Nikhila
Ma Dhyan Nikhila
For Nikhila, the beginning, the very beginning, was a book, picked up during two spare hours in a waiting room. "I was waiting for a meditation class after my yoga. At that time I saw my future as a yogi. I picked up this book and was blown away. But I couldn’t figure out who the author was... Osho? Was that a person’s name?"
Seeds were sown...
Nikhila at the sea (click on picture to zoom in)
This was late ’94 and on New Year’s Day ’95, Nikhila made her first journey to India. She was in the middle of changing career – from professional cook to yoga teacher.
"It was only four days after my arrival in Goa that I first set eyes on the person who was to introduce me to Osho, to Pune, and also to Feldenkrais. When I saw him, it was as if an alarm went off. He wore bright red or orange clothes and spelled danger – so I avoided him.
"It didn’t work. We ended up on the same yoga retreat in a remote National Park. Soon however, we became friends through a shared love of yoga and meditation. Several months later, anticipating as much bad as good, I went to Pune."
And in the Resort in Pune, under water in the swimming pool – in a thunderstorm, Nikhila decided to take sannyas.
"Or maybe sannyas took me?" she says. My friend made sure that every day I went to the meditations. At night, in discourse, I heard Osho say things like: "...I don’t want to be your master, I want to be your friend, I just want to offer you my hand, to help you along your path. I don’t want disciples – I want you all to be individuals, to wake up, think for yourselves, find your own truth – not follow the crowd like sheep..." That did it for me.
Many years before I had sailed across the Atlantic. I had been alone one blustery day at the helm. I was steering this little ship in a vast, vast ocean under a stormy sky; and I knew that God really must be all of that. And that I must therefore be totally in his hands. From that moment on, I knew too, I would never again allow any human to stand between me and God. Yet something remained incomplete, missing: Could Osho be my answer?".
Nikhila returned to Pune later that year. "The old life of teaching yoga and catering and cooking on land and sea no longer felt right."
She immersed herself in the Healing Arts. "‘Osho Movement Integration’ is Feldenkrais, and has become the major part of my work today. I also discovered Tai Chi, and Chi Kung, which have formed the basis for my daily meditation practice ever since. I did possibly hundreds of groups, and I found that working with bodies and movement was ‘my way’.
"Finally I had found what I had been looking for – the right channels to express my creativity, my love, my understandings. The biggest gift I think, of my time in Pune, was to understand that, as seekers, we all seeking healing or wholeness. It was my experience that the most important ingredient for true healing is Awareness – simply being present in every situation. To me this is the essence of Osho’s meditations and teachings."
Nikhila has since completed a professional training in the Feldenkrais Method "I chose it because I felt so much resonance between the teachings of Dr Feldenkrais and all the things I’d hear from Osho. Osho has said he only uses words to occupy our minds while the real work is happening. To me Feldenkrais uses movement for the same purpose; a vehicle for transformation."
Nikhila still teaches yoga and meditation as well – "Meditation and Movement: those are probably the two things most important to me in my own daily life."
Nikhila lives near Totnes in Devon. "I have a beautiful home with a view of simply trees. It’s about as close to being an ocean I can find. Being in nature nourishes me, and here I have the soft Devon countryside outside my door. I have the sea and the moors close by. We are many sannyasins round here, like a big extended family. I’ve always felt I have to have one foot in the marketplace, and the other one in the spiritual world.
"I’ve never found being ‘part of the pack’ easy – yet look! my work is so much about relationship. Essentially it is the relationship we have with ourselves that shapes the outer ones. And Osho’s discourses, again and again, take me to the silence inside from which everything else can flow.
"Sannyas for me is the right boat for open hearts and a pure love affair with existence."
Contact Nikhila:
01803 868766 / 07989 394904
info@lifeworks4.me.uk
www.LifeWorks4.me.uk
Read about "The Forgotten Language of Talking to the Body and Mind" – an article by Nikhila for OSHOinUK.
text by Rashid – September 2008
