Attitude

Your living is determined not so much by what life brings you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.

--John Homer Miller

Self-Pride

During her lifetime, Eleanor Roosevelt worked with all types of people from every aspect of American society. Perhaps one of her most profound statements was when she said, "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." Too many people go around telling others that they are "only" this, or ''just" that. They never seem satisfied with the way they are. If you're not happy with who or what you are, make some effort to change it. Be proud of who you are, instead of using words such as "only" and "just" to feel sorry for yourself.

The primary cause of unhappiness

If there is unhappiness in you, first you need to acknowledge that it is there. But don't say, "I'm unhappy." Unhappiness has nothing to do with who you are. Say: "There is unhappiness in me." Then investigate it.

A situation you find yourself in may have something to do with it. Action may be required to change the situation or remove yourself from it. If there is nothing you can do, face what is and say, "Well, right now, this is how it is. I can either accept it, or make myself miserable."

The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it. Be aware of the thoughts you are thinking. Separate them from the situation, which is always neutral, which always is as it is. There is the situation or the fact, and here are my thoughts about it.

Instead of making up stories, stay with the facts. For example, "I am ruined" is a story. It limits you and prevents you from taking effective action. "I have fifty cents left in my bank account" is a fact.

Facing facts is always empowering. Be aware that what you think, to a large extent, creates the emotions that you feel. See the link between your thinking and your emotions. Rather than being your thoughts and emotions, be the awareness behind them.

Don't seek happiness. If you seek it, you won't find it, because seeing is the antithesis of happiness. Happiness is ever elusive, but freedom from unhappiness is attainable now, by facing what is rather than making up stories about it. Unhappiness covers up your natural state of well-being and inner peace, the source of true happiness.

Eckhart Tolle

Right view

Relatively speaking, there are right views and there are wrong views. But if we look more deeply, we see that all views are wrong views. No view can ever be the truth. It is just from one point; that is why it is called a "point of view." If we go to another point, we will see things differently and realize that our first view was not entirely right. Buddhism is not a collection of views. It is a practice to help us eliminate wrong views. The quality of our views can always be improved. From the viewpoint of ultimate reality, Right View is the absence of all views.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Surrendering

If you persist in trying to attain what is never attained (It is Tao's gift),
If you persist in making effort to obtain what effort cannot get,
If you persist in reasoning about what cannot be understood,
You will be destroyed by the very thing you seek.

To know when to stop,
To know when you can get no further by your own action,
This is the right beginning!

- Chuang Tzu, translated by T.Merton

Be quiet now

Once you realise that the person is merely a shadow of the reality, but not the reality itself, you cease to fret and worry. You agree to be guided from within and life becomes a journey into the unknown..... If you just try to keep quiet, all will come - the work, the strength for work, the right motive. Must you know everything beforehand? Don't be anxious about your future - be quiet now and all will fall into place.

- Nisargadatta: I am That

Stillness

Most human interactions are confined to the exchange of words - the realm of thought. It is essential to bring some stillness, particularly into your close relationships. No relationship can thrive without the sense of spaciousness that comes with stillness. Meditate or spend silent time in nature together. When going for a walk or sitting in the car or at home, become comfortable with being in stillness together. Stillness cannot and need not be created. Just be receptive to the stillness that is already there, but is usually obscured by mental noise. If spacious stillness is missing, the relationship will be dominated by the mind and can easily be taken over by problems and conflict. If stillness is there, it can contain anything.

- Eckhart Tolle

Awakened doing

Awakened doing is the alignment of your outer purpose--what you do--with your inner purpose -- awakening and stay awake. Through awakened doing, you become one with the out going purpose of the universe. Consciousness flows through you into this world. It flows into your thoughts and inspires them. It flows into what you do and guides and empowers it.

Not what you do, but how you do what you do, determines whether you are fulfilling your destiny. And how you do what you do is determined by your state of consciousness.

Eckhart Tolle: A New Earth

Finding God

Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in love in a quite absolute, final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you will do with your evenings, how you will spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amaze you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love and it will decide everything.

Joseph Camphell

Be in the world

As St. Augustibe advised: "Be in the world, not of the world." We may live in the world, but that must not make us worldly...In a similar vein Sri Ramakrishna said: "There is no harm if the boat is in the water, but the water should not be in the boat." We can be in the world, but the world must not be in us. This is the attitude of detachment which gives rise to the love of God. The quality of detachment is referred to repeatedly in the Hindu Scriptures. For example, we read in the Bhagavad-Gita: "He who works renouncing attachment, offering his actions to Brahman, remains unstrained by sin (even as the lotus leaf remains untouched by water). This is the way we must live in the world. If we are detached from our actions, we will not be bound by them. The repetition of the Lord's name, meditation, prayer and worship are extremely valuable when they are practiced without attachment. "To work in such a spirit of detachment is known as Karma yoga", work in a detached spirit, not craving the work's results.

The complete works of Swami Vivekananda

The courage to believe

When you desire and fear, and identify yourself with your feelings, you create sorrow and bondage. When you create, with love and wisdom, and remain unattached to your creations, the result is harmony andpeace. But whatever be the condition of your mind, in what way does itreflect on you? It is only your self-identification with your mind that makes you happy or unhappy. Rebel against your slavery to your mind, see your bonds as self- created and break the chains of attachment and revulsion. Keep in mind your goal of freedom, until it dawns on you that you are already free, that freedom is not something in the distant future to be earned with painful efforts, but perennially one's own, to be used! Liberation is not an acquisition but a matter of courage, the courage to believe that you are free already and to act on it.

--Nisargadatta

What is

If you desire to be even slightly different from what you are, you are going against what is. And what is is the path. The moment one wakes up to what is, one's life is filled with a naturalness and beauty, a freedom and liberation permeates one's every breath. This beauty is never available to the so-called practioner. A violence, a supression and a kind of lust for becoming destroys that naturalness. Hence there is an ugliness found in all the so-called aspiring ascetics. Then what shall we do? Nothing. Not to do, not to do anything, is meditation. The self is neither in doing nor in thoughts. It is discovered the moment actions and thoughts are dispelled. Drop everything, let go of everything, let everything disappear. And then what is seen in this nothingness, in this emptiness, is everything.

Osho: No where to go but in

Our thoughts

As we treat others, so -- invariably -- do we treat ourselves. For the energy we project to him is generated first in ourselves. Our thoughts and energy create a vortex, which draws to us whatever vibrations out of the great ocean of consciousness resound in sympathy with our own. "Thoughts", Yogananda wrote in Autobiography of a Yogi, "are universally and not individually rooted". "Whatever vibrations we attract, and then project outward to others, have their first and greatest impact on ourselves: adversally, if our thoughts are unkind; beneficially, if they are generous.

Kriyananda: The promise of Immortality

Words of wisdom

We only get what we deserve. It is a lie when we say, the world is bad and we are good, it can never be so. It is a terrible lie we tell ourselves. This is the first lesson to learn: be determined not to curse anything outside, not to lay the blame upon anyone outside: but be a man, stand up, lay the blame on yourself. You will find that is always true. Get hold of yourself...We are to take care of ourselves. That much we can do, and give up attending to others, for a time. Let us perfect the means, the end will take care of itself. For the world can be good and pure, only if our lives are good and pure. It is an effect, and we are the means, let us purify ourselves. Let us make ourselves perfect.

Swami Vivekananda

What is happiness?

What is happiness, and how can we all get some? Biochemist turned Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard says we can train our minds in habits of well-being, to generate a true sense of serenity and fulfillment.

From "I am That"

By all means attend to your duties. Action, in which you are not emotionally involved and which is beneficial and does not cause suffering will not bind you. You may be engaged in several directions and work with enormous zest, yet remain inwardly free and quiet, with a mirror like mind, which reflects all, without being affected.

--Nisargadatta

Lao Tzu

Everything in the universe
is an expression of the Tao
It springs into existence
unconscious, perfect, free
take on a physical body
let circumstances complete it
That is why every being
spontaneously honors the Tao
The Tao gives birth to all beings
nourishes them, maintains them
cares for them, comforts them, protects them
takes them back to itself
creating without possessing
acting without expecting
guiding without interferring
That is why love of the Tao
is in the very nature of things.

--Lao Tze

Destiny

There is no destiny beyond and above ourselves, we are ourselves the architects of our future. All disturbances and challenges rise not only from our relationship with others, but in our attitude to all other things and beings.

Mind can make a Hell of Heaven, or a Heaven of Hell.

Character is formed from the repeated choice of thoughts and action.

The secrets of action is to get established in equanimity, renouncing all egocentric attachments, and forgetting to worry over our success and failures.

To give love is the true Freedom; To demand love is the oure Slavery.

