there, and I said, Why are you crying? And they said our master passed, and there was no Google or no Internet. Then nothing but


00:08:11.210 --> 00:08:30.909
Subhan: a bird had woken one of them up, and she started playing her flute in the night, and then a telegram. It was all. Then you might might not know what telegrams are, but telegram came that their master had died, and and I said, Oh, he sent me away, and they said, Oh, he sent all of us away.


00:08:31.060 --> 00:08:39.869
Subhan: you know, except for a few disciples. But anyway, that's an aside. So I met him, but but when I met also


00:08:40.289 --> 00:08:45.944
Subhan: I fell into a state of meditation. I I'm what to me was.


00:08:47.100 --> 00:08:57.220
Subhan: I went into meditation. I just the body was still. I moved in, and then he asked me, well, tell me about your meditation.


00:08:58.030 --> 00:09:00.650
Subhan: and I was so shocked because


00:09:00.690 --> 00:09:20.495
Subhan: no one. Ha! No other Guru I had met had asked me about my meditation, which I couldn't do, you know, anyway, and so I said, Well, I I want to meditate, but I can't sit still, and I was sure he was gonna say, well, then, you have to leave. You have to go because you have to be able to sit still.


00:09:21.310 --> 00:09:30.529
Subhan: But he didn't. He had a big smile on his face, and he said, No, it's very difficult in this day and age you're especially you're from the West.


00:09:30.910 --> 00:09:56.040
Subhan: It's not even considered proper to sit still. That's the devil's hands, you know, were. And he said, but and your body isn't used sitting in these postures. But he said, even for Indians, and this is 1973, it's harder for them to sit still now, and he said, that's why he developed active meditations.


00:09:56.400 --> 00:10:05.409
Subhan: and he said, You do my meditations, and I promise you'll be able to sit still, and I was so thirsty, so he gave


00:10:06.350 --> 00:10:20.489
Subhan: over the years different meditations to to experiment with and 5 years later he suddenly turned to me out of the blue, and said, Oh, now you can sit sauce it!


00:10:21.300 --> 00:10:23.280
Subhan: I was so shocked


00:10:23.580 --> 00:10:29.359
Subhan: that he had said that, but he even remembered. And and also

00:10:29.740 --> 00:10:31.370
Subhan: I didn't really want to


00:10:31.560 --> 00:10:34.309
Subhan: just sit. I wanted to do active


00:10:34.350 --> 00:10:40.350
Subhan: meditations, but I did do Az, in course, which had active meditations and city.


00:10:40.670 --> 00:10:45.161
Subhan: But now I'm 77. So I like to sit.


00:10:47.365 --> 00:10:55.889
Subhan: But I did so many active meditations. I'm so grateful, and that's that to me, was what I wanted to share.


00:10:56.150 --> 00:11:20.659
Subhan: When I came back from India many years later. It's like I just maybe there's other people who wanna meditate accounts that. Still, maybe these meditation techniques will guide them to into the inner world, so they'll find where they're to be, where where their journeys to start. It might not be with show. It might be with someone else. It doesn't matter. It's just so. These are.


00:11:20.670 --> 00:11:25.149
Subhan: This is, these are keys to help us move inside.


00:11:25.280 --> 00:11:26.510
Subhan: So that's


00:11:26.530 --> 00:11:28.109
Subhan: that's my thing.


00:11:28.660 --> 00:11:50.429
Kris Ashley: Thank you so much for sharing your story. I I always think about that, too, cause you've shared it with me before about how you told him you couldn't sit still, and he didn't judge you or push you away. And it's like, Oh, well, I've developed a meditation for that. So yeah, and we're gonna talk about the meditations, too, because they're so powerful Subon, I'd love to hear your story.


00:11:51.110 --> 00:11:51.850
Subhan: Okay.


00:11:52.693 --> 00:11:58.619
Subhan: well, I was a criminal lawyer in Baltimore City, so you can only imagine


00:11:58.770 --> 00:12:00.880
Subhan: what that is like


00:12:00.980 --> 00:12:11.260
Subhan: to have a caseloads every single day, 5 days a week, and also going to penitentiaries and interviewing clients and doing all that


00:12:11.540 --> 00:12:13.529
Subhan: for 7 years.

00:12:14.007 --> 00:12:22.700
Subhan: And the 1st couple of years. It was actually exciting, you know, to be in court to be a defense attorney, and


00:12:22.790 --> 00:12:28.040
Subhan: I learned my lessons well about law, and I I really enjoyed. And then


00:12:28.220 --> 00:12:34.139
Subhan: everything started to go downhill. My relationship with my 1st wife also was


00:12:34.330 --> 00:12:37.689
Subhan: kind of breaking apart at that time, and


00:12:37.960 --> 00:12:39.869
Subhan: it just got really clear


00:12:40.420 --> 00:12:44.769
Subhan: that something was awry, and I didn't know what it was.


00:12:46.449 --> 00:13:01.920
Subhan: I was going to the Green Earth Vegetarian Restaurant. I had become a vegetarian at that time. This is back in 1979, January, and I saw a friend of mine from high school that I hadn't seen like in 14 years.


00:13:03.220 --> 00:13:17.994
Subhan: and we looked at each other, and we laughed and smiled, and gave hugs. And then he said, How are you doing? And then I heard myself say something that I never said before, probably never since. Do you really want to know?


00:13:18.480 --> 00:13:23.129
Subhan: And he looked at me with a really sincere look on his face, and he said, Yes.


00:13:23.380 --> 00:13:24.780
Subhan: how are you doing?


00:13:25.210 --> 00:13:26.670
Subhan: And I said, well.


00:13:27.030 --> 00:13:33.440
Subhan: and the words that came out, W, where I feel like I'm taking 3 steps forward and 10 steps backwards.


00:13:33.994 --> 00:13:35.734
Subhan: I'm I'm in a


00:13:36.360 --> 00:13:47.460
Subhan: a profession that I'm not happy with at all. And maybe I'm getting closer to leading it. But I don't know what the next step is, and there's so many questions I have about so many things. I just


00:13:48.280 --> 00:13:50.190
Subhan: it's a bit of a chaos.


00:13:50.650 --> 00:13:52.801
Subhan: Well, he said, you know, next to the


00:13:53.360 --> 00:13:58.230
Subhan: the green earth there's the Aquarian Age bookstore, which was owned by his brother


00:13:58.460 --> 00:13:59.900
Subhan: Bennett Hoffman.


00:13:59.980 --> 00:14:03.580
Subhan: and he said, Why don't you go in and chat with him? Maybe he could

00:14:03.650 --> 00:14:05.920
Subhan: give you some understanding.

00:14:06.090 --> 00:14:10.370
Subhan: So I went in, and he in those days. He was one of the 1st that had


00:14:10.960 --> 00:14:16.130
Subhan: overstuffed sofas and chairs that you could actually really get


00:14:16.270 --> 00:14:20.319
Subhan: into and relax into and read some of his books.


00:14:20.410 --> 00:14:34.850
Subhan: so I sat down, and he came over and introduced himself and I again I heard myself say something that was very strange, but it it. These are the words that came out of all the books in this store. Is there one you'd recommend over all the others?

00:14:35.530 --> 00:14:52.509
Subhan: He looked at me, and I can only describe that. There was a twinkle in his eye, and he went like this with his finger, and he directed me over to a table that had maybe 8 or 9 books, all by Baghuan Shri Rajanish, which is the name that he was known as at that time.


00:14:52.825 --> 00:15:09.849
Subhan: And I look, and they all have pictures of Oshaw and and these really strange garb. And there was a photo shoot of him with about 20 hats from all over the world. Somebody brought him a collection of hats. So they took photographs. Well, they became the pictures on these these books.


00:15:10.070 --> 00:15:19.260
Subhan: And boy, was that weird just to see all these, and some part of me said, Oh, my God! Not another Guru bullshitter.


00:15:19.570 --> 00:15:26.169
Subhan: because at that time I had been reading everything I could put my hands on RAM das Mayor Baba Krishna Murdi!


00:15:27.390 --> 00:15:37.080
Subhan: I don't know. I can keep on going there. Victor Frankel, Alan Watts, and I would feel like I was getting some kind of


00:15:37.250 --> 00:15:43.260
Subhan: intellectual understanding, but no experience that that could back it up that could make it something real.


00:15:44.210 --> 00:15:50.649
Subhan: anyway. Beside the fact that I said that I picked up 3 of his books and bought them and took them home.


00:15:51.610 --> 00:16:01.529
Subhan: The 1st book was a a book that was originally published in India, and then made in the Us. By an American firm called Only One Sky.


00:16:01.640 --> 00:16:06.199
Subhan: the the Indian name for it was Tantra, the supreme understanding.


00:16:06.540 --> 00:16:08.650
Subhan: the song of Telopa.


00:16:09.440 --> 00:16:15.060
Subhan: one of the 4 Tantric masters from the Himalayas.


00:16:16.360 --> 00:16:19.040
Subhan: I opened it up. I started reading it.


00:16:20.830 --> 00:16:22.479
Subhan: I started laughing.


00:16:23.420 --> 00:16:25.019
Subhan: I started crying.


00:16:26.410 --> 00:16:31.599
Subhan: I felt that he was saying things that I always knew, but I could never put into words.


00:16:32.050 --> 00:16:36.400
Subhan: These are just an attempt to put in into words what was happening.


00:16:36.400 --> 00:16:37.130
Kris Ashley: Yeah.


00:16:38.490 --> 00:16:39.719
Subhan: And it just


00:16:39.910 --> 00:16:43.500
Subhan: hit me to the core that he was what he was saying.


00:16:44.380 --> 00:16:46.950
Subhan: I read a little more and put the book down.


00:16:49.300 --> 00:16:54.699
Subhan: came back to it later that evening. Next thing I knew is, I was reading the whole book.


00:16:56.310 --> 00:17:01.459
Subhan: and I, I even know, still know parts of it, although it took me 4 readings


00:17:01.670 --> 00:17:02.740
Subhan: over the


00:17:03.090 --> 00:17:05.099
Subhan: 30 years later.


