Q: For 15 years you were a disciple of Osho. What is the major lesson that he gave you?

JD: The major lesson was to completely change my life from somebody like everybody else, who is looking out in the world to somebody who looks inside. This happened mainly through different techniques of meditation and through self-awareness, to become aware of what is going on inside. So my focus changed from being busy in the world to looking inside.

Q: And what did you see when you looked inside yourself?

JD: A lot of thoughts in the beginning. I had a busy mind. I was coming to Osho when I was 30 years old and like any 30 year old I was busy with trying to make it in the world. I was in those days an engineer and an architect. I occasionally had a girlfriend. I was busy in the world with a lot of thoughts, desires, frustrations worries and all this stuff. When I first looked inside I didn’t really like it very much.

Q: And the idea of community, where did this come from ?

JD: Well, Osho had an ashram and this was a very vibrant community. I came there in the beginning of the 70’s. I was following on from the crazy 60’s where everybody was living in communities. I was part of this lively very international community for some time.

Q: Now you have three houses, in Spain, Germany and Ukraine. Is there a difference in the spiritual level of people who live in Ukraine and in Europe?

JD: The biggest difference is the conditioning that people get in the different countries. For me it’s very interesting. I’ve visited Russia 25 years ago and traveling in the Soviet Union.   
          Since five years I have been visiting Ukraine every three months. I have a nice group of people from Ukraine. And these people have been conditioned by the Soviet Union from their parents or their grandparents.
          They have issues about authority for example. They don’t really trust very much in authority. So that’s an issue with me as I am functioning as a teacher. There are issues about survival, because the economy is not so strong here in Ukraine. And they have other aspects of conditioning like postponing, one of the Ukrainian personal characteristics I would say is to do everything later, tomorrow or next week.
         The strongest conditioning left by the Soviet Union, a strong resistance.“ I want to do what I want to do when I want to do it.” A teenage reaction which is not real Freedom.
        That’s in contrast to Germany, where the people work a lot, too much probably and are very serious about their things. They have a rather different conditioning

Q: You are familiar with different spiritual flows and you have met a lot of masters or teachers. What did they share? What is their biggest idea?

JD: I think the biggest idea most Masters talk about, is the one that Osho was talking about. Trying to get people to see that this connection to the world outside by hoping that through their desires being met, they will become happy, that this doesn’t work. Therefore the Masters – with different ideas or angles – are encouraging people to look inside.     
          I think every master basically talks about that misunderstanding / illusion, that we hope that some satisfaction like a new job, a new car, a new girlfriend or boyfriend will make us happy. Most people are living in this kind of circle of desire. It only works for a short time and then they look for an even better girlfriend or boyfriend.
         It helps a bit of course, but it is not the solution. If you really want to live in a completely different way, if you want to live in freedom, if you want to live in peace, that doesn’t work.

Q: What is the highest humans goal?

JD: To know yourself.

Q: What about meditation.

JD: Meditation and Yoga are very useful spiritual techniques, and can bring you to look inside. That’s a very important part and they can also bring you a quiet mind, that’s also a very important part. Those two things would be prerequisites you need to do in the beginning to be ready then to know yourself.

Q: In one of your talks you told that when you lived in Papaji’s house, it was not always very peaceful and there were also hard days. Could you please tell what’s the benefit for a person living with his teacher when he starts to work with the bad days.

JD: First of all I don’t see life as good and bad. This is a Christian idea of heaven and hell. I see that all the things that happen to us have in them a possibility of us learning something about how we function. If you live with a master, I didn’t actually live in Papaji’s house I lived nearby, but anyway, when I have had intense contact with him, he would act as a very strong mirror.
         I would be looking into the mirror and I would have to see something about myself. So if you really want to become free of the stuff you have got inside, you stay around the master for some years. That’s actually the quickest and the best way to become spiritually free, if that is what you want.

Q: But how to solve the difficulties in life?

JD: There are no difficulties! What can you do if it is suddenly going to rain, then we get wet. We don’t have any choice. Things like that happen all the time, in a minute maybe the mosquitoes will start biting us. There is nothing we can do. It’s not really difficulties, because we are conscious people we sprayed mosquito liquid everywhere and we have got little fires going and hopefully that will deal with the mosquitoes.
          If we were unconscious we would be bitten by the mosquitoes. And so life is not really difficult or a problem. You just use your understanding of life to go into the next adventure.