Quotations from Swami Chinmayananda's writtings

Words of inspiration

• Success or achievement is not the final goal. It is the "spirit" in which you act that puts the seal of beautify upon your life.
• To love and to be loved is the greatest happiness. Do the best and leave the rest.
• The tragedy of human history is decreasing happiness in the midst of increasing comforts.
• Not to do what you feel like doing is Freedom.
• To be angry is to revenge the faults of others on ourselves.
• He who submits to discipline is a DISCIPLE.
• Sin is never in action, it is always in reaction. "Moksha" is not "Freedom from Action", but "Freedom in Action".
• Faith is: To believe what you do not see; The reward of which is: You see what you believed.
• A mind that has forgotten the past and the future, that is awake to the now, to the present, expressing the highest concentration of intelligence.
• A man of wisdom lives in the world but he is never of the world.

Find positive in negative

Let it become one of the fundamental rules of your life. Even if you come across a negative, find something positive in it. You will always be able to find something. And one day you become skillful at finding the positive in the negative, you will dance with joy. Try it, try the new visions of life. Think in terms of optimism, don't be a pessimist. The pessimist creates hell around himself and lives in it--you live in the world you create. Remember, there is not only one world, there are as many worlds as there are minds in the world. I live in my world, you live in your world. They are not only different, they never overlap. They are utterly different, they exist on different planes.

Osho: The book of wisdom

Life

Life of man is what is. That which is, is. All the trouble arises by having a conception of it.

Mind comes in. It has a conception. All trouble follows. If you are as you are, without a mind and its conceptions about various things, all will be well with you. If you seek the source of the mind, then alone all questions will be solved.

-Sri Ramana Maharshi

True master

He who instructs an ardent seeker to do this or that is not a true master. The seeker is already afflicted by his activities and wants Peace and Rest. In other words he wants cessation of his activities. Instead of that he is told to do something in addition to, or in place of, his other activities. Can that be a help to the seeker?

-Sri Ramana Maharshi

Words of Wisdom

The state we call realization is simply being oneself, not knowing anything or becoming anything. If one has realized, he is that which alone is, and which alone has always been. He cannot describe that state.

He can only be That. Of course, we loosely talk of Self-realization for want of a better term.

That which is, is peace. All that we need do is to keep quiet. Peace is our real nature. We spoil it. What is required is that we cease to spoil it.

- Sri Ramana Maharshi

Bowl of Saki

By our thoughts we have prepared for ourselves the happiness or unhappiness we experience.

Fighting with another makes war, but struggling with one's self brings peace.

All our possessions, all that we collect in life, all these things which we shall have to leave one day are transitory; but that which we have created in our thought, in our mind, that lives. A person thinks, 'Some day I should like to build a factory.' At this time he has no money, no knowledge, no capability; but a thought came, 'Some day I should like to build a factory.' Then he thinks of something else. Perhaps years pass, but that thought has been working constantly through a thousand minds, and a thousand sources prepare for him that which he once desired. If we could look back to all we have thought of at different times, we would find that the line of fate or destiny, Kismet as it is called in the East, is formed by our thought. Thoughts have prepared for us that happiness or unhappiness which we experience.

The whole of mysticism is founded on this.

Joy, sorrow, love, all depend on our thought, on the activity of our mind. If we are depressed, if we are in despair, it is still the work of our mind; our mind has prepared that for us. If we are joyful and happy, and all things are pleasant, that also has been prepared for us by our mind. It is only when our mind works without control that unhappiness, sorrow, trouble, pain, or whatever we experience comes without our intention. No one could wish to create hell for himself; all would create heaven for themselves if they could; and yet how many allow their minds to create these things for them, regardless of their own intention.

'The present is the reflection of the past, and the future is the re- echo of the present.' Destiny is not what is already made. Destiny is what we are making. Very often fatalists think that we are in the hands of destiny, driven in whatever direction in life destiny wills; but in point of fact we are the masters of our destiny, especially from the moment we begin to realize this fact.

Man is responsible for his success and failure, for his rise and fall. And it is man who brings these about either knowingly or unknowingly.

Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

Words of wisdom

The first lesson to learn is to resign oneself to the little difficulties in life, not to hit out at everything one comes up against. If one were able to manage this one would not need to cultivate great power; even one's presence would be healing. Such a person is more precious than the branch of the rose, for that has many thorns but only a few flowers.

-Hazrat Inayat Khan

Real love & compassion

There is one thing that is extremely important for everyone, no matter whether his/her characteristics are human or animal like, satanic or divine, whether he is a child or a grandfather or whether or not his is a Yogi--everyone needs someone, in distress. We say, " I need a shoulder to lean on, a shoulder to cry on". Inner loneliness is very hard to bear, and humanity is suffering intensely from it in our times. We are disappointed so frequently, we need at least a hope. I have said more than once where there is hope and faith there is life and guidance. There must be someone to whom we can always turn, someone who will always accept us no matter what we have done. What should we do when someone who has made a mistake come crying to us? The highest wisdom is to say nothing. If we start scolding and reproaching we are commiting a worse mistake. True love and geniune compassion are shown by responding with: "That can happen to everyone. Don't worry: we will figure out something." Words like these give the person courage again, and the confidence to do it better next time. Reproaches and knowing better after the fact do not help at all. Real help means having patience and giving the kind of advice that points away out of the difficulty and salvages whatever there is to save from the situation.

The path of consciousness
by Sri Swami Maheshwarananda

Forgiveness

When various sorrows of mind and body or insults befall person, it is proper for him to think thus: "My previous Karma have come to bear fruit. These men or animals who inflict sorrows upon me are mere instruments. I must, therefore, keep up my forgiveness and must not get angry with anyone." Also, when somebody accuses a person as being below, ignorant or pretentious, the person does not become that. Generally, we become what we think and feel. After knowing this doctrine of truth, it is beneficial to all of us to keep up our nature of forgiveness, even if we have to make great efforts to do so.
Enlightened meditation is quickly attained, in our path to liberation of the soul by resorting to this virtue of forgiveness. Evidently we experience inner bliss. An all-round atmosphere of peace is created because internal mental sorrows as well as external conflicts, quarrels and abuse exist no longer. Thus, with the disappearance of anger and jealousy, atmosphere of friendship and unity is created everywhere in the society...May this religion of forgiveness that leads to the bliss of ourself and of others, reign ever victoriously in our life.

Virtues by Shri Atmananda

Witnessing

The right method to deal with all that you feel you are surrounded with is to be just a witness--not to fight, not to judge, not to condemn. Just remain silent and still, purely witnessing whatever is there... The day your witnessing will be prefect, you will find there has been no wall, nothing is surrounding you, the whole sky is available to you. Rather than fighting with thoughts, fighting against wrong conditionings, just become a pure witness. Fighting, you cannot win. Without fighting, victory is yours. Victory belongs only to those who can witness...

Osho: From meditation to meditation

Being in the world and not of the world

To leave everything and just sit under a tree and feel happy is not difficult--anybody will feel that way. Nothing to do, you can be detached; everything to do, you become attached. But when you do everything and yet remain unattached, when you move with the crowd, in the world and yet alone, then something real is happening... And remember, and always keep it in your heart: truth, love, life, meditation, ecstasy, bliss, all that is true and beautiful and good, always exists as a paradox: in the world and not of it. With people, yet alone; doing everything, and being inactive; moving and not moving; living an ordinary life, and yet not being identified with it: working as everybody else is working, yet remaining aloof deep down. Being in the world and not of the world, that is the paradox. And when you attain this paradox, the greatest peak happens to you: the peak experience.

Osho: From meditation to meditation

Dialectics

The deeper you enter into the dialectics...it is a miraculous experience. Without inaction there is no action; if you cannot relax, you cannot act. The more you can relax, the more perfection will be in your action. They appear to be opposites: they are not. The better you dissolve into sleep in the night, the sharper, the younger you will wake up in the morning. And everythere in life you will find the same dialectical process.

Osho: From meditation to meditation

Life, love and laughter

There are three "L"s of my philosia: Life, Love and Laughter. Life is only a seed, love is a flower, laughter is fragrance. Just to be born is not enough, one has to learn the art of living, that is the A of meditation. Then one has to learn the art of loving, that is the B of meditation. And then one has to learn the art of laughing, that is the C of meditation. And meditation has only three letters: A, B, C...My whole approach is of celebration. Religion to me is nothing but the whole spectrum of celebration, the whole rainbow, all the colors of celebration. Make it a great opportunity for yourself, because in celebrating many of you can reach to greater heights, to new dimensions of being. These are the moments which should not be missed, these are the moments which should be used to its fullest capacity.

Osho: From meditation to meditation

Laughter & dance

As far as I know, dancing and laughter are the best, natural, easily approachable doors. If you really dance, thinking stops. You go on and on, you whirl and whirl, and you become a whirlpool --- all bounadries, all divisions are lost. You don't even know where your body ends and where the existence begins. You melt into existence and the existence melts into you, there is an overlapping of boundaries. And if you are really dancing -- not managing it but allowing it to manage you, allowing it to possess you -- if you are possessed by dance, thinking stops. The same happens with laughter. If you are possessed by laughter, thinking stops. And if you know a few moments of no-mind, those glimpses will promise you many more rewards that are going to come. You just have to become more and more of the sort, of the quality, of no-mind. More and more, thinking has to be dropped. Laughter can be a beautiful introduction to a non-thinking state...Try it! Start and finish your day with laughter, and you will see, by and by, in between these two more and more laughter starts happening. And the more laughing you become, the more religious you are.