00:17:05.250 --> 00:17:10.100
Subhan: and also to listen to him on tape because he was also recorded.


00:17:10.900 --> 00:17:11.610
Subhan: And


00:17:13.650 --> 00:17:20.960
Subhan: I knew that something had to change, something was going to change. I didn't know what it was. It was absolutely a mystery to me.


00:17:23.170 --> 00:17:25.540
Subhan: Within a very short period of time


00:17:26.220 --> 00:17:30.359
Subhan: it was clear to me that I didn't want to stay practicing law anymore.


00:17:31.560 --> 00:17:33.319
Subhan: I gave a 2 week notice.


00:17:35.470 --> 00:17:37.620
Subhan: and I


00:17:38.410 --> 00:17:39.200
Subhan: stopped


00:17:39.510 --> 00:17:40.230
Subhan: law


00:17:40.350 --> 00:17:42.130
Subhan: on April 1st


00:17:43.090 --> 00:17:43.800
Subhan: April.


00:17:43.800 --> 00:17:44.710
Kris Ashley: We'll stay.


00:17:44.710 --> 00:17:46.260
Subhan: Wednesday, 19 7.


00:17:47.780 --> 00:17:49.670
Subhan: I woke up the next day.


00:17:50.250 --> 00:17:54.795
Subhan: and I got out of bed, made some breakfast, did a few things in the house.


00:17:55.240 --> 00:18:08.139
Subhan: got in the car, went over to the library, and I'd always wanted to just be in the library and explore without any notion that I had to be doing something at some future moment that day.


00:18:08.590 --> 00:18:11.719
Subhan: Well, here was a day. It was totally open.


00:18:12.450 --> 00:18:18.010
Subhan: I read the newspaper from cover to cover. I read the the Newsweek Magazine


00:18:18.300 --> 00:18:19.749
Subhan: from cover to cover.


00:18:21.230 --> 00:18:26.046
Subhan: At that time that was the the Liberal Magazine, as opposed to time, the more conservative one


00:18:26.730 --> 00:18:27.373
Subhan: and


00:18:28.820 --> 00:18:32.860
Subhan: Then I got hungry, and it was like, What am I gonna do? Okay, well, there's


00:18:33.120 --> 00:18:34.560
Subhan: it's pizzaria.


00:18:35.010 --> 00:18:38.229
Subhan: About 4 blocks away. Went to the pizzeria.


00:18:38.700 --> 00:18:42.240
Subhan: ordered pizza and realized I didn't have to rush.


00:18:42.490 --> 00:18:45.330
Subhan: I'd had nowhere to go. I had nothing I had to do.


00:18:45.830 --> 00:18:51.259
Subhan: It was the 1st time that I could remember in my life that I had that feeling.


00:18:51.900 --> 00:18:54.760
Subhan: and the pizza was so delicious.


00:18:55.630 --> 00:18:59.800
Subhan: and I I consumed out about 2 or 3 pieces, cause I could buy it by the piece. There.


00:19:00.750 --> 00:19:04.340
Subhan: I went back to the library. I checked out a couple of books.


00:19:04.700 --> 00:19:06.040
Subhan: I came home.


00:19:07.670 --> 00:19:19.470
Subhan: I did a few things like I can't even remember what I played the piano. I had a upright piano in in the the tenant house that I was living in on a 370 acre farm.


00:19:20.220 --> 00:19:24.990
Subhan: and it was the 1st time that I went through a whole day.


00:19:25.880 --> 00:19:28.040
Subhan: but nothing that I had to do.


00:19:29.190 --> 00:19:50.100
Subhan: and that became a small key that was kind of ingrained in a lot of the the sharing that I do with people about asking them to take a blank piece of paper. Put a line down right, everything you do, and and and your particular day, yesterday or today, and what you want to do and what you have to do.


00:19:51.300 --> 00:19:53.469
Subhan: Because I realized that day


00:19:54.150 --> 00:19:57.330
Subhan: there was nothing I had to do.


00:19:58.350 --> 00:20:02.259
Subhan: and it was the most freedom I'd ever felt in my entire life.


00:20:03.500 --> 00:20:06.599
Subhan: and it was the beginning of a whole new way of


00:20:06.890 --> 00:20:09.080
Subhan: experiencing life and


00:20:09.620 --> 00:20:13.599
Subhan: finding my way through this maze of mystery and


00:20:14.460 --> 00:20:17.799
Subhan: pain and misunderstandings.


00:20:18.960 --> 00:20:21.289
Subhan: But I did read in one of the books that


00:20:21.300 --> 00:20:29.580
Subhan: he was in. In that time he had gone to Puna, India from Bombay, and that he was available.


00:20:30.400 --> 00:20:31.990
Subhan: And I just realized.


00:20:32.080 --> 00:20:33.899
Subhan: I've I've got to meet this guy.


00:20:34.060 --> 00:20:34.900
Subhan: So


00:20:35.600 --> 00:20:49.999
Subhan: by the time I really decided I wanted to do that, it was early June of 79, my daughter and I went to breakfast at a restaurant about 30 miles from where I lived, because we were in the country deep in the country.


00:20:50.370 --> 00:20:52.804
Subhan: in Howard County, in in Maryland.


00:20:53.810 --> 00:20:54.545
Subhan: And


00:20:55.960 --> 00:21:02.540
Subhan: I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to take care of the house, I decided, okay, I'm going to get a 3 month visa.


00:21:02.550 --> 00:21:08.469
Subhan: and I'm going to go. Be there for 3 months, and then I'm going to come back. I'm I'm I'm with my daughter every other week.


00:21:08.520 --> 00:21:14.830
Subhan: She's with her mom one week with me in the next week, and her elementary school was right down the road from where I lived.


00:21:16.240 --> 00:21:22.129
Subhan: and I'm sitting there, and there's a table next to us, and there's 2 women talking, and one woman says to the other one.


00:21:22.260 --> 00:21:24.909
Subhan: You know I need a place to stay


00:21:25.292 --> 00:21:30.289
Subhan: not permanent, but maybe for the next. I don't know. 3 to 6 months.


00:21:31.670 --> 00:21:38.190
Subhan: and I'm sitting there going. Is this real? And I said, I have a space


00:21:38.540 --> 00:21:41.719
Subhan: in in Howard County about maybe 30 miles from here


00:21:41.750 --> 00:21:45.229
Subhan: that's going to be available for 3 months. Are you interested?


00:21:45.250 --> 00:21:51.340
Subhan: And she said, Oh, I'm definitely interested. So we made arrangements for her to come and look at the place. I got my tickets


00:21:51.440 --> 00:21:52.680
Subhan: September


00:21:53.160 --> 00:21:56.700
Subhan: 27th I was on a plane to India


00:21:58.470 --> 00:21:59.981
Subhan: feeling like I was


00:22:00.460 --> 00:22:05.709
Subhan: a a piece of metal being pulled by a magnet. That's the only way I describe it


00:22:06.310 --> 00:22:07.640
Subhan: arrived in Puda


00:22:07.700 --> 00:22:12.610
Subhan: October second, 1979. I went into


00:22:12.700 --> 00:22:18.880
Subhan: what is called Darshan, which means to see the master, and and I took signing us from him.


00:22:19.530 --> 00:22:34.940
Subhan: What! That's another long story, Sainas. What is Sinaias? But as he was talking to me, he was this ordinary human being sitting on a chair, gesticulating with his hand, and talking to me about the name that he had given me.


00:22:35.640 --> 00:22:38.759
Subhan: And I'm looking, and I suddenly I look into his eyes.


00:22:41.120 --> 00:22:43.280
Subhan: and I'm shocked


00:22:45.190 --> 00:22:47.400
Subhan: because there's nobody home


00:22:48.880 --> 00:22:58.625
Subhan: on the surface. Ordinary human being speaking ordinary English, perfectly understandable, gesticulating with the hand. I'm assuming it was his left hand. That's what I remember.


00:23:01.040 --> 00:23:02.909
Subhan: and there's nobody home.


00:23:03.320 --> 00:23:10.049
Subhan: And I looked a little deeper, and I realized that I could go into those eyes and disappear.


00:23:11.720 --> 00:23:18.270
Subhan: and for a moment I started moving in that direction, and I got so scared.


00:23:19.140 --> 00:23:21.920
Subhan: That I was going to disappear, that I pulled back.


00:23:26.120 --> 00:23:35.790
Subhan: and then I didn't remember anything that he said, except when he was talking. My name is Proto Subhan, and he was talking about proto prayer, and he said.


00:23:35.910 --> 00:23:36.890
Subhan: prayer


00:23:37.840 --> 00:23:40.180
Subhan: is a prayer to God.


00:23:43.520 --> 00:23:54.749
Subhan: but it is a silent prayer to God. No words will get you to God. That's the only thing I can remember of about 15 min with him and him talking to me


00:23:58.790 --> 00:24:05.729
Subhan: later. I so I stayed for 3 months, and I'm on a train going back to Bombay to get the flight back to the Us.


00:24:05.760 --> 00:24:10.809
Subhan: And I'm trying to find the person who made the decision to stay there for 3 months because I didn't wanna leave.


00:24:11.640 --> 00:24:21.890
Subhan: And there were quite a number of people who actually stayed there the whole period from 1973 4 all the way up to 1981, when he left and came to the Us.


00:24:25.070 --> 00:24:26.430
Subhan: But I I just


00:24:26.450 --> 00:24:30.950
Subhan: recognize that whoever had gone there was no longer present.


00:24:32.860 --> 00:24:34.830
Subhan: and I had tremendous


00:24:34.910 --> 00:24:37.060
Subhan: sadness for leaving.


00:24:37.450 --> 00:24:40.200
Subhan: so I made a decision that I was going to return


00:24:40.370 --> 00:24:46.150
Subhan: took me a year and a half before I actually was preparing to return, only to find out


00:24:46.490 --> 00:24:50.170
Subhan: by a phone call from New Jersey that he had arrived in the Us.


