Silence

The silence is another way of saying to keep your mind stayed on God all the time.  God is the silence and you are that.  Feel the silence right now.  You can feel it. It's a thing of beauty.
You know when you're getting into the true silence, you begin to become happier, and happier and happier for no reason.  It makes no difference what's going on in the world.  The world is in one place and you're in another place.

In the deep silence you are identifying with the substratum of creation.  Always remember to go into the silence.  A sage is always in the silence.  A sage may be talking, listening, partaking of activities, but to the sage there's only silence.

Robert Adams

Supreme happiness

Everyone runs after happiness and enjoyment. Yet, supreme happiness and bliss are ever There and nowhere else. That which is eternal must be revealed, and then the question of going in search of anything does not arise.

~ Sri Anandamayi Ma

...from 'Matri Vani' http://www.anandamayi.org/books/Matrivani.htm

Awakening

“Now the funny thing about the Truth, or enlightenment, or awakening, is that we miss it even though it’s not hidden. It’s not far away waiting for a moment where we deserve it. It is hard to find because it is right here. This openness has always been here. If it had a voice, it would have been saying something like, ‘For Pete’s sake, I wonder how long this image thing is going to go on!’ This imageless Self -- call it awakeness or awareness or openness, whatever word might trigger the remembrance for you -- is very quiet. But don’t believe me. Take the words inside. Discover for yourself. You are the authority. I’m just the messenger.”

~ Adyashanti

Emptiness Dancing

Jnani Vijnani

The jnani gives up his identification with worldly things, discriminating, 'Not this, not this'. Only then can he realize Brahman. It is like reaching the roof of a house by leaving the steps behind, one by one. But the vijnani, who is more intimately acquainted with Brahman, realizes something more. He realizes that the steps are made of the same materials as the roof: bricks, lime, and brick-dust. That which is realized intuitively as Brahman, through the eliminating process of 'Not this, not this', is then found to have become the universe and all its living beings. The vijnani sees that the Reality which is nirguna, without attributes, is also saguna, with attributes.

A man cannot live on the roof a long time. He comes down again. Those who realize Brahman in samadhi come down also and find that it is Brahman that has become the universe and its living beings. In the musical scale there are the notes sa, re ga, ma, pa, dha, and ni; but one cannot keep one's voice on 'ni' a long time. The ego does not vanish altogether. The man coming down from samadhi perceives that it is Brahman that has become the ego, the universe, and all living beings. This is known as vijnana."
http://www.arunachala-ramana.org/forum/index.php?topic=7540.0

Vairagya Dispassion

Vairāgya (Devanagari: वैराग्य, also spelt Vairagya) is a Sanskrit term used in Hindu philosophy that roughly translates as dispassion, detachment, or renunciation, in particular renunciation from the pains and pleasures in the material world (Maya). The Hindu philosophers who advocated vairāgya told their followers that it is a means to achieve moksha. True vairagya refers to an internal state of mind rather than to external lifestyle and can be practiced equally well by one engaged in family life and career as it can be by a renunciate. Vairagya does not mean suppression or developing repulsion for material objects. By the application of vivek (spiritual discrimination or discernment) to life experience, the aspirant gradually develops a strong attraction for the inner spiritual source of fulfillment and happiness and limited attachments fall away naturally. Balance is maintained between the inner spiritual state and one's external life through the practice of seeing all limited entities as expressions of the one Cosmic Consciousness or Brahman.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vairagya

Better to be God

BETTER TO BE GOD

Bhagavan remained silent for some time. Everyone
thought he might not reply. Then suddenly he started:
You want to see God. But you do not realize that God
is within yourself.

Q: I am very much confused. Kindly tell me clearly. My
friends told me that you are the greatest authority.

Bhagavan spoke slowly and emphatically:
"If you say that God is to be seen, the necessary
implication is that he cannot be seen now but only
sometime in the future. Then it would also mean that
he appears and disappears. That which appears and
disappears cannot be the truth, the eternal.

Therefore instead of seeing God it is better to be God. Isn't it?
Instead of losing the vision of God and regaining it
would it not be far better to be God? If he is a true God
he must be your inner resident."

Q: Is the natural state without thoughts essential to
become God?

Bhagavan: NO - No. It is not so. There is no becoming here.
You are already that Self. Only due to ignorance you do not
realize it. Try to remove that first. 'The body am I’-
thought must go first.