Osho: From meditation to meditation

Too much concern

When your body is ill, it is as if someboy else's body is ill: do whatsoever as needed but don't be too concerned because that overmuch concern is a greater illness that the body's. If you have a fever go to the doctor, take the medicine, take care of the body, and that's all. Why be concerned too much? Why create another fever? --which no doctor can treat! The fever in the body can be treated, but if you become too concerned another fever is created, that fever is deeper, no doctor can help with it...Too much concern about yourself is the greatese disease possible. You cannot be happy, you canno enjoy yourself. How can you enjoy? So many problems inside! Problems and problems and problems and nothing else! -- and there seems no solutions! What to do? You go crazy. Everybody, inside, is crazy!

Osho: From meditation to meditation

Seeds of Wisdom

I too am a farmer and I sowed some seeds. They sprouted and now flowers have come to them. My whole life is filled with the fragrance of these flowers and because of this fragrance now I am in a different world. This fragrance has given me a new birth, and now I am no longer that which is seen by ordinary eyes.

The unseen and the unknown have flung open their closed doors, and I am seeing a world which is not seen through the eyes, and I am hearing music which ears are not capable of hearing. Whatsoever I have found and known is eager to flow just as the mountain waterfalls and springs flow and rush towards the ocean.

Remember, when the clouds are full of water they have to shower. And when the flowers are filled with fragrance they have to give off their fragrance freely to the winds. And when a lamp is lit, the light is bound to radiate from it.

Something like this has happened and the winds are carrying away some seeds of revolution from me. I have no idea in what fields they will land and who will tend them. I only know that it is from seeds like these that I have attained the flowers of life, immortality, and the divine. And in whatever field they land, the very soil there will turn into the flowers of immortality.

In death is hidden the immortal and in death is life -- just as flowers are inherent in the soil. But the potential of the soil can never become realized in the absence of seeds. The seeds make manifest that which was un-manifest and give expression to that which was latent.

Whatever I have, whatever I am, I want to give away as seeds of divine consciousness. What is attained in knowledge -- knowing -- love gives away in abundance.

In knowing one knows God; in love one BECOMES God. Knowledge is the spiritual discipline, love is the fulfilment.

Osho: Seeds of Wisdom

God & science

God is not a necessity in this world. Scientific laws are a necessity--without them the world cannot be. God is not a necessity that way. Without him the world can be, but it will be worthless. Without him you can exist, but your existence will be just a vegetable existence. Without him you can vegetate, you cannot be really alive. God is not a necessity--you can be there, but your being there will not be of any meaning, it will not carry any meaning at all. It will have no poetry, it will have no song, it will have no dance to it, it will not be a mystery. It may be an arithmetic, it may be a business, but it cannot be a love affair. Without God all that is beautiful disappeares, because the beautiful comes only as an overflowing--it is a luxury...And I tell you that God is the most luxurious thing in the world. God is not necessary--you can live without him, you can live very well, but you will miss something, you will feel an emptiness in the heart. You will be more like a wound than an alive force, you will suffer, there cannot be any ecstasy in your life.

Osho: From meditation to meditation

Solitariness

Solitariness has a healing effect, it is a healing force. Whenever you feel that you are getting messed up, don't try to solve it there. Move away from society for a few days, for at least three weeks, and just remain silent, just watching yourself, and you will have a tremendous force available which heals. Hence, in the East, many people have moved to the mountains, to the forests, somewhere alone, somewhere where there is nobody else to be bothered with. Only oneself...so one can feel oneself directly, and you can see what is happening within... So you need not throw your problems on others, you need not throw your diseases on others--you simply move alone, suffer them in silence, watch them. Just sit by the bank of the river of your mind. Things settle! When things settle you have a clarity, a perception. Then move back into the world--if you feel like it. That too is not necessary, that too should not be an obsession. Nothing should be an obsession, neither the world nor the mountain. Whatsoever you feel is natural, whatsoever you feel is good and heals you, whatsoever you feel you are whole in, not divided--that is the path. The montain is crossed, you have reached the path--now follow it, now follow into it.

Osho: From meditation to meditation

Paradox of Our Time

by George Carlin

The paradox of our time in history is that
we have taller buildings but shorter tempers;
wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints.
We spend more, but have less;
we buy more but enjoy less.

We have bigger houses and smaller families,
more conveniences, but less time;
we have more degrees, but less sense;
more knowledge, but less judgment;
more experts, yet more problems,
more medicine, but less wellness.

We drink too much, smoke too much,
spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast,
get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired,
read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.
We have multiplied our possessions,
but reduced our values.

We talk too much, love too seldom,
and hate too often.
We've learned how to make a living, but not a life;
we've added years to life not life to years.

We've been all the way to the moon and back,
but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor.
We conquered outer space, but not inner space.
We've done larger things, but not better things.

We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul.
We've conquered the atom, but not our prejudice.
We write more, but learn less.
We plan more, but accomplish less.
We've learned to rush, but not to wait.

We build more computers to hold more information
to produce more copies than ever,
but we communicate less and less.

These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion;
big men and small character;
steep profits and shallow relationships.
These are the days of two incomes but more divorce,
fancier houses but broken homes.

These are days of quick trips,
disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one-night stands,
overweight bodies, and pills that do everything
from cheer to quiet, to kill.

It is a time when there is much in the show window
and nothing in the stockroom.
A time when technology can bring this letter to you,
and a time when you can choose either to share this insight,
or to just hit delete.

Remember, spend some time with your loved ones,
because they are not going to be around forever.
Remember, say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe,
because that little person soon will grow up and leave your side.

Remember, to give a warm hug to the one next to you,
because that is the only treasure you can give with your heart,
and it doesn't cost a cent.

Remember, to say
'I love you' to your partner and your loved ones,
but most of all mean it.
A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt
when it comes from deep inside of you.

Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment
for someday that person will not be there again.
Give time to love, give time to speak,
give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind.

To my family and all my friends in my life,
thanks for being there.

The secret of life is not to have everything you want,
but to want everything you have!

Desire & Happiness

Desiring is wanting what is not presently true, or real. If it were true, or real, you wouldn’t need to desire it. Inherent in desiring is a feeling of lack—of something missing. Also inherent in it is the feeling, or belief, that if that were not lacking, you would be happy.

We long for what we don’t have because we believe that having it will finally bring us peace and happiness. We don’t realize that the lack of peace and happiness we are feeling is actually a result of desiring what we don’t have. The desire is the cause of our unhappiness, not the fact that the desire is unfulfilled.

When we examine this, this seems so obvious. Desire is painful. We suffer because we believe we are lacking something necessary for our happiness. That is a very sad (and untrue!) story, but it is essentially everyone’s story. Everyone feels this way because the mind is programmed to be unhappy with whatever is happening. No matter what is happening, the mind comes up with complaints about it or ways to improve on it. That is its job. That is what it is programmed to do, and it does it very well.

This situation is painful for two reasons: It is painful to not have what you want, but it is also painful to discover that there is no end to wanting, even after you do get what you want. What we really want is the peace that comes from no longer wanting. We hope to experience peace and happiness once and for all by getting what we want. However, peace and happiness are not achieved by getting but by loving what is, just the way it is. We are so afraid that if we love what is we will never get what we want, when that has been the secret to happiness all along!

Loving what is would seem to be the simplest thing possible. It involves no effort, no struggle, no longing, and no disappointment. But loving what is goes against our programming, so it is difficult. It requires vigilance to counteract the egoic mind’s automatic rejection and resistance to whatever is happening. To experience the peace and happiness that exist in this moment, it is necessary to stop listening to the egoic mind, which undermines this peace and happiness with complaints and judgments. These are the tactics it uses to take us out of the present and into its world of desires, hopes, and dreams. It woos us with fantasies of a more perfect world, a more perfect mate, a more perfect experience, and a more perfect you, all of which are unreal
and will never be real.

Your fantasies, dreams, and desires don’t create reality or even reflect reality accurately, although they do affect your experience of it. When you are focused on your desires, dreams, and fantasies, you are not experiencing this moment, and you are missing out on the real richness, peace, and happiness that are right here, right now.