00:24:51.010 --> 00:24:56.869
Subhan: So maybe that's the point where I'll stop because you wanted to know more about Rajne's Forum and about


00:24:56.970 --> 00:25:02.459
Subhan: what happened since then. But I've been now a disciple for going on 45 years.


00:25:03.390 --> 00:25:05.600
Subhan: the most extraordinary years


00:25:06.050 --> 00:25:07.420
Subhan: imaginable.


00:25:08.330 --> 00:25:09.670
Subhan: the most


00:25:10.490 --> 00:25:11.860
Subhan: mysterious.


00:25:12.650 --> 00:25:13.810
Subhan: mystical.


00:25:15.740 --> 00:25:19.000
Subhan: beyond any comprehensive words to describe it.


00:25:19.320 --> 00:25:21.240
Subhan: and I'm beginning to love


00:25:21.320 --> 00:25:23.720
Subhan: the space where words fail.


00:25:24.330 --> 00:25:31.889
Subhan: And just recently I read a quote from Oshaw, where he said, except for silence, everything else is imagination.


00:25:32.560 --> 00:25:33.330
Kris Ashley: Hmm.


00:25:34.490 --> 00:25:36.000
Subhan: My God!


00:25:37.660 --> 00:25:43.209
Subhan: I recognized in in the experiences that I had with him since the beginning.


00:25:43.660 --> 00:25:48.790
Subhan: and who knows what other experiences there were before that what I call the beginning.


00:25:49.770 --> 00:25:50.550
Subhan: that


00:25:52.210 --> 00:25:55.600
Subhan: silence is the only essential nature.


00:25:56.160 --> 00:26:05.070
Subhan: and that everything else is built upon it, and can distort our experience and stop us from experiencing the silence.


00:26:07.640 --> 00:26:13.130
Kris Ashley: Thank you so much for sharing all of that. You know you were. You were talking about getting


00:26:13.320 --> 00:26:22.879
Kris Ashley: goosebumps and crying and laughing, and I I felt that as you were talking I had goosebumps so many times during your stories. I'm over here welling up because I can. Just


00:26:23.080 --> 00:26:31.959
Kris Ashley: I I can just feel it, I can. I can just feel that from you, and I had no idea what your story was, and I it was so great to hear it.


00:26:31.980 --> 00:26:33.130
Kris Ashley: And


00:26:34.140 --> 00:26:38.489
Kris Ashley: I I gotta tell you when you're when you were explaining what it was like to stare into his eyes.


00:26:38.570 --> 00:26:55.940
Kris Ashley: That was my experience. Staring into your 2 eyes, the 2 of you, and I think I say that in my book, and we I have a nanny watching my baby right now, and I was telling her how excited I was, cause I got to talk to you 2 today, and I was explaining who you were, and I said that same thing. So you have.


00:26:56.430 --> 00:26:59.870
Kris Ashley: you have embodied that yourself, both of you have.


00:27:00.030 --> 00:27:04.030
Kris Ashley: So so before we get into Rajneesh Puram


00:27:04.800 --> 00:27:09.749
Kris Ashley: For people who are listening and aren't familiar with Oshaw. You know what.


00:27:09.880 --> 00:27:20.929
Kris Ashley: Maybe you could tell us a little bit about what his main teachings are, what maybe his most profound teaching that you've taken away is just so. People have a little bit of a sense of like what it is that he teaches.


00:27:22.280 --> 00:27:24.399
Subhan: You want to go first.st


00:27:24.400 --> 00:27:25.857
Kris Ashley: I know that's a big ask.


00:27:26.100 --> 00:27:28.519
Subhan: Do you? Do you have a couple of years?


00:27:29.770 --> 00:27:39.890
Subhan: No, I I okay, okay for me. I'm gonna say the active meditations are really really important for this day and age


00:27:40.480 --> 00:27:43.100
Subhan: also his discourses are


00:27:45.250 --> 00:27:55.120
Subhan: you know I'm not sat with other mystics. So you haven't really been a disciple of other mystics, at least in this life. So. But the discourses


00:27:55.240 --> 00:27:57.540
Subhan: he speaks on


00:27:57.590 --> 00:28:00.190
Subhan: so many different topics


00:28:00.200 --> 00:28:11.659
Subhan: and areas from politics. He would speak on politics. I would sit there. Why are you talking politics, you know that's not spear. So I remember thinking that. But, oh, my God! I'm so grateful


00:28:11.990 --> 00:28:24.371
Subhan: that he it I. Somehow I imbibed it when I watch the circuses that are going on now to, and I can really understand more what's happening.


00:28:25.410 --> 00:28:26.530
Subhan: from Mac.


00:28:26.550 --> 00:28:42.039
Subhan: The other thing to me that's really was really important. I mean, this is for me is, I had been in a marriage before coming to Oshaw that ended. But we we didn't make love enough. And I I wanted


00:28:42.170 --> 00:28:49.590
Subhan: more love making and and so even before I met Osha, I mean being in California.


00:28:49.760 --> 00:28:56.180
Subhan: In the early early seventies it was just available. You could experiment


00:28:56.250 --> 00:28:58.337
Subhan: with that realm and


00:28:59.540 --> 00:29:01.799
Subhan: and I. I had met some


00:29:02.490 --> 00:29:26.700
Subhan: other people who are with a different with it, some guru, but they had to repress their be. They had to be celibate in their meditation with their guru, and I remember looking at them, and I could feel they were dripping with hormones. I mean, they were young like me. I I knew what it was to wanna make love and not be able to. And there I was looking at it, you know, and I remember going.


00:29:26.760 --> 00:29:33.979
Subhan: I wanna meet a group who I mean if I do, or whatever they are, I didn't even know what they were, but I mean he has to like sex.


00:29:34.800 --> 00:29:37.079
Subhan: And and Oshaw!


00:29:37.420 --> 00:29:39.460
Subhan: It's not against sex.


00:29:39.670 --> 00:29:52.339
Subhan: It's not, I mean, and even there's ways you can use it like if you where you can move into deep meditation. And that was my experience was actually in orgasm.


00:29:53.170 --> 00:30:00.170
Subhan: You, the mind is gone. You're you're in another dimension, you know. It's just. It's temporary.


00:30:00.250 --> 00:30:05.599
Subhan: temporary, but it goes, you know, and so I I love that part.


00:30:05.830 --> 00:30:10.369
Subhan: And also he includes in his teachings.


00:30:11.480 --> 00:30:15.549
Subhan: A lot of dance. And I used to be a dancer.


00:30:15.690 --> 00:30:26.129
Subhan: And the last time I actually danced with I can't even think of her name. But and we see I felt it was in California, and I felt, wow! She's such a brief. Ann Halpern, I think, was her name.


00:30:26.130 --> 00:30:50.649
Subhan: Such a big ego! My other dance teachers didn't exist. Oh, some of them had but this one I went. If I ever met, I mean, if I ever have another dance, teacher has to be someone. No ego like just no just, no, no ego, and I need also, and a lot of meditations have dance and movement and celebration. So he'll work with those elements of


00:30:50.910 --> 00:30:52.600
Subhan: celebration.


00:30:52.700 --> 00:30:54.830
Subhan: And yet at the same time


00:30:55.970 --> 00:31:03.780
Subhan: he develops meditations where we cry for for 3 HA day, 7 days a week for 7 days.


00:31:03.890 --> 00:31:24.340
Subhan: called the Miss Rose. Yeah. So you move it. And and he'll explain the depth of the pain and and pain for many lives, actually, and how we have to experience our pain. And so it's like to me, he and it's like vast. The teachings are vast but incredibly vast.


00:31:24.660 --> 00:31:25.930
Subhan: I don't know.


00:31:26.160 --> 00:31:27.360
Subhan: And they


00:31:27.500 --> 00:31:28.319
Subhan: is it?


00:31:29.350 --> 00:31:30.150
Subhan: Yeah.


00:31:31.066 --> 00:31:32.139
Subhan: that's my.


00:31:32.310 --> 00:31:38.650
Kris Ashley: I I love those answers, and I just have to put my own little story in.


00:31:38.970 --> 00:31:55.509
Kris Ashley: I I remember before I met you to reading this amazing book called Letting Go the Pathway of Surrender. And it's all about how you have to release your repressed and suppressed emotions right to heal. And it was like, intellectually, I got that like, okay, yes, I understand that. But like, How do you do that?


00:31:55.600 --> 00:32:20.329
Kris Ashley: Right? And it wasn't until I met Youtube and did dynamic meditation. Oh, shows dynamic meditation. And that catharsis part, that I was finally like, okay, this is how you do it right? And and he even explains in that book, like emotions are layered like you might be feeling anger one moment, and then underneath that is sadness, and it switches, and that that's always been my experience in dynamic meditation with you, too. So


00:32:20.590 --> 00:32:24.030
Kris Ashley: I just yes, absolutely. The


00:32:24.290 --> 00:32:27.190
Kris Ashley: the moving meditations are so powerful.


00:32:27.410 --> 00:32:29.110
Kris Ashley: so so powerful.


00:32:29.971 --> 00:32:36.110
Kris Ashley: Subon, do you? Wanna just maybe tell me one or 2 of your favorite teachings by Osha or.


00:32:36.310 --> 00:32:38.229
Subhan: Well, here's what I'm gonna say.


00:32:43.160 --> 00:32:49.095
Subhan: In the 1st book, Tantra Tantra, the supreme understanding. He opens it up because


00:32:50.340 --> 00:32:56.583
Subhan: Telopes is saying to his disciple, Naropa, there were actually 4 in the lineage, and then it stopped.


00:32:57.703 --> 00:33:03.859
Subhan: That it it's impossible to put truth into words. But for you


00:33:04.820 --> 00:33:05.970
Subhan: the roper.


00:33:06.520 --> 00:33:08.000
Subhan: I'm gonna try and do it.


00:33:09.400 --> 00:33:12.419
Subhan: So that was like the 1st taste of a of a


00:33:12.760 --> 00:33:13.790
Subhan: very


00:33:14.090 --> 00:33:15.690
Subhan: extensive


00:33:15.790 --> 00:33:19.849
Subhan: experience and understanding that came to me from Osha.


