It was a cloudless night in the remote area of Portugal; we were sitting silently under the stars on a quiet hill of Vlahos near Fatima, the shrine of Our Lady. An uncanny situation had brought me there. I was in Portugal for a workshop, “EU Interior, Us Inside”. I was facilitating some Osho meditations along with the organiser, Alex.
The participants were susceptible and open to new experiments. One of the meditative techniques was about compassion in which you have to breathe in the suffering and pain inside your heart and breathe out joy and happiness. This seemingly impossible method is, in fact, highly powerful. It is about the magical transformative power of the deeper layers of the heart. It is an ancient Tibetan technique which is improvised by Osho. If you breathe into your heart, you will feel the space expanding, relaxing and you will reach the inner part of the heart. While breathing, you have to breathe in the misery and suffering. The pain is transformed into joy so while breathing out, pour the joy over existence. Gradually, the transformation begins to happen and within few minutes, you start feeling peaceful and blissful.
A small chirpy middle-aged woman, Tanya, came to see me after the meditation. She was wiping her tears of joy. With a warm hug, she said, “Since I was born, I have found peace in my heart for the first time. I thought pain and suffering alone are my predicaments. But no, I can be happy, dancing.” Her joy was infectious; everybody around us was affected.
She was working in the management of the sanctuary of Fatima. By now, you must be curious to know as to who is Fatima from near Lisbon? Back in 1917, it was a small village of shepherds. The First World War was in full swing. On March 13, 1917, three little shepherd kids aged eight, nine and 10 had a vision of an angel who told them that the war will soon end and there will be wellness all around. These kids had this vision continuously for nine months, on the same day, till November, 1917. It could be explained away as a childish fantasy but what was amazing was that the elders started believing in them. This belief soon took the form of faith and they were uplifted to the status of no less than angels. Even after a century has passed, the place annually draws eight million people with hope, belief, trust and sacrifice. This place runs so smoothly, it does not need security guards or any kind of protection.
Tanya works here. How did she manage to reach an Osho meditation? She happened to grab an Osho book on Intimacy in Portuguese. Impacted by his words, she was pulled to Osho meditations. She urged me to visit this place. I can’t say whether the whole phenomenon was a superstition or not but if a myth can give solace and support for living to millions of people over a century, it can be termed as one of those truths that are stranger than fiction.