By Gina Lake

Yoga

That is the whole effort of Yoga: to make your body alive, sensitive, young again, to give your senses their maximum functioning. Then one functions with no taboos around, then lucidity, grace, beauty flow. Warmth arises again, openness -- and growth happens. One is constantly new, young, and is always on the adventure. The body becomes orgasmic. Joy surrounds you. Through joy the first corruption disappears, hence my insistence to be joyous, to be celebrating, to enjoy life, to accept the body. Not only to accept it, but to feel grateful that God has given you such a beautiful body, such a sensitive body, with so many doors to relate to reality: eyes and ears and nose and touch. Open all theses windows and let life's breezes flow in, let life's sun shine in. Learn to be more sensitive. Use every opportunity to be sensitive so that your first filter is dropped...When you are sitting on the grass, close your eyes, become the grass--be grassy. Feel that you are the grass, feel the greenness of the grass, feel the wetness of the grass. Feel the subtle smell that goes on being released by the grass. Feel the dewdrops on the grass--that they are on you. Feel the sun rays playing on the grass. For a moment be lost in it, and you will have new sense of your body. And do it in all kinds of situations: in a river, in a swimming pool, lying on a beach in the sunrays, looking at the moon in the night, lying down with closed eyes on the sand and feeling the sand. Millions of opprotunities are there to make your body alive again. And only you can do it. Society has done its work of corruption, you will have to undo it. And once you start hearing, seeing, touching, smelling through joy, then you hear the reality, then you see the reality, then you smell the reality.


Osho: From meditation to meditation

Witness

The right method to deal with all that you feel you are surrounded with is to be just a witness--not to fight, not to judge, not to condemn. Just remain silent and still, purely witnessing whatever is there. ...The day your witnessing will be perfect, you will find there has been no wall, nothing is surrounding you, the whole sky is available to you. Rather than fighting with thoughts, fighting against wrong conditionings, just become a pure witness. Fighting, you cannot win. Without fighting, victory is yours. Victory belongs only to those who witness...

Osho: From meditation to meditation

Breath & emotion

The breathing continuously changes with your emotions. When you are angry, your breathing is unrhythmic, asymmetrical. When you are in sexual lust, your breathing is almost insane. When you are calm and quiet, joyful, your breathing is almost a song. When you are feeling at home in existence, when you have no desires and feeling contented, suddenly breathing almost stops. When you are in a state of awe, wonder, breathing stops for a moment. And these are the greatest moments of life, because slowly in those moments when breathing almost stops are you in utter tune with existence, you are in God and God is in you. Your experience of breathing has to be more and more profound, scrutinized, observed, watched, analyzed. See how your breathing changes with your emotions, and vise versa, how your breathing change your breathing.

Osho: From meditation to meditation

Become a watcher

Unless you become a watcher, unless you become a witness to your own mental states--this is what I call meditation. And these are the great opportunities--when you are feeling sad, just watch it. It is chemistry--you are consciousness. Don't get mixed with chemistry, it is biology--you are consciousness, a watcher. Slowly, slowly, even when your whole chemistry is going berserk, you will remain centered, grounded, unaffected--and this is true for both, man and woman.

Osho: From meditation to meditation

Growth

Growth is facing the reality, encountering the fact, whatsoever it is. And let me repeat: Pain is simply pain, there is no suffering in it. Suffering comes from your desire that the pain should not be there, and there is something wrong in pain. Watch, witness, and you will be surprised. You have a headache, the pain is there but suffering is not there. Suffering is a secondary phenomenon, pain is primary. The headache is there, the pain is there, it is simply a fact. There is no judgement about it. You cannot call it good or bad, you don't give it any value, it is just a fact...You simply take note of it...Remember, only one thing is going to help you: awareness--nothing else. Growth will remain painful if you don't accept life in all its ups and downs. The summer has to be accepted and the winter too. This is what I call meditation. Meditation is when you you emptied of all that is old and told and done to death. Then you see, or rather, then there is seeing: The Birth of the New.

Osho: From meditation to meditation

Happiness Is A Journey...

For a long time is seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life. This perspective has helped me to see there is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way. So treasure every moment you have and remember that time waits for no one. Happiness is a journey, not a destination.

- Father Alfred D'Souza

Tao Yuanming's Cottage

I built my cottage among the habitations of men,
and yet there is no clamor of carriages and horses.
You ask: "Sir, how can this be done?"
"A heart that is distant creates its own solitude."
I pluck chrysanthemums under the eastern hedge,
then gaze afar towards the southern hills.
The mountain air is fresh at the dusk of day;
The flying birds in flocks return.
In these things there lies a deep meaning;
I want to tell it, but have forgotten the words.

-- Tao Yuan Ming ( 陶渊明)

Work & Meaning

Those of us who start on the path to right livelihood find that our lives are more balanced, simple, clear, and focused. We are no longer strung out in a meaningless cycle of material consumption. The contemporary economy focuses on this cycle of consumption. It doesn't really support our efforts to find meaningful work. Today, work is a means to consume or to pay debt for consumption already indulged in. How many people do you know who really love the work they are doing? How many feel bored and alienated? How many are simply earning the money to spend it on material pleasures? Right livelihood demands that you take responsibility for making your work more meaningful. Good work is dignified. It develops your faculties and serves your community. It is a central human activity.


-- Roger Pritchard, in Claude Whitmyer's Mindfulness and Meaningful Work

Lao Tzu

The ancient masters were subtle, mysterious, profound, responsive.
The depth of their knowledge is unfathomable.
Because it is unfathomable,
All we can do is describe their appearance.
Watchful, like men crossing a winter stream.
Alert, like men aware of danger.
Courteous, like visiting guests.
Yielding, like ice about to melt.
Simple, like the uncarved blocks of wood.
Hollow, like caves.
Opaque, like muddy pools.

Who can wait quietly while the mud settles?
Who can remain still until the moment of action?
Observers of the Tao do not seek fulfillment.
Not seeking fulfillment, they are not swayed by desire for change.

- Lao-tzu

Awareness

The witnessing self is never felt. We always feel some indentity, we always feel some identification. And the witnessing consciousness is the reality. ..."I am pain; I am in pain, I am aware of pain" -- these are three different, very different states. The rishi says, "I am aware of the pain". This much can be allowed, because then you transcend pain, and there is a deep separation. Really, there has never been any relation, the relation begins to appear only because of the nearness, because of the intimate nearness of your consciousness and all that happened around...To be free of pain the pain has to be accepted, inevitably and naturally. Pain is pain -- a simple painful fact -- but suffering is only and always the refusal of pain, the clame that life should not be painful. It is the rejection of a fact, the denial of life and of the nature of things. Death is the mind and mind is dying. Where there is no fear of death, who is there to die.

Osho: From meditation to meditation

Psychoanalysis

In the East nothing like psychoanalysis has ever happened for the simple reason that there were thousands of masters, deep in meditattion, and anybody who came to them...just their love, their sympathy, the way they looked into the eyes of the patient was enough. People were cured. It was not that without psychoanalysis...In the East, what happened to neurotics, to psychotics, was that they were instantly changed. All that they needed was an immense love which asks nothing -- a man of peace and silence, whose very presence is medicine. A man who has meditated for a long time becomes an inmmense source. He radiates something that is invisible to the eyes, but the heart catches it. Something reaches to your inner-most being and changes you. Problems are simple, solutions are simple. Just one has to get out of the mind to see the simplicity. And then whatsoever is done by a man in silence, in peace, in joy, will be medicinal, will be distributing health. It will be a healing force.

Osho: From meditation to meditation

Accept yourself as you are

Everybody is training everybody else in how to be--and nobody seems to be satisfactory, never. If one wants to live, one should learn one thing: to accept things as they are, and to accept yourself as you are. Start living. Don't start training for a life sometime in the future. All the misery in the world is created because you have completely forgotten to live, you have became engaged in an activity which has nothing to do with life.

Osho: From meditation to meditation

Drop the ideas!

Drop the ideas! There is nothing that you have to improve, you are perfectly beautiful as you are. And start living! Rather than thinking that you will live in the future when you are perfect, when you are like this, like that, you will live when you have attained a certain standard according to your mind...But life is herenow and slipping out of your hands. Tomorrow there is death--only today there is life...it is always today...Meditation has only one meaning, and that is going beyond the mind and becoming a witness. In your witness is the miracle--the whole mystery of life.

Osho: From meditation to meditation

Feeling sorry

Feeling sorry for yourself is like an anchor, preventing you from living fully, from having joy, happiness, and fun, from supporting others, from requesting help, love, commitment.

Feeling sorry for yourself is a great way to sell yourself short and be busy inding all the things you are missing in life.

Feeling sorry for yourself diminishes the value you expect, create, and demand from others.

You cannot be wealthy if you are feeling sorry for yourself. And believe me, you will ind enough reasons to convince yourself of what a great loser you are!

The vaccine to feeling sorry? Being grateful! Focusing on what is going well in your life creates a circle of pride and healthy selishness and sets you up in a much powerful platform to give your best and expect the best.

Then you feel valuable, and it shows. You work on your strengths, on your passions, on your best you. You focus on making the best of your life and that includes taking responsibility for your resources.

10 Unwealthy habits
By Alicia Castillo Holley

Live fully

Learn how to live the moment joyously. Don't look for the result, there are none. Life is not going anywhere, it has no ends. Life is not a means to any end, life is just herenow. Live it. Live it totally, live it consciously, live it joyously--and you will be fulfilled. Fulfillment should not be postponed, othewise you will never fulfilled. Fulfillment has to be now--now or never... A religious person is one who is balanced, in whatever he is doing, he is always in the middle. He never goes to the extreme because all extremes will create tensions, anxities...A religious person is one who knows where to stop, and that should come out of your awareness, not out of a certain teaching.