00:33:20.320 --> 00:33:22.520
Subhan: And it it's just simply this.


00:33:23.510 --> 00:33:27.550
Subhan: There's a tremendous identification that we have with the mind.


00:33:28.370 --> 00:33:30.099
Subhan: The the bio computer.


00:33:30.830 --> 00:33:37.759
Subhan: And that's because of our upbringing. That's because of the way the mind functions. It's a number of different things. But this is the reality.


00:33:38.130 --> 00:33:40.540
Subhan: and along comes someone


00:33:41.080 --> 00:33:43.399
Subhan: who has climbed the mountain


00:33:43.770 --> 00:33:46.329
Subhan: all the way to the top and has


00:33:46.520 --> 00:33:48.950
Subhan: dissociated from the mind.


00:33:49.660 --> 00:33:55.930
Subhan: We call it enlightenment. We call it remembrance. We call it a number of different things.


00:33:56.600 --> 00:33:57.810
Subhan: So they're


00:33:57.970 --> 00:34:12.089
Subhan: in a reality. And they're they're in a mind body. But they're telling us that there's no more personality, that this personality has disappeared. So they're telling us a number of different things. So this was one of the keys for me


00:34:15.170 --> 00:34:19.405
Subhan: in my own understanding and learning, and in what I share.


00:34:21.280 --> 00:34:25.999
Subhan: how to get people who know nothing of what is beyond the mind.


00:34:26.550 --> 00:34:42.439
Subhan: to recognize that there is something beyond the mind. It's no thing, it's no mind, no thingness whatever you want to call it. It's the unmanifested all kinds of names, but they're irrelevant because the mind doesn't have any experience


00:34:42.739 --> 00:34:44.650
Subhan: to understand what it is.


00:34:45.420 --> 00:34:47.060
Subhan: So this is the 1st


00:34:47.250 --> 00:34:50.280
Subhan: huge major hurdle for everyone


00:34:51.429 --> 00:34:52.310
Subhan: to it.


00:34:52.429 --> 00:34:54.790
Subhan: Recognize on some level.


00:34:55.219 --> 00:34:57.659
Subhan: that there is something other than the mind.


00:34:58.850 --> 00:35:09.060
Subhan: And the fact was is that when I started to look, and Osha suggested this to look and experience, whether there's any moments where you


00:35:09.100 --> 00:35:20.120
Subhan: are in a state where the mind is not so active. And I remembered I remember 1st one I remembered I was 19 years old, and there was an automobile accident. I slid on ice


00:35:20.439 --> 00:35:39.619
Subhan: trying to move aside from a car that was going the other way, and next thing I know is, I put my foot on the break, and the car is just sliding, not so fast, maybe 20 miles an hour into a park car up ahead. It took a year to get to the Park car. Silence was deafening.


00:35:40.360 --> 00:35:47.129
Subhan: and I knew that the hands were wrapped around the steering wheel. But they were irrelevant because there was no way to steer the car.


00:35:47.660 --> 00:35:49.469
Subhan: and at that moment


00:35:50.280 --> 00:35:56.320
Subhan: it took me a while to recognize what had happened, that the mind basically looked at the whole situation and says.


00:35:56.570 --> 00:36:00.900
Subhan: can't figure this one out bye, sucker. And it disappeared


00:36:01.280 --> 00:36:06.540
Subhan: for what probably was 15 or 20 seconds, but what felt like an eternity.


00:36:07.880 --> 00:36:19.120
Subhan: and then boom! Hit the car, and the mind says, I know what to do with this 1. 0, my God! My mother's car! I was 19 driving her car the insurance. What am I gonna do? Blah blah blah!


00:36:19.270 --> 00:36:25.120
Subhan: And then later, I remembered a a 6 year when I was 6 years old, looking up at the sky.


00:36:26.040 --> 00:36:42.459
Subhan: and we lived in at that time in Annapolis, Maryland, which was a very small city population, 10,000 capital of the State, but very small, very, very rural in many ways, and very few lights. And I could see a billion stars.


00:36:42.490 --> 00:36:46.390
Subhan: and I was lying in on the ground with a friend of mine. We were both looking up.


00:36:46.800 --> 00:36:49.680
Subhan: and all I could do was.


00:36:51.450 --> 00:36:52.640
Subhan: wow!


00:36:55.300 --> 00:36:56.550
Subhan: Wow!


00:36:58.300 --> 00:37:00.289
Subhan: And that was a second time


00:37:01.370 --> 00:37:07.320
Subhan: when the mind looked up at all of these stars I mean billions of them everywhere the whole


00:37:07.760 --> 00:37:10.089
Subhan: black sky coated with them


00:37:11.930 --> 00:37:15.479
Subhan: and recognized the mind, recognized that there was.


00:37:15.530 --> 00:37:17.040
Subhan: couldn't figure it out


00:37:17.610 --> 00:37:18.550
Subhan: bye.


00:37:20.640 --> 00:37:28.904
Subhan: Later in life I started having other experiences that were somewhat similar to that, and began to recognize that there were cracks


00:37:29.470 --> 00:37:38.770
Subhan: in this container called the mind where these experiences what was beyond the mind could filter in and did.


00:37:40.620 --> 00:37:45.480
Subhan: and then Osha gave meditations, and dynamic was the one for me


00:37:45.930 --> 00:37:48.689
Subhan: that there was an experience in it.


00:37:49.780 --> 00:37:56.330
Subhan: that there was something beyond the mind. There was this silence, this stillness, this


00:37:57.830 --> 00:37:59.240
Subhan: peacefulness.


00:37:59.930 --> 00:38:02.140
Subhan: this utter relaxation.


00:38:03.380 --> 00:38:04.230
Subhan: So


00:38:04.600 --> 00:38:07.679
Subhan: what I wanna suggest is that Osha has been


00:38:07.810 --> 00:38:10.929
Subhan: teaching again and again and again. 2 things


00:38:11.370 --> 00:38:13.800
Subhan: be as aware as you possibly can.


00:38:14.650 --> 00:38:15.670
Subhan: and watch.


00:38:16.270 --> 00:38:21.110
Subhan: He talks about watching. He said it several 1,000 times over the years


00:38:22.240 --> 00:38:30.050
Subhan: that there is an ability for us because of that crack that I referred to where watching is available.


00:38:31.190 --> 00:38:39.180
Subhan: to start by watching the mind first, st because it's the easiest, I mean body. I'm sorry watching the body, first, st because it's the easiest.


00:38:39.210 --> 00:38:46.390
Subhan: and once you have the ability to watch the body, then it's much easier to watch the mind.


00:38:47.780 --> 00:38:54.699
Subhan: But until that watchfulness starts to happen. There's so much identification with the mind as who I am


00:38:55.770 --> 00:39:08.119
Subhan: that it's virtually impossible to get beyond that experience. Do dynamic when the stop comes, there's a moment of possibly being in that experience.


00:39:09.320 --> 00:39:21.700
Subhan: Possibly I don't even wanna say that it's there. It's always there. That's what what I understand, and what I experience is always there. It's just that the mind comes in and blocks the ability to be there.


00:39:22.350 --> 00:39:23.280
Subhan: that's all.


00:39:24.050 --> 00:39:30.910
Subhan: So it is tremendously arduous on one level, and it's incredibly simple and easy on another level.


00:39:31.840 --> 00:39:40.330
Subhan: And that's really the the strangeness of this path of being on this planet earth finding our way back up.


00:39:40.650 --> 00:39:47.099
Subhan: And that's that's what I would say. I take away from Osho if I could say it 5 min, as I just did.


00:39:47.380 --> 00:39:50.310
Kris Ashley: So beautifully said, and


00:39:51.210 --> 00:40:03.490
Kris Ashley: a a and those are the teachings that you share all the time, too. And I've heard you say that all the time. We are not the mind, you know. I've I've seeked counsel with you when I was going through hard times, and that was the reminder you always gave me, and it's


00:40:03.580 --> 00:40:06.899
Kris Ashley: like you said, it's so simple, but so profound.


00:40:08.165 --> 00:40:16.150
Kris Ashley: Okay, so tell me about life on the ranch. How did you? Were you the 3rd person on the ranch? Alina told me that you were the 3rd person.


00:40:16.150 --> 00:40:29.450
Subhan: I was the 3rd person on the ranch. Sheila and her husband, Jayananda, were the 1st 2 people there. When I went up I was invited up to New Jersey, where Osha came at first, st


00:40:29.820 --> 00:40:50.865
Subhan: and when I got there Sheila told me that the the Commune was in the process of purchasing a large piece of property in Oregon, and they wanted me, because I was a lawyer, to help them close the the the sale. So I flew to to Oregon as the the literally the 3rd person from our community on the ranch.


00:40:51.430 --> 00:40:59.659
Subhan: and and I closed the the property with with them. And we started making plans for people to come.


00:41:00.230 --> 00:41:21.979
Subhan: So that's that's the the beginning of of Rajneesh Forum. So and I, I had a you know this incredible opportunity to be there alone, basically alone. And I walked through the ran through the areas where there was some kind of structures that were then there, the rest of it. Size of Washington, DC. And basically totally wild.


00:41:23.010 --> 00:41:28.629
Kris Ashley: I mean, I I saw the documentary. It's amazing what you all built there was was there like a airstrip.


00:41:29.419 --> 00:41:39.600
Subhan: Oh, yeah. Well, there were. There were so many things. There were roads and airstrips, and many, many trees, because there were only shrubs there at the time.


00:41:40.190 --> 00:41:41.920
Subhan: and and


00:41:42.110 --> 00:42:03.413
Subhan: there were there was water that was converted into lakes and yeah, and a huge dam, and a restaurant restaurant, and actually 2 restaurants and a mall, and good Lord! And a and a hotel.


00:42:04.360 --> 00:42:14.099
Subhan: and and and room for for 5,000 people to live, and a big meditation hall that could hold 20,000 people.


00:42:15.020 --> 00:42:24.549
Kris Ashley: Wow! I like. I can't comprehend the size of all that. So did people work. Then, if like, who was running the hotel and the restaurant and all that, like people had jobs.


