Today I was tidying up my papers in preparation for going back to NZ from Saudi and I came across a pamphlet on Rudra Meditation, which I’d been meaning to read for years. The final pointer was: “The greatest sadhana is meditation on your teacher.”

Sadhana, according to one definition, means daily spiritual practice. Your teacher in this context could be your guru. The pamphlet says: “The purpose of Guru Yoga is to learn to see the world through the Guru’s eyes.”

I stopped and considered who my teacher would be. At the moment I’m reading many books by Dr. Wayne Dyer. I once did an introductory meditation course at a Sri Chinmoy center, and I very much like the cards you find with his quotes on them.

But actually Osho has been my guru since I was four years old. He was a professor of philosophy who travelled through India as a public speaker before being called to mysticism. [NB: the recent doco abut him on Netflix would make anybody think twice about admitting to being a follower!]

In the 1980s my mother, step-mother, step-father and some of their friends became Sannyasins. When you signed up you were given a new name and many people (including my mum) changed theirs officially. They wore a lot of orange and red and purple clothing and some visited the ashrams.

There were five kids in our blended family and two of us chose to join. My name is Anurag Deepika: a lantern of love. We wore mala beads with a picture of Bhagwan (as he was known then) in a glass pendant – to primary school! I also remember pictures of him around the house, watching on kindly.

Over the years mum continued to give me Osho books and also a set of Tarot Cards. Everything written by him makes perfect, natural, intuitive sense to me.

Osho was criticised for the Rolls Royces and sunglasses and other trappings of success—not to mention the sex—but I agree that spiritual wealth and material wealth are not mutually exclusive. Nor must a master be a fierce ascetic.

I’m happy to have had this reminder of Osho today. I’ll continue to seek out his wisdom, and will start meditating on his image so I may start to see more of the world through the eyes of a sage.