Osho: From meditation to meditation

Being in love

The most important aspect of love is not in giving or the receiving: it's in the being. When I need love from others, or need to give love to others, I'm caught in an unstable situation. Being in love, rather than giving or taking love, is the only thing that provides stability. Being in love means seeing the Beloved all around me.

- Ram Dass

State of no-mind

The whole Eastern approach is to find a state of no-mind -- that silence, that purity, that serenity. And mind is no longer there with all its problems, with all its roots; it has simply evaporated the way dew drops evaporated in the Sun in the morning, leaving no trace behind. Hence I will say to you: awareness is not only enough, it's more than enough. You don't need anything else... Awareness brings you to a point where you are able to see with your own eyes the ultimate reality of yourself and the universe... and a miracle experience that you and the universe are not separate, that you are part of the whole.

To me this is the only meaning of holy.

Osho: From meditiation to meditation

Add something to your BEING

I don't teach renunciation of your wealth or of anything. Let anything be as it is. Just add one more thing to your life. Up to now you have been adding only things to your life. Now add something to your being--add that will do the music, that will do the miracle, that will do the magic, that will create a new thrill, a new youth, a new freshness...

The man who lives totally becomes unambitious. Because he is so happy right now, he cannot conceive that there is the possibility of more. The ordinary madness of man's mind -- of desiring for more and more -- is because you are not living totally. There is always gap, something is missing. You know things could have been better. Out of this partial living all ambitions arise, and then the whole game of the society goes on: people want to become rich, people want to become famous, people want to become politicians, people want to become presidents and prime ministers...

Osho: From meditation to meditation

The origin of tense

The original source of tense is becoming. One is always trying to be something, no one is at ease with himself as he is. The being is not accepted, the being is denied, and something else is taken as an ideal to become. So the basic tension is always between that which you are and that which you long to become. You desire to become something. Tension means that you are not pleased with what you are, and you long to be what you are not. Tension is created between these two. What you desire to become is irrelevant. If you want to become wealth, famous, powerful, or even if you want to be free, libertated, to be divine, immortal, even if you long for salvation, moksha, then too the tension will be there... Tension means a gap between what you are and what you want to be. If the gap is great, the tension will be great. If the gap is small, the tension will be small. And if there is no gap at all, it means you are satisfied with what you are. In other words, you don't long to be other than what you are, then your mind exists in the moment. There is nothing to be tense about, you are at ease with yourself. To me, if there is no gap you are religious...Only if we accept ourself totally is there no tension. This total acceptance is the miracle, the only miracle. To find a person who has accepted himself totally is the only surprising thing.

Osho: From meditation to meditation

Good and evil

Good is near Truth, but is not yet Truth. After learning not to be disturbed by evil, we have to learn not to be made happy by good. We must find that we are beyond both evil and good; we must study their adjustment and see that they are both necessary. The idea of dualism is from the ancient Persians. Really good and evil are one (Because they are both chains and products of Maya) and are in our own mind. When the mind is self-poised, neither good nor bad affects it. Be perfectly free; then neither can affect it, and we enjoy freedom and bliss. Evil is the iron chain, good is the gold one; both are chains. Be free, and know once for all that there is no chain for you. Lay hold of the golden chain to loosen the hold of the iron one, then throw both away. The thorn of evil is in our flesh; take another thorn from the same bush and extract the first thorn; then throw away both and be free. . . .

Swami Vivekananda

A really enlightening insight about the meaning of life

Life may not have any real "meaning" other than the one that you have superimposed upon it.

In short, life will tend to mean for you whatever you say that life means. For example, when you say that:

"Life is a drag!"
"Life is a challenge."
"Life is terrible."
"Life is a dance."
"Life is a Game."
etc. etc. etc.

then Life won't disappoint you.

Life will mysteriously show up for you in ways that fully support your heart's definition of it. No matter how self-limiting that definition might be.

But you'll have to take some position on it.

If you're not willing to give your life any meaning at all, then your inner fear that "My life is probably meaningless!" will automatically win by default.

- Chuck Hillig, Seeds for the Soul

A really sane person

A really sane person is one who can live between sanity and insanity in absolute balance. A really sane person always has some insanity in him--he accepts it. A really rational person is one who respects irrationality too--because life is such... my Suggestion is to remain choiceless. "Choiceless awareness" is the key word. Remain choiceless, aware, and wherever you see something is going off balance--lean to the other side. Bring the balance again, and this is how one moves? Life is like tightrope walking.

Osho: From meditation to meditation

Relaxation

Relaxation is one of the most complex phenomena--very rich, multi-dimensional. All these things are part of it: let-go, trust, surrender, love, acceptance, going with the flow, union with existence, egolessness, ecstasy. All these are part of it, and all these start happening if you learn the way of relaxation. Your so-called religions have made you very tense, because they have created guilt in you. My effort here is to help you get rid of all guilt and all fear. I would like to tell you: there is no hell and there is no heaven. So don't be afraid of hell and don't be greedy for heaven. All that exists is this moment. You can make this moment a hell or heaven-- that certainly is possible --but there is no hell or heaven somewhere else: Hell is when you are all tense, and heaven is when you are all relaxed.

Total relaxation is paradise.


Osho: From meditation to meditation

Non-tense moment

If you can feel this non-tense moment in your body, you will know a well-beiing that you have never known before, a positive well-being...Your body can be non-tense only when you are living a moment-to-moment exitence. If you are eating and the moment has become eternity, then there is no past and no future. The very process of eating is all that is. You are not doing something, you have become the doing, there will bo no tension, your body will feel fulfilled. Or if you are in sexual communion and the sex is not just a relif from sexual tension, but rather, a positive expression of love--if the moment has become total, whole, and you are in it completely--then you will know a positive well-being in your body.

Osho: From meditation to meditation

I Believe

I received this touching poem from a mailing list, I hope it is touching for you too.



I Believe



I believe that the sun shines after the rain
I believe if you don't get hurt you'll never gain
I believe in not doing things the easy way
I believe that being selfish doesn't pay

I believe in a second chance
I believe in a life long romance
I believe there is life after death
And standing up to a life of mess

I believe in love at first sight
I believe that revenge isn't right
I believe that first impressions last
And there is nothing better then a good laugh

I believe that dreams do come true
I believe there's destiny for me and you
I believe that good things come to those who wait
I believe love never arrives too late

I believe something good comes from something bad
I believe that for tears of happiness there are tears of sad
I believe everyone has a guardian angel
And the good you do will be rewarded well

I believe sometimes there is no explanation
I believe money can't buy people's affection
I believe you don't know what you've got until it's gone
I believe a new day arrives with every dawn

I believe a smile can be contagious
I believe in being very outrageous
I believe in living with no regrets
I believe that life is as good as it gets

I believe that God watches over us
I believe the little things are worth the fuss
I believe you have each friend for a reason
I believe you will get punished for treason

I believe that what comes first is family
I believe we should all live in harmony
I believe in making the most of a beautiful day
And it's not the end until everything's okay

I believe absence makes the heart grow fonder
I believe you will lose if you sit and wonder
I believe every experience teaches you a lesson
And nothing cures better than a drinking session

I believe everyone has one true love
I believe sometimes we need a little shove
I believe the whole world is a stage
I believe we only get better with age

I believe that to learn you have to live
I believe that to love someone you have to give
I believe one moment can change your life
And there's still help when you're in strife

I believe everyone has one true friend
I believe love helps a broken heart mend
I believe in the power of a song
And things will change before too long

I believe living is the best experience
I believe in not laughing at other people's expense
I believe it's hard to watch a lover leave
And when they're gone all you can do is breath

I believe to always look on the bright side
I believe that life is just one big ride
I believe when I die people will grieve
But it's ok because I believe

Paint something on it!

Life in itself is not meaningful. It is meaningful only if you can sing a song of the eternal, if you can release some fragrance of the divine, of the godly, if you can become a lotus flower--deathless, timeless. If you can become pure love, if you can beautify this existence, if you can become a blessing to this existence, only then does life have significance; otherwise it is pointless, it is like an empty canvas: you can go on carrying it your whole life and you can die under its weight, but what is the point? Paint something on it!

Osho: From meditation to meditation

Real health

You may have everything that the world can offer, but if you don't have peace, serenity, silence, ecstasy, you will still remain poor...

Real health has to happen somewhere inside you, in your subjectivity, in your consciousness, because consciousness knows no birth, no death, it is eternal. And to be healthy in consciousness means: first, to be awake; second, to be harmonious; third, to be ecstatic; and fourth, to be compassionate. If these four things are fulfilled, one is inwardly healthy. ...The four are the four pillars of inner health... Health is the feeling of well-being, a certain at-onement with existence.