00:42:24.550 --> 00:42:27.430
Subhan: Were, we were. Yes, we all were all.


00:42:27.430 --> 00:42:29.599
Kris Ashley: You all just kind of trade off doing everything.


00:42:29.600 --> 00:42:49.650
Subhan: Well, it it depended, you know, it was really very individual. I came out there afterwards, you know. I'd been the lawyer settling the property, and now I went back to New Jersey and stayed there for a while, and then I went back to the ranch and the 1st thing that I was told was, we need lawyers.


00:42:51.270 --> 00:42:52.459
Subhan: and I went.


00:42:53.290 --> 00:42:57.200
Subhan: You know. I swore I would never be alone


00:42:58.300 --> 00:43:06.410
Subhan: there. I was settling the property as a lawyer cause. I was a member of the Maryland State Bar at the time, so I had the the ability to do that. And


00:43:06.760 --> 00:43:11.290
Subhan: and then I just looked at them, and I said, If if lawyers are needed, I'll be a lawyer.


00:43:11.950 --> 00:43:15.299
Subhan: And what happened was that many people came


00:43:16.543 --> 00:43:25.140
Subhan: and offered their services. Sometimes people were were asked what they wanted to do. Many times they were told what what was needed


00:43:25.170 --> 00:43:40.836
Subhan: if they wanted to come. This is what's needed background. So we need you. And sometimes we need they. We cleaners were needed. People driving bulldozers were needed, people who flew. Planes were needed.


00:43:42.090 --> 00:44:06.899
Subhan: all all kinds of different backgrounds. So yeah, we we did all the work. I mean, people drove buses during the summer festival. The festival, the 1st World Festival. I was a bus driver. I I stopped being a lawyer for for 2 weeks and was driving a bus. I had, boy, did. I have some experiences because I had never driven a big vehicle like that before


00:44:07.840 --> 00:44:08.500
Subhan: ever.


00:44:08.500 --> 00:44:10.940
Kris Ashley: I I bet you had all kinds of experiences.


00:44:10.940 --> 00:44:24.040
Subhan: I absolutely did. I got. I had training for one day, and there I was driving a school. It was a school bus, and and and anyway, so yeah, so we all pitched in


00:44:24.070 --> 00:44:26.629
Subhan: in those areas, either that we were


00:44:27.271 --> 00:44:33.059
Subhan: proficient at, and that we were good at, and that we wanted to do, or things that were important that had to be done.


00:44:33.190 --> 00:44:36.834
Subhan: And you just learn the skill like I I


00:44:38.410 --> 00:44:50.890
Subhan: When i i i came I had run the whole Cleaning Department in India, so I was asked to do that again, but I was totally burned out of doing it. So then


00:44:51.020 --> 00:45:11.259
Subhan: they didn't know what to do with me, I don't know, so I just did something, and then all of a sudden, I was in the bakery, and I had. I learned how to bake. And then I ended up being the manager baking sometimes for 15,000 people. Yeah. And you just learn like you people didn't know construction, and they learned it.


00:45:11.300 --> 00:45:21.946
Subhan: And then they and now they're they're women even. They're running big construction companies and stuff is learned it. I don't know.


00:45:22.430 --> 00:45:32.030
Kris Ashley: Awesome. So so tell me about the the what was it like living there like? What was your date? What were your days like when you weren't working like what? Tell me about it?


00:45:32.266 --> 00:45:37.463
Subhan: Before I do wait before I do that, I just wanna say one thing is kind of like a preface to everything.


00:45:38.430 --> 00:45:41.050
Subhan: anywhere with Oshaw


00:45:41.650 --> 00:45:43.160
Subhan: was a mystery school


00:45:43.750 --> 00:45:44.720
Subhan: anywhere


00:45:45.380 --> 00:45:56.669
Subhan: on the surface, on the circumference, on the top of the the ocean. We had the ordinary day to day activities and things that we did, and schedules and things like that.


00:45:57.080 --> 00:45:59.410
Subhan: But we're with a living master


00:45:59.670 --> 00:46:01.199
Subhan: who was creating


00:46:01.920 --> 00:46:06.349
Subhan: a space for us to have so many things confront us.


00:46:06.940 --> 00:46:25.560
Subhan: Our sexuality, our relationships, our dealing with people, our dealing with power. I use, I used to say, and maybe it's still true that it Puna won the area from 74 to 81 was was learning, mostly learning about sexuality and love.


00:46:26.630 --> 00:46:29.820
Subhan: Puta 2 was mostly about power.


00:46:30.730 --> 00:46:35.000
Subhan: What power is, what power was my relationship to it?


00:46:35.120 --> 00:46:42.630
Subhan: And and other people had other experiences. So I I can't speak for anyone else but myself. Okay, so


00:46:42.660 --> 00:46:51.383
Subhan: day to day, day to day, got up in the morning had a bite deed. Went to work.


00:46:51.940 --> 00:46:53.530
Subhan: was a lawyer.


00:46:53.880 --> 00:46:58.129
Subhan: but a very different lawyer and lawyering.


00:46:58.220 --> 00:47:08.960
Subhan: because we were all in one big room, instead of having small cubicles, or having, you know, separate offices. We were all in one room, so there was a lot of sharing


00:47:09.170 --> 00:47:18.509
Subhan: a lot of questioning a lot of trying to figure things out there were 5 of us that were became members of the Oregon State Bar.


00:47:18.640 --> 00:47:25.939
Subhan: and then there were an additional, maybe 5 or 6 lawyers who never took the bar, and then there were literally.

00:47:26.090 --> 00:47:30.339
Subhan: I don't know maybe 50 people who started to support the work that we did.


00:47:30.670 --> 00:47:31.530
Subhan: Wow! I would


00:47:31.840 --> 00:47:43.660
Subhan: from sonography to filing to, you know, to everything you can imagine, to even even helping us doing, doing the research and stuff we work 12 HA day.


00:47:43.860 --> 00:47:48.359
Subhan: I mean, that's so much got done. And the emphasis


00:47:48.970 --> 00:47:50.100
Subhan: was


00:47:50.830 --> 00:47:56.330
Subhan: it was Sheila who was in Oceans secretary at the time, and


00:47:57.210 --> 00:48:05.499
Subhan: her emphasis was on work, not not a meditation. It wasn't. That wasn't her interest, her world. So it was


00:48:05.660 --> 00:48:07.059
Subhan: so. Everything


00:48:07.910 --> 00:48:13.149
Subhan: like it was up to you to bring your own meditation into the work


00:48:13.300 --> 00:48:27.479
Subhan: and into the connecting with people, and that's pretty much what I did. We Osha was in silence. We didn't see him until the last year or 2 years, I mean, we'd see him, but not


00:48:27.520 --> 00:48:30.841
Subhan: sit in in have a discourse, or anything.


00:48:31.210 --> 00:48:33.170
Kris Ashley: I didn't know that. That's interesting.


00:48:33.170 --> 00:48:37.359
Subhan: Until 1985, the beginning of 1985. He started speaking.


00:48:37.800 --> 00:48:44.690
Subhan: So it was a whole different world than in India. I I did want to say something. The books?


00:48:45.399 --> 00:48:57.869
Subhan: He didn't write them. They're all taken from the discourses and then made into yeah, made into books. And each he spoke in different series of different topics.


00:48:58.030 --> 00:48:58.920
Subhan: Yeah.


00:48:59.420 --> 00:49:08.399
Subhan: just about anything you could think of he spoke about. So the ranch was a different, very different, I mean, very different. And then and then what


00:49:09.850 --> 00:49:16.189
Subhan: you know, what came like the the prejudice that happened, and the fear


00:49:17.006 --> 00:49:31.929
Subhan: I mean, about who are these people? What are they? What are they doing? And so dealing with that, and actually having a a Us government that wanted also dead. Basically.


00:49:32.370 --> 00:49:38.289
Subhan: I mean, there was no understanding of. There was no understanding of


00:49:38.906 --> 00:49:41.890
Subhan: mystic or teachings, or gurus


00:49:42.140 --> 00:49:49.806
Subhan: at that time. There there was no there just wasn't. It was a group of of people, 1,000 friends of Oregon.


00:49:50.170 --> 00:49:53.310
Subhan: and they formed an organization


00:49:53.340 --> 00:49:55.750
Subhan: to preserve the Willamette Valley.


00:49:55.970 --> 00:50:01.839
Subhan: because what they saw was between Portland and Salem, which is the capital.


00:50:02.110 --> 00:50:06.410
Subhan: There was a whole beautiful agricultural


00:50:06.900 --> 00:50:34.979
Subhan: reality in Oregon, very much green and and lush and natural. What was happening was from Salem towards Portland, and from Portland towards Salem they were starting to build infrastructure, and they were starting to build housing, and they were starting to build factories. And so a thousand friends came together, and they said, We've gotta stop this. We've gotta maintain the nature here, or else we'll lose what? What the value of Oregon really is


00:50:37.150 --> 00:50:39.250
Subhan: And they did some


00:50:41.560 --> 00:50:48.429
Subhan: connection with the Eastern Oregon, which is where the the Rajneesh Forum was, where the where the ranch was.


00:50:48.490 --> 00:50:55.083
Subhan: and that the the farmers out there. The people that that were farming out there hated them


00:50:55.680 --> 00:51:01.150
Subhan: because these were really free, spirited people. They didn't want to be told to do anything.


00:51:01.180 --> 00:51:11.955
Subhan: and they were in a totally different realm. They were not in a plush green area Eastern Oregon is basically almost like like a desert.


00:51:12.676 --> 00:51:37.080
Subhan: And so it it's a hard reality to to do agriculture out over Graceland. And so every once in a while the 1,000 friends would come out and try and tell them that they were violating the the laws that they had ha helped to pass in the Oregon Legislature that would protect the the Willamette Valley and try to apply it out there. And they hated them. And basically 1,000 friends kind of gave up.


00:51:37.260 --> 00:51:41.600
Subhan: They they really couldn't stop. We came in.


