I Am That (the Bhagwan 'n I..)

Hanging out in Santa Cruz sometime.. when was that? The end of August I believe. My friend I was staying with, 'Karachi', whom I hadn't met until I showed up and pitched my tent in his garden, introduced me to a book - he said it laid out east Indian spiritual principles pretty clearly, and was a good read. I made a note in my journal, and intended to pick it up whenever fate and searching laid it in my path. It was called, I Am That.
I couldn't remember the author's name, he was a skinny old Indian guy.
Earlier in the visit, sitting in Karachi's home-made house, watching him work, somehow conversation rambled around to 'the Bhagwan'. Karachi said he had this client, who is now an elderly lady, and it's pretty hard to picture her being really hot - brought in these pictures of her time in India in the early 70's, with the Bhagwan. And she was really hot.
This dude supposedly, Karachi said, was a brilliant young man, and became enlightened in some form, radiant, and started teaching others. His teaching was about wholeness and being who you are, instead of striving for perfection. This involved, apparently, accepting sexuality.
You can see where this is going...
The pictures, they were bad photocopies, were of the Bhagwan in a room full of beautiful young women, dancing in "spiritual ecstacy". The Bhagwan generally looked pretty serene, considering the circumstances. But there was one picture where one of the beautiful young women, I think it was the client, had her neck quite exposed, and the Bhagwan was behind her, his eyes lit up with animal hunger and his hands poised like a vampire. It was clearly a very brief slip in the 'enlightened' veneer, but hilarious! We laughed our heads off and started referring to him as 'the vampire master'..
A few weeks later, struggling with poison oak (evil, evil, evil) I was staying at my friend Doc's place in Long Beach, CA. I went for a stroll one afternoon with the intent to pick up two books, one - West with the Night, by Beryl Markham, very rare, but since I give it as gifts I always seem to find it. And another - I am That, probably more rare. So I find Beryl's book right off, because I love her and she loves me (really, she does) (I don't care that she's dead and would be a hundred or so). Then I wander around the store a few minutes more, and there it is - I am That. Ha! Am I good or what?
But something seemed funny about it, so I texted Karachi with the author's name and asked if that was right. The author looked familiar, but he did not look like the skinny old Indian dude. Text back = "that's the vampire!" Wtf? He wrote a book by the same title?
Yes, yes he did. It was I am That by the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, not by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (as I found out later). I wasn't going to get it, but hey, I can take a hint (you'll hear that a lot). How many coincidences is that involving the Bhagwan? He clearly wants to pollute my mind with his vampire-doctrine. ;)

To search for perfection is all very well
But to look for Heaven is to live here in Hell

Thanks Sting! I'm sure you 'n the Bhagwan would get along fine. The Bhagwan 'n I get along fine. I'm not done his book, but am sure enjoying it!
At the risk of being pedantic (is that the right word?) here's a long quote:

And if you choose not to follow your inner voice and follow the dictates of others - they call it morality, etiquette, civization, culture - then too that inner voice will start nagging you, it will continuously nag you. It will say you are being untrue to your nature. And if you feel that you are being untrue to your nature then your morality cannot be a rejoicing; it will only be an empty gesture.
...
My effort here is to help you become one. That's why I don't teach any morality, any character. All that I can teach is meditation, so that you can hear your inner voice more clearly and follow it, whatsoever the cost.

Whatsoever the cost. Hm. But the benefit is being natural, being yourself, not being divided. Once we are not divided inside ourselves, I'm not sure if the Bhagwan follows it to this point or not - how can we be divided from others?
Sitting chatting with my friend Nick at the Vancouver film fest yesterday, after seeing An Ecology of Mind, and A Simple Rythym, I said how they both reflected my ideas as I travelled this trip, and Nick said, "yeah, I miss that about travelling - you get so much time to reflect". I hadn't thought about that, but it's true.
Hm again. I wrote in my journal the day before, thinking about separateness and love: Only illusion ceases, and the only illusion is that of separateness.
I am that.

let's see if I can write this by memory;

The road goes ever on and on
down from the door where it began
now far along the road has gone
and I must follow if I can
treading it with eager feet
until it meets some larger way
where many paths and errands meet
and whither then? I cannot say