Osho: From meditation to meditation

Living Bible

"A friend is someone who reaches for your hand and touches your heart."


I received this from a friend by email, and I found it really touching. I'd like to share it with you and hope also you like it as I do:

His name is Bill. He has wild hair, wears a T-shirt with holes in it, jeans, and no shoes. This was literally his wardrobe for his entire four years of college.

He is brilliant. Kind of profound and very, very bright. He became a Christian while attending college.

Across the street from the campus is a well-dressed, very conservative church. They want to develop a ministry to the students but are not sure how to go about it.

One day Bill decides to go there. He walks in with no shoes, jeans, his T-shirt, and wild hair. The service has already started and so Bill starts down the aisle looking for a seat.

The church is completely packed and he can't find a seat. By now, people are really looking a bit uncomfortable, but no one says anything.

Bill gets closer and closer and closer to the pulpit, and when he realizes there are no seats, he just squats down right on the carpet.

By now the people are really uptight, and the tension in the air is thick.

About this time, the minister realizes that from way at the back of the church, a deacon is slowly making his way toward Bill.

Now the deacon is in his eighties, has silver-gray hair, and a three-piece suit. A godly man, very elegant, very dignified, very courtly. He walks with a cane and, as he starts walking toward this boy, everyone is saying to themselves that you can't blame him for what he's going to do.

How can you expect a man of his age and of his background to understand some college kid on the floor?

It takes a long time for the man to reach the boy.

The church is utterly silent except for the clicking of the man's cane. All eyes are focused on him. You can't even hear anyone breathing. The minister can't even preach the sermon until the deacon does what he has to do.

And now they see this elderly man drop his cane on the floor. With great difficulty, he lowers himself and sits down next to Bill and worships with him so he won't be alone.

Everyone chokes up with emotion.
When the minister gains control, he says,'What I'm about to preach, you will never remember. What you have just seen, you will never forget'

'Be careful how you live. You may be the only Bible some people will ever read!'

Meditation & medicine

The word "meditation" and the word "medicine" come from the same root. Medicine means that which heals the physical, and meditation means that which heals the spiritual. Both are healing powers... Meditation heals, makes you whole, and to be whole is to be holy. Holiness has nothing to do with belonging any religion, belonging to any church. It simply means that inside you, you are entire, complete, nothing is missing, you are fulfilled. You are what existence wanted you to be, you have realized your potential... Relihion is a journey inwoards, and meditation is the way. What meditation actually does is, it takes you, your consciousness, as deep as possible.

Osho: From meditation to meditation

Osho: From meditation to meditation

Transfrom small things into celebration...Everything that you do should be expressive of you, it should have your signature on it, then life becomes a continuous celebration.

Make everything creative, make the best out of the worst that's what I call "the art". And if a man have lived his whole life making every moment and every phrase of it a beauty, a love, a joy, naturally his death is going to be the ultimate peak of his whole life's endeavor.

Start with meditation, and things will go on growing in your silence, serenity, blissfulness, sensitivity. And whatever comes out of meditation, try to bring it out in life, share it, because everything shared grows fast.

Osho on meditation

Dear friends, I am now re-reading the wonderful book of Osho: From Meditation to Meditation. Everytime I read it, I am amazed at the profound insight of Osho about meditation. I'd like to share with you what I love from this book, and try to post one piece a day. Hope some of you will find it helpful:

To me, the first principle of life is meditation. Everything else comes second... Meditation is simply a strange surgical method which cuts you away from all that is not yours and saves only that which is your authentic being. It burns everything else and leaves you standing naked, alone under the Sun, in the wind. It is as if you are the first man who has descended onto earth who knows nothing, who has to discover everything, who has to be a seeker, who has to go on a prilgrimage. The second principle is the prilgrimage. Life must be a seeking, not a desire, but a search; not an ambition to become this, to become that...but a search to find out "who am I?" It is very strange that people who don't know who they are, are trying to become somebody. They don't even know who they are right now! They are unacquainted with their being but they have a goal of becoming. Becoming is the disease of the soul. Being is you, and to discover your being is the beginning of life. Then each moment is a new discovery, each moment brings you a new joy, a new mystery opens its doors, a new love starts growing in you, a new compassion that you have never felt before, a new sensitivity about beauty, about goodness.

The meaning of “NON-DUALITY”

The premise of non-duality is that there is no need to strive towards achievement of reaching a place which is different from where one already is.

In fact, “achievement” takes one further away from being at one with one’s birth-right, the experiencing of the realm of non-duality.

The biggest obstacle that stands between one’s experience of separateness and interconnectedness is one’s own mind — an instrument designed mostly for survival tasks.

That’s the main reason there is such a huge marketplace of techniques, magazines, videos — and let it be said, sites — applied to working with the mind.

by SMADAR DE LANGE

A Life Lesson

There is only one life lesson and that is to let go. Everything arises from that. The miracle of this lesson is that it leads to new life on every possible level. It is to be turned inside out. As the third Chinese patriarch said, “Cling nowhere.” I am reminded of static cling.

When we cling, we get static.

I was born clinging, but then, aren’t we all? We are pushed into the world wet and screaming. Maybe that is why we gravitate to water slides.

Or want to go to spas and be wrapped in seaweed and other clingy stuff.

We are taught to acquire and share at the same time. Sweet.

Once we take to the spiritual path, things don’t change that much. If you are lucky, you will find a teacher who is smart enough to cut the cord between you and your attachments. By this time, most of us can’t fly very far because we don’t travel light enough. We have suitcases full of fear and compromise. Only a wise man or woman will jettison them in favor of freedom.

Let go by seeing that you can’t let go. That is enough to start with.

Insight is non-attachment, believe it or not. Be aware of how you are clinging to your suffering. That alleviates it. Practice the medicine of surrender and something else will let go for you.

--Vicki Woodyard

True happiness

People believe themselves to be dependent on what happens for their happiness, that is to say, dependent on form. They don't realize that what happens is the most unstable thing in the universe. It changes constantly.

The joy of Being, which is the only true happiness, cannot come to you through any form, possession, achievement, person, or event--through anything that happens. That joy cannot come to you--ever. It emanates from the formless dimension within you, from consciousness itself and thus is one with who you are.

Eckhart Tolle

Love

Awakening reveals that there is no personal self, and that everything is myself. It appears to be a paradox. We find we are nothing and absolutely everything simultaneously. When we see this, we realize there is nothing more happening other than love meeting itself -- or we could say you are meeting yourself, or the Truth is meeting itself, or God is meeting itself. Love meets itself each moment, even if it's a rotten moment. This will never happen through the egoic state of consciousness, filtered through the mind. But from the innocence, love is simply meeting itself. If you love me, it meets that. If you hate me, fine, it meets that, too. And it loves meeting that. I am talking about the One meeting itself, realizing itself, experiencing itself.

There is a love that includes the good feelings that we associate with love, and also far transcends good feelings. It is a love that's much deeper than an experience. Have you noticed, with whatever quality of love you have experienced, that when true love arises, it opens up both your mind and emotions? It's an openness to whatever is happening. The egoic state of consciousness is always closing the doors.

Emotionally and intellectually, it's always slamming things shut as soon as the moment isn't the "right" kind of moment, which is about ninety-nine percent of the time. But the innocence and the love do not slam the door shut, even in the face of something that is very unpleasant.

Notice that the more you see past your sense of personal self, the more innocence creeps in. And the more innocence is known, the more love sticks its head out and starts to experience life, live this life, and move within this life. The wisdom becomes available now because one is open. So the wisdom deepens, and the innocence deepens. And the innocence allows for more love, and the more love there is, the more room there is for wisdom, and so it goes. These qualities of love and innocence are what make liberating wisdom possible. They are not only outcomes of the blooming of your true nature, they are also what make awakening and the embodiment of it, possible.

In Zen, one of the definitions of enlightenment is the harmonization of body and mind. This also means the harmonization of spirit and matter. When spirit and matter are in harmony, it's as if a third entity is born -- that's really the Buddhist "Middle Way." The Middle Way has nothing to do with the notion of being halfway between two opposites. The Middle Way is when spirit and matter are in harmony -- when the inherent oneness is realized. Spirit and matter are not two different things, they are two aspects of the One. This is the realization of our true nature.

As humans we become identified with matter. Matter includes every subtle and gross manifestation. Matter is anything that can be touched, seen, felt, perceived, or thought. A feeling is matter and emotion is matter, as is a body, a car, or a floor. The essence of matter is spirit. Matter is animated by spirit, by the life force, and they cannot be separated. Although we can speak about them as if they are two things, if we take away the life force, there is no matter. It's not as if there is dead matter. There is no matter. Part of realization is moving from identification with matter (which manifests as personality or "me") to identification with spirit. True enlightenment is when matter and spirit are in harmony. We could call this harmony nondifferentiation or oneness.