00:51:41.910 --> 00:51:47.899
Subhan: Oh, all of a sudden these farmers that hated a thousand friends became their affiliate


00:51:47.970 --> 00:51:49.789
Subhan: to get us out


00:51:50.320 --> 00:51:58.949
Subhan: to stop us from doing the kinds of things that we wanted to do there. We wanted to create a city. Well, they said, you can't do that. It's in violation of the land. Use laws


00:51:59.140 --> 00:52:12.489
Subhan: if you want. If you want a an incorporated city, you have to go to Antelope, which was 30 miles away from from the the place where we were, which this little tiny community of 36 people.


00:52:12.530 --> 00:52:14.690
Subhan: and they were all dying off.


00:52:14.730 --> 00:52:23.079
Subhan: Just up the road was a place called Shannonco, which was already a ghost town, and Antelope was becoming a ghost town. It had one store


00:52:23.210 --> 00:52:27.849
Subhan: which was like a lunch encounter and a post office.


00:52:28.380 --> 00:52:36.620
Subhan: and they took the 1,000 friends said, If you wanna do anything commercial, you've gotta do it in Antelope because they are an incorporated city.


00:52:36.840 --> 00:52:56.730
Subhan: So we didn't wanna do that. We wanted to do it on the ranch, but we saw that the laws were gonna make it impossible for us to do it at that time. So we went into Antelope and we bought some property. We paid a lot of money for it, because once they got wind that th we were buying property. They started jacking all the prices up.


00:52:56.810 --> 00:53:03.009
Subhan: and then we went to the city council and we said to them, we wanna build a book bindery.


00:53:03.050 --> 00:53:12.719
Subhan: Here. We gave them all the plans because we had. We had people that were experts in all the areas of building, and we did all our fees and queues.


00:53:12.970 --> 00:53:41.859
Subhan: or.to our eyes and cross our t's, and they refused to give us the permit. They said, no, we want more information. We want more information. 6 months, 8 months, they would not give us a decision. So we finally decided, we're gonna go to the the county court and get, get, file what is called a mandamus, which requires them to do their official duties. Not that they should say yes or no, but that they should just say either yes or no.


00:53:42.750 --> 00:53:55.049
Subhan: As soon as we got the court, the court said, Yes, we'll we'll I. We will issue the mandamus. You now must give them a decision. The next day they filed for this disincorporation.


00:53:56.700 --> 00:53:58.795
Subhan: There's a lot of.


00:53:59.320 --> 00:54:02.050
Kris Ashley: Trying every single trick in the book that they can.


00:54:02.050 --> 00:54:20.970
Subhan: Yes, yes, and look, I understand them, too. You know they have a certain way of life, and all of a sudden these aliens are coming in, who are dancing, who are laughing in the street, who, you know, have no problem with kissing one another and hugging one another in in public. How that was considered to be so dangerous and so


00:54:21.070 --> 00:54:22.427
Subhan: difficult for them.


00:54:22.880 --> 00:54:26.670
Kris Ashley: Are you? Are you 2? Okay? To say like, 15 more minutes? I know we're at 4.


00:54:26.870 --> 00:54:28.602
Subhan: Sorry I know.


00:54:29.180 --> 00:54:32.719
Kris Ashley: I want to keep talking to you. So


00:54:32.990 --> 00:54:45.560
Kris Ashley: okay, so back to Oshaw on the ranch. So it's it's so funny like this vision that I have of it is you're sitting with Osha every night, and he's doing the discourse, and you're doing the the meditations, and but it


00:54:45.620 --> 00:54:49.330
Kris Ashley: from everything you described. You're just working and living on the ranch.


00:54:49.330 --> 00:54:50.140
Subhan: Sad.


00:54:50.340 --> 00:54:51.823
Kris Ashley: What about? Yeah. Go ahead.


00:54:52.350 --> 00:55:10.420
Subhan: Visions you have, or what happened in India in the seventies and in the eighties and nineties. And it's still happening. The meditations, the emphasis on meditation going in. We had something that happened every day


00:55:10.920 --> 00:55:12.440
Subhan: it was called drive by.


00:55:12.970 --> 00:55:28.688
Subhan: and what Osha would do is that he would come down from from what we call B site, where he lived, and he would drive past, and we would all be standing on the side of the road to to his left, and we would bring


00:55:29.110 --> 00:55:42.189
Subhan: you know, guitars and drums, and singing and dancing, and he would come by, and we and some people would put roses on his car. And and it was it this was our being with Osha.


00:55:42.300 --> 00:55:47.030
Subhan: This was the only experience that we had with him for 4 years.


00:55:47.690 --> 00:56:13.479
Subhan: And yeah, and it was. It was an amazing experience, and nobody wanted to miss it. Nobody wanted to miss it. And there came a time where I was because I was a lawyer. I was in the car behind him because he used to drive at that time early on from the ranch all the way up to the Madras, which is Madras, Oregon, not not Madras, India, which is now Shanai, by the way. So


00:56:14.210 --> 00:56:22.289
Subhan: And so we were driving behind them, just in case there was a need for a lawyer and a doctor, and there was also someone


00:56:22.330 --> 00:56:29.160
Subhan: who was seated next to him. I can't remember who usually someone that helped him, that he would have it. He would go to Madras.


00:56:29.170 --> 00:56:43.419
Subhan: and then he would have a drink, and he would drink either bubbly water, or he would drink diet Coke diet Coke. He loved diet Coke, and then he eventually his doctor convinced him not to drink it because of the


00:56:43.590 --> 00:56:47.639
Subhan: the the the fake sweetness that was in it.


00:56:48.510 --> 00:56:55.590
Subhan: So the thing is, i i i would like to share if if you


00:56:56.090 --> 00:56:59.290
Subhan: and I do feel this is true for


00:56:59.800 --> 00:57:04.279
Subhan: any. If you meet any awaken person


00:57:05.530 --> 00:57:10.730
Subhan: and something you're just pulled there or drawn there, there's such


00:57:11.050 --> 00:57:13.789
Subhan: an energy field around them.


00:57:13.800 --> 00:57:42.990
Subhan: There, there just is because we're using. Most of us are using our energy in our minds. We're thinking it's our emotions. We're we're caught in all of this. We're in this little world, but they've entered a world where they they understand the mind, but they've been able to observe it, and it's more distance. So they're not caught in it. So there's this incredible energy field of the universe, really. I mean.


00:57:43.010 --> 00:57:47.391
Subhan: they're they've dissolved in the universe. And they're always saying.


00:57:47.880 --> 00:57:55.089
Subhan: That's our potential, too, to dissolve universe. But I just wanna say so. Around such a person


00:57:55.290 --> 00:58:04.379
Subhan: there's this huge energy field. And that's how people are drawn to it for centuries. That's how people have been drawn to different mystics


00:58:04.862 --> 00:58:06.777
Subhan: when I say that that


00:58:07.550 --> 00:58:10.260
Subhan: The ranch was built around power.


00:58:11.140 --> 00:58:12.910
Subhan: When Osha stopped talking.


00:58:12.960 --> 00:58:26.971
Subhan: and when it was just the public talking he spoke in private. He spoke to Sheila virtually every day, and he spoke to certain people periodically to his doctor and his dentists and other people.


00:58:31.050 --> 00:58:33.000
Subhan: It created a vacuum.


00:58:34.070 --> 00:58:34.870
Subhan: Power vacuum.


00:58:35.030 --> 00:58:39.879
Subhan: because Sheila became the disseminator of what Osha said.


00:58:41.410 --> 00:58:44.400
Subhan: Whether he actually said it I don't know.


00:58:44.760 --> 00:58:47.090
Subhan: but Sheila would tell us what he said.


00:58:47.280 --> 00:58:50.590
Subhan: and most of it made sense. Some of it. Didn't.


00:58:50.700 --> 00:58:54.489
Subhan: I got to work closely with Sheila for periods of time


00:58:54.620 --> 00:58:55.900
Subhan: as a lawyer


00:58:56.434 --> 00:59:14.355
Subhan: I was actually taking on trips when she went out of the the for the ranch to to go with her to the east coast to Chicago, to a few other places, and I would fly with them because I was the lawyer to be there just in case there was a need for a lawyer to to be there, but


00:59:15.240 --> 00:59:23.130
Subhan: I I can't help but but feel so strongly that Osha was creating this vacuum of him, his absence


00:59:23.270 --> 00:59:26.549
Subhan: for us to start to experience what power was.


00:59:26.950 --> 00:59:27.600
Kris Ashley: Hmm.


00:59:27.600 --> 00:59:29.389
Subhan: And what we did with power.


00:59:29.430 --> 00:59:35.208
Subhan: and how we gave up our power. There's a great quote I have upstairs somewhere to the effect


00:59:35.540 --> 00:59:36.653
Subhan: the the


00:59:37.740 --> 00:59:42.409
Subhan: The easiest way to give up power is to think you don't have any.


00:59:43.260 --> 00:59:43.970
Kris Ashley: Yeah.


00:59:44.540 --> 01:00:02.479
Subhan: So many people felt they didn't have any power, so they just they simply stayed. Many people like myself. I wanted to be with Osha. I wanted to be in his presence. I wanted to be in his commune. I was willing to be a lawyer if I had to be a lawyer. I was willing to be a a toilet cleaner if I had to be a toilet cleaner. I just wanted to be there.


01:00:02.850 --> 01:00:23.070
Subhan: and so I was willing on certain levels to go to certain places where I felt like I was really giving up my own personal power, that I could have said something that I didn't say I could have done something that I didn't do. And towards the end of of before he actually started speaking, I realized, I don't wanna do this anymore.


01:00:23.450 --> 01:00:30.270
Subhan: And then he started talking, and when he started talking all the power that Sheila had evaporated.


01:00:30.920 --> 01:00:47.230
Subhan: it used to be all of the the press. They would come, and they would talk to her because he wasn't available. Well, he started having press conferences. He started having all the people from all over the world ask him questions, and that's all recorded, too. If you're ever interested, it's it's out there somewhere.


