In the spring of 1981 Deeksha took a group of her workers and few others to New Jersey to prepare a large house, which had been known as Kip’s Castle, for the arrival of Osho a month later. The Castle was a 9,000 square foot, 30 room mansion, complete with turrets and a small chapel. There was a lot to do within a very short period of time. The main house and carriage house were completely remodeled. The castle was in Montclair sitting on the first ridge with an incredible view of New York City. You could even see the Statue of Liberty on a clear day. Our nearest neighbors were Salvatorian Fathers who lived in a monastery next door.
Osho arrived on June 1. Because of his bad back, we had installed an electric chair for him to go up the entrance stairs at the side of the house—inside was an elevator. He took one long look at the chair and walked up the stairs; he never used it.
The atmosphere of living and working at the Castle was so very different from Poona. Because of the small group compared to the throngs in Poona, Osho was free to walk around the grounds and check out our work. I remember one day running very quickly around the back of the house and almost running into him. I came to a skidding stop.
Soon after his arrival he started having driving lessons so that he could get his driver’s license. He would occasionally pick someone from the group that would gather to see him off to accompany him. Most everyone that rode with him was scared to death. Of course Osho was a fearless driver and that is what terrified the passengers. Before too long, the musicians began to gather for his departure and arrival which soon blossomed into mini celebrations. Our work schedule was not so demanding, by that time, because we had already completed his living quarters.
When he first arrived he shared a floor of the house with a tenant who had a lease from before the purchase. I forget the fellows name but he had a big dog. Occasionally Osho and he would meet in the elevator.
One day I was downstairs in the main office when Vivek came down. She said that she needed help programming the VCR that had just been purchased. I looked around and as there was no one else present said that I would be happy to.
I followed her up the stairs and into a room that had been outfitted for Osho to watch videos. He was sitting in his comfortable chair beaming as we entered. On the floor was the new VCR with its LED time flashing at 12:00.
Setting the clocks on these machines just required pushing the correct button until the time moved around to the correct time. And on this VCR like on most there was one button for fast changing of the time and one for slow.
I sat on the floor and explained how to do so, while setting the time. The difficulty was that as I was focusing on the time so that I did not go past the needed setting, there was a tremendous expansiveness taking place simultaneously. It took a lot of effort to remain grounded in time and at the same time dissolving into the timeless. And of course Osho would ask a question here and there to make it even more interesting.
I think I missed the mark the first time and passed the correct time, but I was sure not to do so, on the second go round.
-purushottama
From From Lemurs to Lamas
The entire pdf file of the book can be downloaded from: From Lemurs to Lamas: Confessions of a Bodhisattva