Q: And your doctrine is to build up self-consciousness, but what is the role of sub consciousness in it?

JD: When you start to know yourself you very quickly discover that inside is what you could call the subconscious, there are certain structures which intend to repeat themselves into the consciousness. For example most people believe that they are not good enough, but everybody else is good enough. When you scratch on the surface you find almost everybody has that structure, so this is not a real thing. Everybody can’t be not good enough. So we can assume this is only some kind of automatic message coming from the subconscious that was put there when we were very small.

Q: And who puts it there?

JD: Probably our parents put it there.

Q: And is there any parents right now for example who don’t do this and people like living their life.

JD: For example in our community in Germany we had a little boy born in the community and he lived in our community for eight years.
         I would say he was given the space to develop himself in whatever way he wanted. It was his freedom you can say. And he got a few fathers and he got a few mothers from the community. Sometimes people visited and he would choose a new daddy for the weekend. I would have strong hopes that in another five or ten years we would discover that he’s not walking around feeling I’m not good enough.

Q: Right, now psychology gives a lot of formulas, everyone loves it, the ideas how to solve the inside problems and also the idea of family constellations.

JD: All these things can be useful. But it’s not going to bring you to freedom. The thing that is going to bring you to freedom is to realize you are already free. It is actually very, very simple. And unfortunately the problem with psychology is, you go to a psychologist and you say “I really hate my father, we always fight, can you help me” and then for the next 20 weeks you go and see him. So that makes you feel like you have a problem.

Q: You spend a lot of time and money on it and you start loving your problem.

JD: Therefore I doubt that will take away the problem of how you relate with your father. It would probably make it a bit easier and if your father goes to some other psychologist at the same time, there is some hope that things will get better.

Q: Do you continue to develop yourself and to self-realize yourself and what is motivating you to do self-realization?

JD: I am not self realizing myself. I’m simply living in love.
          When I had gone from Osho I got lots of benefit from those 15 years. I had become rather quiet and my mind was no longer busy as it was when I was thirty and I had some understanding. I had moved myself from being so busy on the outside to being more busy on the inside.
          After Osho died I went to another master, Papaji. Quite quickly with his power I was able to realize, that actually there is nothing, there is nobody. As soon as I realized that, there was a profound shift and that happened to me 25 years ago, with his help.
         I realize I am just the same as everybody. I am one with everything. Life is no longer a problem. Life is just a happening from moment to moment and I am part of this happening. It’s a profound shift, it’s a profound change.
         From looking inside, from quieting the mind and becoming self-aware you start to really know yourself. For example you may start to realize that actually you are powerful or you are good enough or beautiful.
         So this is releasing your potential. Every human being has some kind of potential and whether they meet this potential depends on whether they are ready to do the work on their subconscious structures to release enough that they are living who they really are. And who they really are is nothing, nobody.

Q: In your film “Blueprints for Awakening” you ask one of the Masters: “What do you see when you look into your people’s eyes”. Now when you have your own community, how could you answer this?

JD: Well, when I look into people’s eyes I see love.

Q: And what color is it.

JD: It doesn’t really have a color. Love is energy. You could say it can be stronger or weaker but it doesn’t usually have a color.

Q: How could you describe it?

JD: Love is an energy. It has nothing to do with boys and girls and falling in love and candlelight dinners. That’s not what I would call love. I would call that a disease.

Q: A disease? I would like to know.

JD: Through the centuries we have been conditioned to believe that our most true happiness will come when we can find somebody to love us.
          We spend a lot of energy to look for such a person and we come in a relationship with them. We try out a few things together and if it all seems positive we sign a contract, it’s called marriage.
          Probably that’s not really going to work, because nobody can give you love. You can play together, you can access your own love. If it’s a very nicely balanced kind of harmonious relationship then you could maybe both live in love.
            The love is actually your own love and if you think it comes from the other person, what happens when that person might spend an evening with your friend? Then of course you might get jealous and then things break down.
        So of course to have the person who is bringing you the love, that is going to make you feel satisfied, happy and peaceful maybe go off with somebody else, is a major shock to your system. I don’t think that’s the way to go if you want to access real love. The way to go is inside yourself.

Q: I see you offer a silent practice. When nobody talks. What’s the idea and how does it helps people.

JD: By becoming really quiet you experience yourself as being part of oneness, you feel yourself as part of a greater energy field, which could be called a greater love field.

Q: Well thank you John David!