As the giant plane touched down with a gentle bump at Bombay International Airport, Jaan, who had changed his name back to Hasmukh, stopped reminiscing. He knew he had been very lucky last time. What he did not know, however, was whether he had done the right thing. Leaving Parmesh in Italy had been one of the most difficult tasks of his life. It also was intensely emotional, because neither he nor his son wanted to separate from each other. But rationality and practicality had gained control with a slight edge.
After his reappearance from India, Hilde granted him permission to stay for a while on Neudorfer Hof in the woods of Hessen. Hasmukh slowly recovered his physical and emotional strength, while he could be with Magda and Johannes. Knut took care of them at the time because Hilde worked in Frankfurt during the week.
By the end of the summer, he went back to Hamburg and began another stint driving taxi. Kiersten visited him first, and then he visited her in Copenhagen, but they realized that without steady income, they had no chance of maintaining a relationship. At some point, Hasmukh went to Zurich to see Lalitya, with whom he had maintained telephone contact during the months. Quickly he realized that she was unable to handle a man in her apartment. Her own issues of depression kept her too preoccupied, even though Jaan tried his best to pull her out of it.
Working six days a week and living modestly, he was able to regenerate in every aspect. Daily he went into the Dharmadeep for the Kundalini and had dinner in the center’s restaurant. It did not take long until he made new friends, and one day Eshana, from Yogesh’s doctor’s office, told him that she felt attracted to him. The two began an affair that lasted a few months, until she realized that Hasmukh had no intention of going any deeper. His objective was to go back to Poona, to the master and the Ashram as soon as possible.
Almost a year after he had left, Jaan was back as Hasmukh. He was so excited about many things. First, would they even let him enter the Ashram? To see Bhagwan again was his main purpose of being there.
He met Chandra and Parmesh near the front gate. They had never left the place. Between Hasmukh and his son, it was love at first sight. The little one appeared a little shy for some moments, but they became quickly inseparable. Chandra acted toward Hasmukh as if nothing had ever happened. She and her new boyfriend from Italy were about to leave for Europe. Since Parmesh insisted on being with his father, they agreed to let him with stay with Hasmukh.
Father and son became lucky when another couple, who had also a little boy, offered their luxurious apartment to Hasmukh that he could move into while they went to Europe. A great time began, during which the happy duo of Hasmukh and Parmesh enjoyed each other. The comfortable apartment was located not far from the Ashram. Hasmukh rented a television plus video player from the local movie-rental place. Parmesh went to the kindergarten that Sannyasin parents had organized outside of the Ashram, and at night, after the discourse with Bhagwan, they went to dinner together. Sometimes a friend would help baby-sit and stayed with the two together in their bedroom.
Much too early, an electronic message arrived from Chandra that she and her boyfriend had settled down in a small town in northern Italy. Most of all, they had found the perfect school for Parmesh, who had reached school age.
Despite the fact that his son said, “No, I don’t want to go there, I want to be with you,” and started to cry bitterly, Hasmukh stayed reasonable, booked a flight for the two, and went with his son to Italy.
He could not imagine that it would be better for the child to be with a single father driving taxi in Hamburg all the time. Two very well meaning adults offered the best for his child, including lovely Italy and an international school where his son would make good friends. Father and son separated from each other with broken hearts.
Now, back in Bombay, the routine of waiting for luggage, passing through Indian customs, and then taking the taxi to another taxi pulled Hasmukh out of his tearful thoughts. He was about to face another round of India and Poona, the master and the Ashram.
Arriving as usual very early in the morning, he checked into the accustomed inexpensive hotel and from there began his third stay. Luckily, the apartment he and Parmesh had stayed in was still available, and he could use it for a few months.
Major changes awaited him at the Ashram. Out of Bhagwan had become Osho. The nightly meetings with the master, in person or via video, now called the White Robe Brotherhood, were celebrated in white robes instead of red clothing. In addition, Osho introduced a new meditation, the Mystic Rose. Hasmukh thought he needed to catch up on something. During a three-day group session, the participants laughed, cried, and witnessed each segment nonstop during one whole day, except for breaks.