01:00:48.185 --> 01:00:53.820
Subhan: And as a result she was a nobody. Nobody wanted to talk to Sheila anymore.


01:00:53.970 --> 01:00:56.260
Subhan: and very soon after that she left


01:00:57.840 --> 01:00:59.229
Subhan: she left the ranch


01:00:59.510 --> 01:01:00.370
Subhan: and


01:01:01.500 --> 01:01:05.730
Subhan: Anyway, there's many other stories to tell, but this thing about power.


01:01:06.020 --> 01:01:21.890
Subhan: so that when we got to to Puna in Puna, too, and there were people that that were new that were still playing power games, I mean, shanty and I were were asked to set up a table to help people find jobs in the Ashram at the time, and this woman was


01:01:22.040 --> 01:01:34.210
Subhan: playing the game, trying to get to a a space of power in in the whatever it was that she perceived it to be, and we laughed it with her at her sometimes, because it was absolutely stupid.


01:01:34.340 --> 01:01:36.929
Subhan: We had learned a lesson in Puna.


01:01:37.010 --> 01:01:40.900
Subhan: Anyway. I know I know the time is going back quickly, I mean, and.


01:01:40.900 --> 01:01:44.840
Kris Ashley: I mean, I feel like I could talk to you both for hours about this. So do you?


01:01:45.230 --> 01:01:48.950
Kris Ashley: Yeah, this is all so interesting. And I had no idea


01:01:48.960 --> 01:02:08.490
Kris Ashley: any of this. So like I know you were there for the teachings like you were there because you wanted to be with your Guru. Do you feel like there were other people who maybe joined at the end, who like, didn't really they? They wanted to be more a part of like the Commune, or like the party of it, or whatever like versus the people who are really there. For Osho.


01:02:08.880 --> 01:02:17.460
Subhan: I think that's the case all the time, from the beginning to the very end. And it's not the end yet, because there's still a a communal environment there.


01:02:17.530 --> 01:02:29.450
Subhan: I think that there, you know, each one of us came. I I love, I always love to say, you know. Take a look and see. Are you doing something because you're curious, or are you doing something because you're thirsty?


01:02:31.200 --> 01:02:54.409
Subhan: And I I use that as as an analogy to to wanting to come back home. I mean, some people are just curious about it because they really don't understand it. And some people wanna be in a community. Some people wanna have as much sex as they can have. And we're in an area where people are exploring that it's available to them if they if, and maybe not even because of their own energy level.


01:02:54.660 --> 01:03:19.010
Subhan: So everybody comes with their individuality, and where they are in their on their path of discovery. So there were a lot of people that came. There were people that came to Puna in in 74, 75, who stayed for short period of time, and then moved into Puna itself and created little communities within there, and never came back to the Ashram, or only once in a blue moon, came back to the Ashram.


01:03:19.010 --> 01:03:28.650
Subhan: So they they originally were attracted there by maybe the community by Osho, by his teachings, by whatever I I wasn't with Osha for teaching.


01:03:30.380 --> 01:03:32.510
Subhan: it became so clear


01:03:32.880 --> 01:03:34.310
Subhan: that I was there


01:03:34.620 --> 01:03:37.669
Subhan: to be in the presence that was coming through him.


01:03:38.160 --> 01:03:38.830
Kris Ashley: And I love that.


01:03:38.830 --> 01:03:45.130
Subhan: Because it was because it was a mirror for me to connect with the presence that's within this mind, body.


01:03:48.020 --> 01:03:49.209
Kris Ashley: I love that


01:03:49.420 --> 01:03:59.309
Kris Ashley: so so were you aware of what was going on with Sheila in the town? You were the lawyer right like. Did you know all of that? Like all the drama that was happening.


01:03:59.500 --> 01:03:59.899
Subhan: I knew it.


01:03:59.900 --> 01:04:01.929
Kris Ashley: So show no how that drama was happening.


01:04:02.110 --> 01:04:29.170
Subhan: Well, I can't speak for Osha, because I don't know what what Sheila told him. But I I'm assuming that because of his understanding and his, the vastness of his experiential reality that he was probably aware of a lot of things. What he wasn't aware of I don't know. People play the game. Of what did he know? When did he know it? You know that what it was his responsibility in it? But I can really speak


01:04:30.740 --> 01:04:37.949
Subhan: that I. I did not take responsibility for myself in the beginning, because I just wanted to be there with him.


01:04:38.930 --> 01:04:44.300
Subhan: and it was only later that I started recognizing that what Osha was showing me


01:04:44.930 --> 01:04:46.330
Subhan: was my own


01:04:46.470 --> 01:04:58.649
Subhan: will to power, my own desire to have power to have it over certain people, to be able to do things I wanted to do and how to use that in the Po politics of relationship


01:04:58.680 --> 01:05:00.090
Subhan: I saw all of that


01:05:01.915 --> 01:05:06.599
Subhan: repeat again what was the the exact question, because i i i kind of lost the the.


01:05:06.600 --> 01:05:12.779
Kris Ashley: I think you answered it. I mean, I was asking if you were aware of what Sheila was doing and what Osha was, but I.


01:05:12.780 --> 01:05:17.290
Subhan: Yeah, yeah, no. I was aware, a lot of people work. I I worked in.


01:05:17.290 --> 01:05:18.279
Kris Ashley: You were, weren't.


01:05:18.280 --> 01:05:23.299
Subhan: You're not. I worked in. I worked in Sheila's house at the end.


01:05:23.310 --> 01:05:24.539
Subhan: I didn't know


01:05:24.600 --> 01:05:33.629
Subhan: anything that was going on. I could tell you stories, billions of stories. I didn't know anything when she left. It was like.

01:05:33.870 --> 01:05:43.220
Subhan: Oh, my God! We opened up a room which we could no longer access. We were cleaning and cooking and taking care of a place.


01:05:43.380 --> 01:05:47.770
Subhan: and but that room we couldn't go in. It was where they were bugging Osha's

01:05:47.910 --> 01:06:01.839
Subhan: house they had wire tapping. And I mean, this is so many. It's like an incredible story. But that's not really what's important to me. What's important are the teachings and


01:06:02.080 --> 01:06:03.420
Subhan: the depth that


01:06:04.161 --> 01:06:17.459
Subhan: when you're with a master, how you can move inside if you're drawn to that, that's for me, like when you say that. Yeah, I when he speaks everything in the everything in the


01:06:17.710 --> 01:06:26.470
Subhan: Cisco silent, and my heart's pounding. And I I enter into this other world, you know, and and and also


01:06:26.680 --> 01:06:29.120
Subhan: when you're with a mast of their

01:06:29.310 --> 01:06:31.939
Subhan: there's, there's there's


01:06:31.990 --> 01:06:39.040
Subhan: their teachings are breaking up your belief system so often it's uncomfortable.

01:06:39.150 --> 01:06:41.280
Subhan: Hear what's being said.


01:06:41.800 --> 01:06:52.900
Subhan: I mean, cause it's uncomfortable. It's things you've always believed in that were given that you were conditioned in. And so it's it's a very different world. It's a whole different

01:06:53.380 --> 01:07:11.830
Subhan: world, the master disciple world. And each of us was coming from where we were, which was an unconscious reality as well. A little bit, maybe a little spark of awareness was there for us. I wanted to say, another thing is, which I think is really cool is


01:07:13.021 --> 01:07:23.940
Subhan: this my understanding, but I heard also say he didn't interfere with us. He did. If we had a power trip to live out, he didn't interfere, because that was part of


01:07:24.240 --> 01:07:50.150
Subhan: of of that person's journey to live out this power dictatorship, I mean, in a way I feel like with trump. That's part of his journey right now to live this out to suddenly, maybe go in shock. What am I doing? You know, but that's his journey, and and that that was also he did not interfere. There were really not many rules.

01:07:50.350 --> 01:07:51.290
Subhan: I mean


01:07:51.500 --> 01:07:55.336
Subhan: there was. You were there to discover all of the


01:07:55.830 --> 01:08:11.250
Subhan: beauty within you, and all of the toxins within you, and the only real rules were the rules created by Sheila and by the people that worked for her. And there were rules. They made all kinds of rules about how we were supposed to be and not be, and whatever.


01:08:11.490 --> 01:08:14.089
Subhan: But it was all part of of alerting.


01:08:14.570 --> 01:08:16.990
Subhan: and the the grace of


01:08:17.109 --> 01:08:19.910
Subhan: of Osha's presence, I feel.


01:08:20.270 --> 01:08:24.374
Subhan: gave us the possibility that we could really learn


01:08:24.859 --> 01:08:29.520
Subhan: from what was happening. There were people that came that saw what Sheila was doing and left


01:08:30.990 --> 01:08:45.010
Subhan: because they saw that she was on a power trip, and that and they they were not willing to do that. They loved Oshaw. Then there's all kinds of people that didn't. That stopped loving Oshawa and left. There are people that loved the show and realized that they were not going to stay because of Sheila.


01:08:45.160 --> 01:08:56.879
Subhan: And then later, they came back to Plunger, too. They're all kinds of different people in this, but in every step of the way with Oshaw. The only thing I can say is.


01:08:57.550 --> 01:08:59.579
Subhan: there was incredible


01:08:59.700 --> 01:09:01.010
Subhan: potential.


01:09:01.529 --> 01:09:05.279
Subhan: To be a disciple and disciple comes from the root.


01:09:05.439 --> 01:09:06.580
Subhan: To learn


01:09:06.689 --> 01:09:08.789
Subhan: discipline means to learn.


01:09:09.220 --> 01:09:18.040
Subhan: and that's what being a disciple was with Oshaw, that there was always something in what was happening for me to learn tremendously about.


01:09:18.069 --> 01:09:21.849
Subhan: Who am I? And what is this mind? And what is this body?


01:09:22.270 --> 01:09:30.150
Subhan: And it hasn't stopped. He's left the physical body. But the the this kind of opening is still available.


01:09:30.300 --> 01:09:45.939
Subhan: and we have inved something God only knows. And people tell us that they have experiences with us like you've described. And it's true. It happens I don't take any credit for it. I don't even know who this I is that's talking about not taking credit.


