At the beginning of December 1978 I was 24 years old and had just arrived in Poona from Milan, Italy - one way ticket - on my way to Bangalore and Kyabje Zong Rimpoche's monastery. I soon realized it would have been too difficult to travel any further, not knowing a single word of English except elephant, which I had learned at the American kindergarden as a child... Poona was an amazing place indeed, worth exploring. I took sannyas a week later, on December the 8th, as to be able to participate to Bhagwan's birthday celebration as an insider. Giving my new name, Osho told me "Viren" means "courage to fall in love with the invisible". After few nights in a dormitory, I moved in a hut in Surrender Garden, close to the ashram. Surrender Garden was one of the first sannyasin settlements, a favorite spot of the hippy side of the commune - simple living, no gates, Indians passing through selling yogurt and chai - just few steps away from the river, an out-cast Indian village, and the burning ghats. My hut, built against the wall of a deep, round well where kids used to dive, had just a mattress on the ground and no door. One morning, I noticed a handsome young man sitting in the garden, dressed with a pale orange robe. He was combing his long blond hair with slow harmonious movements, then knotted them on the top of the head. He had an "old mala", and looked like a sadhu. A true meditator, I thought. And I fell in love. The next morning he was gone. I was now in love with an invisible British sannyasin. It made sense. Some fifteen days later, returning home from darshan after my first groups, I suddenly felt happy again: Pragyan had returned. He told me he had been in Goa. It took me a few moments to acknowledge he was in devastating pain. Soon he started having seizures, he lost consciousness and was turning and tossing in delirium across the bed. I run in the garden in search for help, but nobody could understand what I was saying, why I was so upset. An Italian crazy woman, they must have thought. Nobody cared... Finally, an Argentinian sannyasin helped us, and called a rickshaw. We headed to the Poona general hospital and Pragyan was immediately brought in the emergency room. In coma. I remained beside his bed, sleeping on the floor, for three days. I remember saying to him, following an intuitive understanding of the Tibetan Bardo, "Pragyan, you are free to choose: you can go, if you want, or you can stay. It's up to you..." He decided to stay. The Indian doctors and nurses were all very kind and efficient. But I must say it seemed very weird not to receive any support either from the ashram's office or the medical center. "It's his problem". Wasn't Pragyan an old sannyasin? Didn't he belong to the commune? How could they not come to see what was going on with him? Anyway, as soon as he was out of danger, Pragyan was moved into a hospital single room, with a nice window framed by red and yellow bougainvillea flowers, facing a quiet tropical courtyard. He could talk. My first English phrase ever: "Is the piss pot empty?" As I could not understand what he was asking for, he had to repeat it again and again. "Please, stop saying Yes, do it!" The other side of the sadhu, a British sergeant... He realized he could not see. I had some post cards with me, my favourite art pieces. I hanged them close to his eyes, one after the other, telling him the stories behind them, hoping it would help his desire to look at the world again. All this was very childish, maybe, but it seemed to work. Soon, he was able to share his life story. I was delighted by the sound of his voice, his poetry. I could not get the meaning of what he was saying, but at another level everything was clear and beautiful. He had two children, back in England - Majid and Majida - and a wife. He was very moved as he remembered them. I understood he was a mathematician, or that he liked mathematics, or the sciences, very much (Did I pick it up correctly?), before coming to India. He started making plans for the future, and seemed very excited about being alive. Then, he would listen to my stories, in Italian. We talked and laughed and dreamed together day and night. By the time he was kind of recovered, some fifteen days later, I was broke. Although I managed to borrow some money, I could not possibly take care of the two of us: Pragyan and myself begging side by side, in India? He was safe, now. The UK embassy would repatriate him, I was told. So, I started my journey inside the ashram, disappearing from his poor vision behind its gates. It has been a very painful decision. I felt selfish, guilty. Such a hard way to learn detachment, surrender, letting go - and reality. The last time I met him, Pragyan was walking in Koregaon Park road, a wooden box in his hand with the words "Give or take" written in capital letters on one side. Inside the box, few coins, a red car toy, some other little things. He looked at me with his loving smile and said: "Please, pick whatever you like". I thanked him. "Thank you for offering me the opportunity to give", he answered. I was given the deepest secret of generosity. In 1984, in a school bus in Rajneeshpuram, I overheard two Mas on the seats behind me talking about an English friend who had his life saved by a stranger, back in Poona. He was doing well... I didn't look back, didn't say anything, and get out of the bus the next stop, in tears. It's not easy to hear somebody saying you are a good person. Yes, Pragyan was a very good person. I'm sure the same is also true for his most beloved Majid, Majida, and Priya, and his grandchildren. Isn't life wonderful? With love and gratitude, Guia P.S. The picture was the subject of one of the postcards I showed to Pragyan in the hospital room. Flying Horse Of Gansu Eastern Han dynasty, 25 - 220 AD Gansu Provincial Museum. This outstanding bronze horse has become an iconic emblem of China. Racing through the skies, it treads on a swallow (base of statue) that looks up in amazement. Unlike Pegasus, the Western flying horse, the wingless Han steed is meant to be understood metaphorically rather than literally; it represents an ideal horse that can gallop so fast that it seems to outrun the wind. The sculpture is perfectly balanced on only one hoof, to complete the illusion of flight. (written by Ma Viren/Guia Sambonet 2013) ----- Me, I woke up from a coma and the only things I did know were who I was, Swami Deva Pragyan, a zen monk, a Rajneeshi, and where I was, a hospital somewhere in India. There was no way to leap from the bed and look out of the window, as I'd forgotten how to move, paralysed. There was no way to look in a mirror, I was blind, my brain had forgot what to do with the information from the optic nerves. Ten days later, when I'd learned to see in black & white, and walk (leaning on the walls), they threw me out of the hospital; gently, the wheelchaired me to the door and a motor-scooter rickshaw was there. Finding refuge in a Sannyasi dormitory, regathering my strength, someone gave me a book - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance... Who was the mysterious person who paid the hospital? I can run away from them and hide, the only place to hide is in sleep. Once I'd been doing that for months, up to 20 hours a day, hiding from pain until I woke up in a hospital. I knew it was a hospital as I had a drip-feed in my arm, and they told me I'd been in a coma for 10 days following a hypertensive encephalopathy. There were symptoms like meningitis, but no fever, and all they could find to treat was the blood pressure. What I'd been hiding from was a pain like being hit over the head with a hammer on every heartbeat. For six months the hammer was heavier every day. It was a side effect, along with arthirits throughout the body. This was so crippling I'd almost spent my last money on a folding wheelchair when I'd left London, flying home to India where all my friends were, to get looked after. That's where I caught the hepatitis that brought it all on. I've said many times that going to India almost killed me, and would have been cheap at the price! To have seen the world from a non-Eurocentric perspective, the "Middle East" is really "West Asia". Stoic acceptance of pain is easy now that I know only luck or grace kept me from dying then. All the rest of my life is a "Free Bonus Extra with every Purchase!". Eleven nights under the rainbow bridge, not wanted on either side, then thrown back to a conscious amnesiac adult birth-experience into an unsuccessful beggars body. Weighing just 45Kgs when at my most obese I'd been 90. Skin and bones, paralysed as much by muscular weakness as the brain damage. Cortically blind, with vision like a black and white TV with the aerial disconnected - movement, shapes, overlaid by boiling lava. Clouds, clearing from the edges first as peripheral vision is most important to survival - they're coming to get you, they're behind you! Slowly clearing to the focussed vision, all in black and white for two weeks until colours emerged, strengthening from touches of pastels for the strongest primary colours. (written by Deva Pragyan)