- N.N.Rajan, More Talks With Ramana Maharshi

Never forget I am

SAYINGS OF ANNAMALAI SWAMI

It is enough to never forget ‘I am’, your real Self which is
everything and all inclusive.

In every moment you only have one real choice: to be aware ‘I am’ or to identify with the body and mind.

Your responsibility in this life is only to abide as ‘I am’ and not worry about the outer events over which you have no control.

- LWB

मृत्यु पवित्रम स्नान

मृत्यु ,--------पवित्रम स्नान ।

मौत तुम्हारा अहंकार छीनेगी, तुम्हारी आत्मा नहीं। मौत तुम्हारी देह छीनेगी, तुम्हारी देह में बसे हुए को नहीं। मौत तुम्हारी पद—प्रतिष्ठा छीनेगी, तुम्हें नहीं। मौत तुम्हारी धन—दौलत छीन लेगी, तुम्हें नहीं। मौत तुम्हारा मेरा तेरा छीन लेगी, तुम्हें नहीं। पछताओगे बहुत जब मौत आकर सब छीनने लगेगी और एक—एक भवन गिरने लगेगा—जिस पर तुमने जीवन लगा दिया था, जिस पर तुमने सब गंवाया था—तब तुम बहुत पछताओगे। लेकिन तब बहुत देर हो गई होगी। जो पहले ही जाग जाता है, वह भ्रांतियां नहीं खड़ी करता है। जो भ्रांतियां खड़ी नहीं करता, उसके पास कुछ होता ही नहीं जिसको मौत छीन
ले। उसी आदमी को ज्ञानी कहते हैं जिसके पास ऐसा कुछ है जो मौत नहीं छीन सकती

*ओशो*
*का सोवै  दिन रैन-9*

quotes

Remove all becoming, you are Being.
Becoming is effort, Being is no effort.
You are always That so be like the breeze
that is attached to neither the garbage nor the garden
that it blows over.

Do not run away from worldly activities,
only always keep in the "I am Self,"
stay as the screen on which all projected activities take place.
In all activities simply keep Quiet and know "I am home."

~ Papaji

quotess

quotes

Consciousness wakes up

COMPLETE FAILURE

Q: I want what you wanted.
Adya: What did I want?
Q: You wanted to become enlightened.
Adya: I wanted to become enlightened. Ok. It didn’t work out.
Q: Did you at least become awake?

Adya: No. Awakeness became awake. Enlightenment becomes enlightened. The me, the little guy, little Steven Larry Gray, that meditated in his parent’s backyard for hours and hours a day, every single day, in the morning and the evening, and did nothing but do the good Buddhist thing, diligently, terribly, terribly disciplined, he didn’t get enlightened. He never made it. He never crossed the river of nirvana, it never happened to him.

What he did was, for whatever reason, maybe the seeking was necessary, is he got exhausted. It just completely exhausted itself. The little one that was trying to get awake and enlightened got so exhausted, so stricken by I can’t do this, I can’t, and I could no longer tell myself I can. That means the complete and utter destruction of denial. Because the denial is “I can”. And your experience keeps showing you “you can’t.”

And so I got so exhausted psychically, internally, emotionally, spiritually that I couldn’t keep it up anymore. And i had to see the truth. I was willing to see the truth only because I was exhausted. I can’t do it. And in that “I can’t do it,” and not as a spiritual strategy, emptiness woke up out of the seeker. The seeker didn’t wake up. Consciousness woke up from the seeker, from the personality, from the “me” that was trying so hard.

— Adyashanti
from “Big Sword Swinging”

All is self

Papaji Says:  "Whenever you are immersed in compulsive thinking, you are avoiding what is.You don’t want to be where you are: Here, Now. When the mind is quiet, All is Self."
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.papajidaily

Removal of camouflage

Ramana says: "We loosely talk of Self-realization, for lack of a better term.  But how can one realize or make real that which alone is real? All we need to do is to give up our habit of regarding as real that which is unreal. All religious practices are meant solely to help us do this. When we stop regarding the unreal as real, then reality alone will remain, and we will be that."
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ramanadaily

Being

Remove all becoming, you are Being.
Becoming is effort, Being is no effort.
You are always That so be like the breeze
that is attached to neither the garbage nor the garden
that it blows over.

Do not run away from worldly activities,
only always keep in the "I am Self,"
stay as the screen on which all projected activities take place.
In all activities simply keep Quiet and know "I am home."