01:09:46.960 --> 01:10:01.310
Kris Ashley: I I just appreciate so much everything you both just said, and just looking at it from that perspective of Wow! Osha was silent for years, so that he could let these journeys play out so that you could learn and grow from them.


01:10:01.937 --> 01:10:03.339
Kris Ashley: But, like that's


01:10:03.610 --> 01:10:25.750
Kris Ashley: it. It's like in in some way he was absent, but, like really, he was just being the best teacher. Right? By allowing it's it's like having a kid, right? You have to allow them to explore and get in trouble and mess up and and do all the things right. You can't just be there like helicopter parenting. So I just appreciate so much that point of view, and


01:10:25.910 --> 01:10:34.789
Kris Ashley: I I think it's such a good time to pivot like, how are you to carrying out Osha's teachings. Tell me about what you're up to now. I know you have the Meditation Center.


01:10:35.875 --> 01:10:41.289
Subhan: Well, I can. I can speak for myself, and and also the what I do with Chanti as well.


01:10:42.068 --> 01:10:49.090
Subhan: I started creating workshops. I. I did them in the early eighties, and I was


01:10:49.130 --> 01:11:04.909
Subhan: ill equipped and unprepared to be a facilitator. But I tried, and boy, did I have lessons to learn about what I was doing, and projections on people and all kinds of things and judgments and everything that the mind does.


01:11:05.228 --> 01:11:19.861
Subhan: 1988. I started doing something called finding the work you love finding the life you love, and I started doing it in India, and I started doing it all over the world. And I've I've continued actually, that we had one about a month, 2 months ago.


01:11:20.566 --> 01:11:25.199
Subhan: Doing the doing this workshop. And then from there I I started


01:11:25.320 --> 01:11:27.889
Subhan: creating workshops around


01:11:27.980 --> 01:11:40.179
Subhan: the issues that I saw that were significant for me, and that in my practice as a counselor, I saw in other people the same thing. One of the keys was worthiness.


01:11:40.730 --> 01:11:42.370
Subhan: What is worthiness.


01:11:43.960 --> 01:11:47.380
Subhan: And and how do we do? We lose it?


01:11:48.210 --> 01:11:52.359
Subhan: Because every baby, if you hold them in your arms, is totally worthy.


01:11:52.560 --> 01:11:55.869
Subhan: unequivocally worthy. And then something goes awry.


01:11:55.890 --> 01:11:57.920
Subhan: and all of a sudden they have to be


01:11:58.130 --> 01:11:59.280
Subhan: raised.


01:11:59.590 --> 01:12:02.579
Subhan: They have to be taught to become something.


01:12:02.760 --> 01:12:32.739
Subhan: and they're not worthy unless they become something. So somewhere along the line they've lost their worthiness. Well, that becomes a huge area. I have a workshop a 3 day workshop that I start to present my understandings, my experiences, the meditations that I have learned from O. Show and techniques that I have learned to help me explore that, and sharing it with others, and I have a wide variety of those kinds of of workshops that I do. How to love yourself?


01:12:33.700 --> 01:12:36.400
Subhan: How can I? It's called, How can I really love myself?


01:12:36.570 --> 01:12:41.220
Subhan: Another one that we did fairly recently was called.


01:12:41.980 --> 01:12:45.720
Subhan: and and the the workshop begins right now, as I say this to you.


01:12:45.970 --> 01:12:47.719
Subhan: What owns you.


01:12:50.500 --> 01:12:52.960
Subhan: and you let that let that one sink in.


01:12:53.540 --> 01:12:57.390
Subhan: and then you can even sit down and start writing a list of what owns you.


01:12:58.810 --> 01:13:04.100
Subhan: And that became a wonderful meditative process for for people.


01:13:05.064 --> 01:13:16.100
Subhan: I started going to Mexico, and I I did. At 1 point I was doing a 4 to 6 meditation or retreats a a year. There, now, I'm doing one or 2


01:13:16.600 --> 01:13:17.830
Subhan: after Covid.


01:13:18.890 --> 01:13:24.740
Kris Ashley: And are you? Are you still doing dynamic meditation online for people? If they want to join? Okay.


01:13:24.740 --> 01:13:35.409
Subhan: On Saturday online. So this is 1 min, I mean for me where I I still my whole interest is to share the meditations with anybody.


01:13:35.820 --> 01:13:56.800
Subhan: That's what I wanna do. And our, well, so we have dynamic meditation every Saturday morning at 10. But it's online. And I I show people how you can do it, even in your apartment, where you can't make noise, how you can do it. So it's effective. It's the one meditation I don't really want anymore in our center, because


01:13:56.860 --> 01:14:00.510
Subhan: the possibility of so many germs being spread.


01:14:01.160 --> 01:14:02.610
Kris Ashley: Oh, yeah, that makes sense.


01:14:02.610 --> 01:14:03.570
Subhan: God doesn't


01:14:03.690 --> 01:14:16.130
Subhan: a a. And actually, the last time we were in San Francisco, which was the last time we taught at the place where you were. I I got very sick, and it was something coming in


01:14:16.130 --> 01:14:35.819
Subhan: that was like Covid, but we didn't know what Covid was, and other people, and I heard other people in the in that that at that time got sick in the Yoga studio, you know. So it's something going around. Yes, so I'm I'm careful that way. This is one meditation. I don't. We only do online now.


01:14:35.820 --> 01:15:03.023
Subhan: But it's a great. I do wanna say to people, our website is in transition, and so sometimes you might go to it, and it might be down, or there's sections missing. It's being worked on in a very Indian way very like, and we just Pakistani, and we have a new webmaster, and and so sometimes it might be down. But but


01:15:03.430 --> 01:15:19.870
Subhan: Most of the times it's I mean, a lot of times. It's up and running, and and I don't know how long this will take. But it is happening. And yeah, we have dynamic and other active meditations. Anybody who is interested in the work that we're doing


01:15:20.180 --> 01:15:25.540
Subhan: to connect with us. If you have a space where you have workshops.


01:15:25.620 --> 01:15:34.529
Subhan: whether it's in San Francisco, or whether it's, you know, wherever it is. I would be certainly interested if you would like us to come and do a workshop there


01:15:34.530 --> 01:15:56.630
Subhan: to talk to you about doing that. We've we've done it. God! We've done it everywhere in the Us. And in Mexico, probably 8 or 9 cities. I've done workshops there, and in Europe and in Asia, too, for that matter. So you can. You can write subonate world of meditationcom.


01:15:57.826 --> 01:16:10.249
Subhan: And I would be glad to give you any information that you're interested in. You can connect with us on our website. We are on Instagram shanty. She's she's the one.


01:16:10.508 --> 01:16:12.571
Kris Ashley: I'm on there. I see you on there.


01:16:12.860 --> 01:16:37.680
Subhan: I was like totally on it. And then I was like, I don't know. I'm just not, but I like looking at Instagram. I do. I do write 3 or 4 times a week on Facebook, and I think it's called Subban's Place on Facebook. But you can look for Suba and shankar, and you'll you'll find it. There's there's a real history of things that I, Facebook and world of meditation is on Facebook. And


01:16:37.720 --> 01:16:39.587
Subhan: yeah, but okay.


01:16:40.520 --> 01:16:58.770
Kris Ashley: I just want it for listeners. I just wanna highlight. So I worked at a yoga company in San Francisco. They live in Seattle. They would fly out 3 or 4 times a year and run these phenomenal workshops. So really amazing, amazing, just life changing experiences so definitely


01:16:59.150 --> 01:17:21.010
Kris Ashley: when Saban says, hit them up and talk to them about flying out for workshops. Do that because they're incredible and join for dynamic meditation, because it's amazing. It's a 5 part meditation done to music. There's breath work, there's catharsis, there's stillness, there's ecstatic dance. And what's the other one? The the who right.


01:17:21.610 --> 01:17:22.210
Subhan: Like.


01:17:22.210 --> 01:17:29.169
Kris Ashley: Moving the Kundalini. So it's it's so powerful. These 2 human beings are just incredible.


01:17:29.320 --> 01:17:34.920
Kris Ashley: I I mean it like when you described Osha's eyes like. That's how I feel about you, too. It's


01:17:35.510 --> 01:17:53.970
Kris Ashley: I've never met anyone else in person like that, and you live the work, and you walk the walk, and you're just. I'm so grateful to have you both in my life. I'm just. I'm I can't say that enough. I'm so grateful, and if you're listening. Go check them out, go, take dynamic on Saturdays.


01:17:54.350 --> 01:18:06.189
Kris Ashley: thank you both so much for for all of this, for your stories, for staying 20 min longer than we planned, and just for being such wonderful people, and for being so open about all this, I really appreciate you both.


01:18:06.190 --> 01:18:17.570
Subhan: Chris, it it comes. What comes around goes around, or vice versa. It would. You feel? I feel I'll speak myself, and I'm sure I'm speaking for Shanti, too, that we

01:18:17.890 --> 01:18:21.949
Subhan: we always delighted connecting with you when we came to San Francisco.


01:18:22.050 --> 01:18:25.739
Subhan: and always felt a a kinship with you

01:18:26.030 --> 01:18:27.379
Subhan: that we were


01:18:27.560 --> 01:18:53.549
Subhan: on this path of discovery together. You are part of our Sangha. I hope we're part of your Sangha, and it's amazing your journey and your writing, your really good writer, and all the things that are happening. Yeah, however, wonderful things. Yeah, you really are your blossomy. And I and I can feel it, and it's a it's a very powerful journey.


01:18:53.840 --> 01:18:55.019
Kris Ashley: Thank you both so much.


01:18:55.630 --> 01:18:58.679
Subhan: Thank you. And yeah.


01:18:58.680 --> 01:19:02.089
Kris Ashley: Thank you so much again. And if you're listening.


01:19:02.270 --> 01:19:11.889
Kris Ashley: send this to someone like comment, share, subscribe, do all the things, and I will see you all on the next episode. Have a beautiful rest of your day.


01:19:12.451 --> 01:19:14.698
Subhan: Send it in love.