The groups and therapy department offered always-new methods and techniques, such as Dehypno and Tibetan Pulsing. Hasmukh enrolled in Tibetan Pulsing, a modern adaptation of an ancient method of clearing away that, which impedes the natural ebb and flow of energy. The sessions did not leave any significant recollections. Hasmukh’s all-time favorite was the group with the changing names, Awareness Intensive. He had done a weeklong Primal group in the Miasto Center in Italy with Ma Yoga Sudha before, and he saw that she offered the weeklong Awareness Intensive in the Ashram. Hasmukh had the highest respect for the therapist and loved the discoveries of the mind during the group process when he had done it before.
For the duration of seven days, participants were not permitted to communicate with each other, except during the sessions. They were on a strict diet without sugar and in silence when leaving the group rooms. The only enquiry, which would be asked when two partners sat opposite each other, was, “Tell me who you are?”
For days after the group, a state of heightened awareness lingered and then slowly diminished. At that time, Hasmukh knew exactly what his main purpose in life was: to stay enlightened, awakened, and maintain this state permanently.
The closest he had ever come to permanence before was during his first visit to the Ashram. At the time when Buddha Hall was still a simple tent roof with bamboo supports. Three thousand disciples with the master (still Bhagwan) talking, leaving long silences between sentences, and then total silence—only the birds chirping, an occasional rickshaw passes by the front gate, deep silence. No thought. Then music was gently indicating that the discourse had ended. As Bhagwan, up front with a big smile, swaying his arms to the music, said one time, “There is so much love in this hall.”
This phenomenon occurred many times in the fall of that year, and Hasmukh’s state of consciousness remained in that heightened space all the way down the road to the German bakery or until he talked to somebody.
He began working in the reception pavilion as concierge, selling tickets and giving advice about where to find anything a newcomer might want to know. Hasmukh met many pretty women, some of whom he got to know more intimately. It was a time of indulging and no fear within and out of the Ashram. Two or three parties a week were organized in hotels or the open air across from his new apartment building. Clock time passed quickly. For a week, he went to Candolim Beach, Goa, to enjoy the ocean and the seafood and then came back to Poona to resume his position in the reception area.
Over the past weeks, he had noticed a medium-sized, red-haired woman with hazel eyes and a sexy, petite built. Once he even sold tickets to her, but they never talked privately. One night, like many nights before, he took his used moped and drove to the hotel about three miles away from Koregaon Park, which sometimes hosted parties on its rooftop. As usual, after arriving, he positioned himself near the mass of wildly dancing Sannyasins and had a bottle of beer. At the perfect moment, he joined the dancers and became one of them. Then he noticed her, the woman with red hair, having a break near the balustrade of the roof. She noticed him as well, looked and smiled, and then joined him dancing.
He immediately realized that she was a smooth, agile dancer, vibrant, energetic. More and more the two became a couple dancing with each other, forgetting all about the people around them, sometimes coming closer, sometimes far from each other, but never losing sight and never touching each other. Eventually, they had to take a break to cool down and drink, the sweat streaming down their bodies. Hasmukh had just met Rakkasa, Sanskrit for “dancer.”
After the party, he took her home to her apartment, where they spent their first night together. A relationship like a cool-burning flame began to sprout from a seed into fragile seedling and then a sapling. Later it developed bark and shed leaves. Hasmukh invited Rakkasa on a trip to Goa, and after a few weeks, considering her schedule in the Dehypno Institute, she accepted. The couple enjoyed their honeymoon in Candolim.
A week had passed. Sweetest passion and being friendly with each other at the Goa beaches could have lasted forever, when Rakkasa suddenly said, “I want to go back to Poona. I feel I have to be there.”
Hasmukh, trying to understand, agreed to join her. Their taxi from the airport dropped them off close to her apartment. The lovers went outside to have a first look into the Ashram. A large crowd of people moved from the south of North Main Road toward them. The mass filled the whole road, like a demonstration without shouting.
As they began to recognize individuals in the crowd, Rakkasa suddenly put her hand in front of her mouth and cried out, “He died. He left his body. Do you see it? They carry him on their shoulders.”
Then he saw as well. About eight men held a stretcher on their shoulders. On it laid a body encircled with flowers. As the men in the crowd came closer, Hasmukh could clearly identify his dead master. Rakkasa and Hasmukh joined the procession, together with many other Sannyasins, and spent the whole day and the following night very close to the fireplace of the burning ghat on the Mula River. They were singing and chanting, crying and laughing and mourning.
When they returned to her apartment in the early in the morning hours, Rakkasa said, “We have to clean our clothes.”
He took his clothes to the dry cleaner. The Ashram and Poona changed forever.