Holistic Living - Vinod Khanna —The Silent Hero
by Suma Varughese
An Indian actor's tryst with spirituality
I've always been interested in spirituality, because my family was inclined that way.
Annual pilgrimages to Rishikesh and Hardwar were de rigueur. But I consciously
turned to spirituality when I was quitting college to work on my first film.
I was attracted to by a picture of Paramhansa
Yogananda, and read his book Autobiography of a Yogi, in one
sitting. I felt I knew this man and his thoughts instinctively. Later,
in America, a psychic told me that I had been an American disciple of
Yogananda in my previous birth and I had died in World War II. Yogananda's
book triggered off my interest in meditation.
Within a year, I learnt transcendental meditation. I also attended J.
Krishnamurthy's discourses. Soon, I reached an impasse.
Transcendental meditation relaxed me, yet Krishnamurthy was dead against
it. The dilemma was resolved when I met Osho,
whom I immediately recogised as my guru. He made it clear there was no
path without a guru, and that one progressed to the state of no-meditation
through meditation. Osho's stress on witnessing the Self changed my life.
To find the observer as my goal. I went through many therapies and practices.
Walk
and watch yourself walk, breathe
and watch yourself breathe. At the end, you realize that the observer
is the observed. When I took sanyas, monkhood, in 1974, my marriage
to Gita broke up.
On returning to Mumbai in 1986, I had to rebuild my life. Today, I'm married again
and have two hildren from this marriage. I'm also back in films, but my priorities
have changed. Acting is today a small part of who I am. I would rather spend time
with my children or talk to friends. Fame and power no longer entice me. I'm launching
my son Akshaye into a film career with Himalaya Putra, an Indian movie.
But my real responsibility is to pass on my spiritual experiences to him and his
siblings. My wife has also become a sanyasi (a nun, the Osho way).
As for me, I suddenly realized that I was in a state of let go. Today my
mind is silent. But awareness is total, all questions have dropped. I live life
moment to moment. There is no anger, jealousy or desire. Instead, there is empathy,
compassion, love. My self-acceptance is complete. I'm 200 per cent comfortable
with myself. Smoking and drinking are habits of the body. If they stay, they stay,
if they drop, they drop. I can also accept others easily. You become aware people
are who they are because of conditioning. I believe there's a great power holding
us together. I trust that power. I surrender to it.
By Vinod Khanna as told to Suma Varughese
