Osho's dream

In Europe, I don't have a driver's license because it would cost me more than a thousand euros and six months of effort. It's time and money I prefer to spend on anything else, so I am condemned to public transportation.

After so much coming and going with Pietro, one of the three taxi drivers in the town, we became friends. He is married to a Dominican; they met at a meditation retreat in India, have no children, and seem quite happy. The only thing he talks about is meditation, mindfulness, and the energies that govern reality.

The last time he confessed to me that he was a follower of Osho, and I was speechless because that guru was very peculiar. Osho was a guy who, in the early 80s, founded a city in Oregon, in the middle of nowhere. He filled it with Rolls Royces, airplanes, and people dressed in red who longed for a better society. In short, a cult of utopia, which, no matter how beautiful it may be, was ultimately a cult; that is, a cage of ideas.

I got so nervous with Pietro that, to avoid the subject, I started talking nonsense. I spoke about the weather, Mussolini, the Divine Comedy, and the Neapolitan Milanese; I was saying foolish things while, in my head, I couldn't understand how such a sweet person had fallen into a cult. Then I wondered if I wasn't involved in one and didn't realize it; terror was taking hold of me until we reached our destination, and we said goodbye.

The day before yesterday, I dreamt of Osho; I still feel his penetrating gaze. My soul had an indescribable feeling; it was a mixture of fear, respect, and anguish. However, I managed to overcome my cowardice because I realized that only an enlightened person like him could answer a question that has bothered me since I was five years old.

It was in the dream, with trembling lips, that I managed to say, "Master, why don't spiders scratch?"