There were many golden moments in my life, and as I can see now they always came as a gift, unexpected, entering into me and filling me up with something unknown. They happened even before I knew meditation and the meaning of the word awareness, but their flavour was so unique that even now they are vibrating inside of me. Of course they would disappear too, but they would leave me for many hours afterwards with a deep inner bliss. Also they created a longing inside me, though I would not have been able to tell what this longing was for.
It felt life was giving me a taste of something that was recognized deeep inside. As I didnt understand much about myself in those days – being just around 20 years – these golden moments were also healing, giving me an inner fulfilment. Like an answer to a question that I didnt even know how to ask, an existential question about life and why I was here.
It happened many times as I was driving with my motorbike: suddenly, out of nowhere, a cloud of ecstasy and blissfulness surrounded me, overwhelming joy would arise, everything became like golden, life felt to have a golden flow in it. I would stop at a meadow, just lying in the grass, looking at the sun, the sky and the clouds and a feeling of unity arose. This was perfection: How could life ever give me more than that?
My mind didnt understand what was happening, and why – it had no part in it. I felt elevated, nearly levitating, a huge wave of blissfulness, everything was perfect in that moment, nothing was missing. All the problems in my life were so distant I could not perceive them to be real. A feeling of deep contentment, being connected with life: the vibration of life was running through me. I could have stayed in that moment forever, but of course it wouldnt last. After some time my mind would come back, trying to connect me again with the more mundane world, urging me to continue driving my motorbike.
These moments happened many times, although I could never make them happen. It was completely beyond my doing. It was a gift from beyond, a gift that I didnt understand in those years before I met Osho. Later I heard Osho say that everybody in his life has some golden moments of that magic. But most people are not aware of them, so they come and go without being noticed really. These are the moments of no mind, no separation, of being part of a wholeness which is fulfilling beyond words.
As I was only 20 at that time, I couldnt understand what was happening. I only knew that every now and then a deep inner urge would pull me out into nature, onto my motorbike, pushing me to drive, to merge with this uncomprehensible, ecstatic flow of life. Riding on my motorbike, in those days often without helmet, I would become one with the nature around me, the sound of the wind, the smells, the landscape. So riding a motorbike for me was truly a mystical experience in those days.
And then, when I stumbled upon the book “Zen and the art of motorcyle maintenance”, there was an instant recognition. It really was a revelation. But that will come later.