When we realize that we are spirit, there may be a much deeper harmony than there was before that realization, but there can still be some disharmony. So it is helpful to understand the value of exposing ourselves to the teaching, which is the same as exposing ourselves to what is, each and every moment. We need to expose ourselves as we would to the sun if we want to get a tan. Instead of putting on clothes, we take them off. If we want to be free, then we don't clothe ourselves with our concepts, ideas, and opinions; we take them off. Then something happens quite by itself. In order to deepen this harmony, we cannot hold on to concepts just like we cannot stay partially dressed and get a full tan. We will not get transformed. But once we are really naked and completely exposed, we can become transformed or awakened in a very natural way.

- Adyashanti, from Emptiness Dancing

Pure Awareness

Separate yourself from your Body/Mind and rest as Pure Awareness. Don't try to stop your mind. Don't try and do anything. It is all the trying and searching and sweating yourself into a frenzy that makes you unhappy. Let go of all of it. Rest in Pure Awareness, right now, in this moment, and confusion is gone, sorrow is gone, bondage is gone, fear is gone, limitation is gone. Yes, the mind may say something. Thoughts may arise. But you are not the thoughts. You are not the feelings. You are Pure Awareness. You are free from all concepts.

Are you looking for spiritual experiences? You are not the experiences. Experiences are phenomena. Phenomena come and go, but you are always the witness to all experiences and all phenomena. Do you want to see God. The experience of seeing God may come and go but you are always the witness to all experiences and phenomena. That Witness state, that Absolute Pure Consciousness is itself non-different from whatever you might conceive of as God. Do not underestimate this. Do not evaluate it at all. Give up all evaluation, all judgement, all intellectualizing and reside in the peace of who you are.

Are you seeking Awakening? As long as you are seeking you will never find. You cannot be a seeker and a finder at the same time. You must give up your seeking. You must give up your striving. You must give up all that which is the very nature of your mind and intellect. What is prior to that. It is only Pure Consciousness without an object. It cannot be known or grasped for it is the Knower, the Knowing. Let go of all concepts and simply rest in that.

Who you think you are is concepts. It is your personal mythology in which you are the Hero/ine. But that is a story based on a supposed individual that doesn't exist, like a reflection in the mirror. It is an appearance only. A case of mistaken identity. Don't be fooled any longer. It is like watching a movie and thinking that you are the main star. But it is just light on a screen that gives an appearance of people and personalities. Recognize the projector, which is the pure light of consciousness itself. Only then can you be content and free from all of your desires and anxieties (which are also only an illusion).

- Aja Acharya

To Call It One

To call it One is
One to many,
To call it nothing,
Minimizes its importance,
To say it is in me,
Implies it is not outside,
To say it comes from somewhere,
Says it is not here,
To say it has a beginning,
Makes it appear to have an ending,
To think it will come,
Implies it has not arrived,
To search for it,
Implies it is hidden,
To wait for it,
Implies it exists in time.

To try to describe it is futile,
It has no edges,
You cannot catch it,
You cannot find it,
You cannot see it,
You can only
Be It.


Larry Epston

Awareness

By being constantly and effortlessly aware of life without thinking about it, this awareness soon continues to function even when there are thoughts floating through the mind just as clouds floating through the sky leave no change in the space.

- Ramesh Balsekar

The Truth Is

Remove all becoming, you are Being.
Becoming is effort,
Being is not effort.
You are always That so be like the breeze
that is attached to neither the garbage nor
the garden that it blows over.

- Papaji

Awakening to truth

When you awaken to truth as it really is, you will have no occult vision, you will have no "astral" experience, no ravishing ecstasy.

You will awaken to it in a state of utter stillness, and you will realize that truth was always there within you and that reality was always there around you. Truth is not something which has grown and developed through your efforts. It is not something which has been achieved or attained by laboriously adding up those efforts. It is not something which has to be made more and more perfect each year. And once your mental eyes are opened to truth they can never be closed again.

- Paul Brunton

Drop asking why

Drop asking "why" and simply become totally involved in the absolutely wonderful miracle of life just as it is, right here, right now. Can you not see that whatever has just happened for you at this moment has never happened before and will never happen again? It is totally unique and fresh and innocent, and it is here and then it isn’t. Isn’t that just great?

Tony Parson

Lao tzu

The highest truth
cannot be put into words.

Therefore the greatest teacher
has nothing to say.

He simply gives himself in service,
and never worries.

An awareness of the truth
of the universe

Should not be regarded
as an achievement.

To think in terms
of achieving it,

Is to place it outside
your own nature.

This is erroneous
and misleading.

Your nature,
and the infinite universe

Are none other than
one and the same:

Indescribable,
but eternally present.

Simply open yourself
to your own True nature.

- Laozi (aka Lao Tzu), from Hua Hu Ching

STILLNESS SPEAKS

We depend on nature not only for our physical survival. We also need nature to show us the way home, the way out of the prison of our own minds. We got lost in doing, thinking, remembering, anticipating - lost in a maze of complexity and a world of problems.

We have forgotten what rocks, plants, and animals still know. We have forgotten how to be - to be still, to be ourselves, to be where life is: Here and Now.

Whenever you bring your attention to anything natural, anything that has come into existence without human intervention, you step out of the prison of conceptualized thinking and, to some extent, participate in the state of connectedness with Being in which everything natural still exists.

To bring your attention to a stone, a tree, or an animal does not mean to think about it, but simply to perceive it, to hold it in your awareness.

Something of its essence then transmits itself to you. You can sense how still it is, and in doing so the same stillness arises within you. You sense how deeply it rests in Being - completely at one with what it is and where it is. In realizing this, you too come to a place of rest deep within yourself.

When walking or resting in nature, honor that realm by being there fully. Be still. Look. Listen. See how every animal and every plant is completely itself. Unlike humans, they have not split themselves in two.

They do not live through mental images of themselves, so they do not need to be concerned with trying to protect and enhance those images. The deer is itself. The daffodil is itself.

All things in nature are not only one with themselves but also one with the totality. They haven't removed themselves from the fabric of the whole by claiming a separate existence: "me" and the rest of the universe.

The contemplation of nature can free you of that "me," the great troublemaker.

Bring awareness to the many subtle sounds of nature - the rustling of leaves in the wind, raindrops falling, the humming of an insect, the first birdsong at dawn. Give yourself completely to the act of listening.

Beyond the sounds there is something greater: a sacredness that cannot be understood through thought.

Excerpted from: STILLNESS SPEAKS
By Eckhart Tolle

The Essence of Yoga Vasishta

NIRVANA

1. Supreme Bliss cannot be experienced through contact of the senses with their objects. The supreme state is that in which the mind is annihilated through one-pointed enquiry.

2. The bliss arising from the contact of the senses with their objects is inferior. Contact with the senseobjects is bondage; freedom from it is liberation.

3. Attain the pure state between existence and nonexistence and hold on to it; do not accept or reject the inner or the outer world.

4. Depend always on that true reality between the sentient and the inert which is the infinite space-like heart.

5. The belief in a knower and the known is called bondage. The knower is bound by the known; he is liberated when there is nothing to know.

6. Abandoning the ideas of seer, seen and sight along with latent desires (vasanas) of the past, we meditate on that Self which is the primal light that is the basis of sight.

7. We meditate on the eternal Self, the light of lights which lies between the two ideas of existence and non-existence.

8. We meditate on that Self of consciousness, the bestower of the fruits of all our thoughts, the illuminator of all radiant objects and the farthest limit of all accepted objects.

9. We meditate on that immutable Self, our reality, the bliss of which arises in the mind on account of the close contact between the seer and the seen.

10. If one meditates on that state which comes at the end of the waking state and the beginning of sleep, he will directly experience undecaying bliss.

11. The rock-like state in which all thoughts are still and which is different from the waking and dream states, is one's supreme state.

12. Like mud in a mud pot the Supreme Lord who is existence and space-like consciousness and bliss exists everywhere non-separate (from things).

13. The Self shines by itself as the one boundless ocean of consciousness agitated by waves of thought. 14. Just as the ocean is nothing but water the entire world of things is nothing but consciousness filling
all the quarters like the infinite space.

15. Brahman and space are alike as to their invisibility, all-pervasiveness and indestructibility, but Brahman is also consciousness.

16. There is only the one waveless and profound ocean of pure nectar, sweet through and through (i.e. blissful) everywhere.

17. All this is truly Brahman; all this is Atman. Do not cut up Brahman into `I am one thing' and `this is another.' 18. As soon as it is realised that Brahman is allpervasive and indivisible this vast samsara is
found to be the Supreme Lord.

19. One who realises that everything is Brahman truly becomes Brahman; who would not become immortal if he were to drink nectar?

20. If you are wise you would become this (Brahman) by such conviction; if not, even if you are repeatedly told it would be (useless like offerings) thrown on ashes. 21. Even if you have known the real truth
you have to practise always. Water will not become clear by merely uttering the word kataka fruit.

22. If one has the firm conviction `I am the Supreme Self called the undecaying Vasudeva' he is liberated; otherwise he remains bound.

23. After eliminating everything as `not this', `not this', the Supreme Being (lit. state) which cannot be eliminated remains. Think `I am That' and be happy.

24. Know always that the Self is Brahman, one and whole. How can that which is indivisible be divided into `I am the meditator' and `the other is the object of meditation'?

25. When one thinks `I am pure consciousness' it is called meditation and when even the idea of meditation is forgotten it is samadhi. 26. The constant flow of mental concepts relating to Brahman without the
sense of `I' achieved through intense practice of Self Enquiry (jnana) is what is called samprajnata samadhi (meditation with concepts).

27. Let violent winds which characterise the end of aeons (kalpas) blow; let all the oceans unite, let the twelve suns burn (simultaneously), still no harm befalls one whose mind is extinct.

28. That consciousness which is the witness of the rise and fall of all beings; know that to be the immortal state of supreme bliss.

29. Every moving or unmoving thing whatsoever is only an object visualised by the mind. When the mind is annihilated duality (i.e. multiplicity) is not perceived.

30. That which is immutable, auspicious and tranquil, that in which this world exists, that which manifests itself as the mutable and immutable objects - that is the sole consciousness.

31. Before discarding the slough the snake regards it as itself, but when once it has discarded it in its hole it does not look upon it as itself any longer.

32. He who has transcended both good and evil does not, like a child, refrain from prohibited acts from a sense of sin, nor does he do what is prescribed from a sense of merit.

33. Just as a statue is contained in a pillar (i.e. block) even if it is not actually carved out, so also the world exists in Brahman. Therefore the Supreme State is not a void.

34. Just as a pillar is said to be devoid of the statue when it has not actually been carved out, so also Brahman is said to be void when it is devoid of the impression of the world.

35. Just as still water may be said to contain or not contain ripples, so also Brahman may be said to contain or not contain the world. It is neither void nor existence.

Yoga Vasishta Sara (The Essence of Yoga Vasishta)

Grist for the Mill

Being conscious is cutting through your own melodrama and being right here. Exist in no-mind, be empty, here now, and trust that as a situation arises, out of you will come what is necessary to deal with that situation including the use of your intellect when appropriate.

Your intellect need not be constantly held on to keep reassuring you that you know where you're at, out of fear of loss of control.

Ultimately, when you stop identifying so much with your physical body and with your psychological entity, that anxiety starts to disintegrate. And you start to define yourself as in flow with the universe; and whatever comes along - death, life, joy, sadness - is grist for the mill of awakening.

Not this versus that but WHATEVER.

- Ram Dass, from Grist for the Mill

A Single Desire

Awakeness is inherent
in all things and all beings
everywhere
all the time.
This awakeness relates to every moment
from innocence
from absolute honesty
from a state where you feel
absolutely authentic.
Only from this state
do you realize
that you never really wanted
whatever you thought you wanted.
You realize
that behind all of your desires
was a single desire:
to experience each moment
from your true nature.

© 2007 by Adyashanti

My symphony

To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages with open heart; to study hard; to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never, in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious grow up through the common - this is my symphony.

William Henry Channing

The Human Route

Coming empty-handed, going empty-handed ...
that is human.
When you are born, where do you come from?
When you die, where do you go?
Life is like a floating cloud which appears.
Death is like a floating cloud which disappears.
The floating cloud itself originally does not exist.
Life and death, coming and going, are also like that.
But there is one thing which always remains clear.
It is pure and clear, not depending on life and death.

Then what is the one pure and clear thing?

~The last wordsof Zen Master Seung Sahn

The Sun My Heart

Most people view themselves as waves and forget that they are also water. They are used to living birth-and-death, and they forget about no-birth-and-death. A wave also lives the life of water, and we also live the life of no-birth-no-death. We only need to know that we are living the life of no-birth-no-death. All is in the word `know.' To know is to realize. Realization is mindfulness. All the work of meditation is aimed at awakening us in order to know one and only one thing: birth and death can never touch us in any way whatsoever.

~Thich Nhat Hanh
From "The Sun My Heart"

As It Is

Drop asking "why" and simply become totally involved in the absolutely wonderful miracle of life just as it is, right here, right now. Can you not see that whatever has just happened for you at this moment has never happened before and will never happen again? It is totally unique and fresh and innocent, and it is here and then it isn't.

Isn't that just great?

- Tony Parsons, from As It Is - The Open Secret of Spiritual Awakening

True spiritual maturity

True spiritual maturity means to stand in the moment completely naked of attachment to any and all ideas, concepts, hopes, preferences, and experiences. Stop running away from yourself and simply be. By ceasing to follow the mind's tendency to always want 'more', be 'different' or 'better', one encounters the opportunity to be still. In being still, a perspective is revealed which is free from all ignorance and bondage to suffering. This is an invitation to discover eternal, unborn, undying Truth of Being. The truth of Being, your own self. Let the entire movement of becoming end, and discover That which has always been present at the core of your own Being.

-- Adyashanti

What Is The Point?

So what is the point of waiting? What exactly are you waiting for? Is somebody going to give you what you always wanted? Will a train come from Heaven bringing you goodies? But nothing that could ever happen could be as good, as precious, as who you are. What stops you from being, from being present, is nothing but your hope for the future. Hoping for something to be different keeps you looking for some future fantasy. But it is a mirage; you'll never get there. The mirage stops you from seeing the obvious, the preciousness of Being. It is a great distortion, a great misunderstanding of what will fulfill you.

When you follow the mirage, you are rejecting yourself.

-- A.H. Almaas, from 365 Nirvana, Here and Now

Compassion

We must implement these good teachings in daily life.

Whether you believe in God or not does not matter so much, whether you believe in Buddha or not does not matter so much; whether you believe in reincarnation or not does not matter so much. You must lead a good life. And a good life does not mean just good food, good clothes, and good shelter. These are not sufficient.

A good motivation is what is needed: compassion without dogmatism, without complicated philosophy; just understanding that others are human brothers and sisters and respecting their rights and human dignity. That we humans can help each other is one of our unique human capacities. We must share in other peoples' suffering; even if you cannot help with money, to show concern, to give moral support and express sympathy are them- selves valuable. This is what should be the basis of activities; whether one calls it religion or not does not matter.

~ Dalai Lama

Lao-tzu

"In the pursuit of Knowledge, every day something is added.

In the practice of the Way, every day something is dropped.

Less and less do you need to force things, until finally you arrive at non-action.

When nothing is done, nothing is left undone."

--Lao-tzu

The World: A Reflex of Mental States

What you are, so is your world. Everything in the universe is resolved into your own inward experience. It matters little what is without, for it is all a reflection of your own state of consciousness.

It matters everything what you are within, for everything without will be mirrored and colored accordingly.

All that you positively know is contained in your own experience; all that you ever will know must pass through the gateway of experience, and so become part of yourself.

Your own thoughts, desires, and aspirations comprise your world, and, to you, all that there is in the universe of beauty and joy and bliss, or of ugliness and sorrow and pain, is contained within yourself.

By your own thoughts you make or mar your life, your world, your universe, As you build within by the power of thought, so will your outward life and circumstances shape themselves accordingly.

Whatsoever you harbor in the inmost chambers of your heart will, sooner or later by the inevitable law of reaction, shape itself in your outward life.

The soul that is impure, sordid and selfish, is gravitating with unerring precision toward misfortune and catastrophe; the soul that is pure, unselfish, and noble is gravitating with equal precision toward happiness and prosperity.

Every soul attracts its own, and nothing can possibly come to it that does not belong to it. To realize this is to recognize the universality of Divine Law.

The incidents of every human life, which both make and mar, are drawn to it by the quality and power of its own inner thought-life. Every soul is a complex combination of gathered experiences and thoughts, and the body is but an improvised vehicle for its manifestation.

What, therefore, your thoughts are, that is your real self; and the world around, both animate and inanimate, wears the aspect with which your thoughts clothe it. "All that we are is the result of what we have thought. It is founded on our thoughts; it is made up of our thoughts." Thus said Buddha, and it therefore follows that if a man is happy, it is because he dwells in happy thoughts; if miserable, because he dwells in despondent and debilitating thoughts, whether one be fearful or fearless, foolish or wise, troubled or serene, within that soul lies the cause of its own state or states, and never without. And now I seem to hear a chorus of voices exclaim, "But do you really mean to say that outward circumstances do not affect our minds?" I do not say that, but I say this, and know it to be an infallible truth, that circumstances can only affect you in so far as you allow them to do so. You are swayed by circumstances because you have not a right understanding of the nature, use, and power of thought.

You believe (and upon this little word belief hang all our sorrows and joys) that outward things have the power to make or mar your life; by so doing you submit to those outward things, confess that you are their slave, and they your unconditional master; by so doing, you invest them with a power which they do not, of themselves, possess, and you succumb, in reality, not to the mere circumstances, but to the gloom or gladness, the fear or hope, the strength or weakness, which your thought-sphere has thrown around them.

James Allen: The Path pf Prosperity