~ Papaji

ध्यान और पीडा

��☝

*तिसरा प्रश्न : भगवान!.. ध्यान में अक्सर शारीरिक पीड़ा बनती है चित्तविक्षेप जब पीड़ा हो रही हो तो क्या आप पीड़ा पर भी ध्यान करने के लिए कहेंगे?*

*ओशो :*

इसी की तो बात कर रहा था मैं। यदि तुम पीड़ा अनुभव करते हो तो उसके प्रति सजग, ध्यानमय रहना, कुछ करना मत। ध्यान सबसे बड़ी तलवार है—यह हर चीज काट देती है। तुम बस ध्यान देना पीड़ा पर।

उदाहरण के लिए, तुम ध्यान के अंतिम चरण में चुपचाप बैठे हुए होते हो, बिना हिले—डुले, और तुम शरीर में बहुत—सी समस्याएं अनुभव करते हो। तुम्हें लगता है कि टल एकदम सुन्न होती जा रही है, हाथ में कुछ खुजली हो रही है, तुम्हें लगता है शरीर पर चींटियां रेंग रही हैं। बहुत बार देख लिया तुमने और वहां चींटियां हैं ही नहीं। वह रेंगाहट भीतर होती है, कहीं बाहर नहीं।

तो तुम्हें करना क्या होगा? तुम्हें तो लगता है टांग खत्म हो रही है—ध्यानपूर्ण हो जाओ, अपना समग्र ध्यान ही लगा दो उस ओर। तुम्हें खुजली हो रही है? मत खुजलाना। उससे कोई मदद न मिलेगी। तुम केवल ध्यान दो। अपनी आंखें तक भी मत खोलना। केवल अपना ध्यान लगाना भीतर की ओर और मात्र प्रतीक्षा करना और देखना। कुछ पलों के भीतर ही वह खुजली मिट चुकी होगी।

जो कुछ भी घटता है—यदि तुम्हें पीड़ा भी होती है, पेट में या सिर में होती है तीव्र पीड़ा, वह होती है क्योंकि ध्यान में सारा शरीर परिवर्तित होता है। वह बदलता है अपना रसायन। नयी चीजें घटनी शुरू होती हैं और शरीर एक अराजकता में होता है। कई बार पेट पर पड़ेगा प्रभाव, क्योंकि पेट में तुमने दबायी होती हैं बहुत भावनाएं, और वे सब झकझोर दी जाती हैं।

कई बार तुम वमन कर देना चाहोगे, तुम अनुभव करोगे मिचलाहट; कई बार तुम सिर में तीव्र पीड़ा अनुभव करोगे। क्योंकि ध्यान परिवर्तित कर रहा होता है तुम्हारे मस्तिष्क के आंतरिक ढाचे को। ध्यान की राह से गुजरते हुए तुम वस्तुत: ही एक अव्यवस्था में होते हो। जल्दी ही चीजें सुव्यवस्थित हो जाएंगी। लेकिन कुछ समय के लिए, हर चीज रहेगी अस्थिर, अव्यवस्थित।

तो तुम्हें करना क्या होता है? तुम सिर्फ देखना सिर की पीड़ा को, उसे देखना। तुम हो जाना द्रष्टा। तुम बिलकुल भूल ही जाना कि तुम कर्ता हो, और धीरे — धीरे हर चीज शात हो जाएगी और इतनी सुंदरता से, इतनी लालित्य— पूर्ण ढंग से शात होगी कि तुम्हें विश्वास नहीं आ सकता जब तक कि तुम उसे जान ही नहीं लेते।

केवल पीड़ा ही नहीं मिटती है सिर की—क्योंकि यदि देखते हो तो वह ऊर्जा जो पीड़ा निर्मित कर रही थी, तिरोहित हो जाती है—वही ऊर्जा बन जाती है सुख।

ऊर्जा एक ही होती है। पीड़ा या सुख वह एक ही ऊर्जा के दो आयाम हैं। यदि तुम मौन बैठे रह सकते हो और ध्यान दे सकते हो ध्यान— भंग होने की ओर, तो सारी विभ्रांतिया तिरोहित हो जाती हैं। और जब सारी विभ्रांतिया तिरोहित हो जाती हैं, तो तुम अकस्मात सजग हो जाओगे कि सारा शरीर तिरोहित हो चुका है।

वस्तुत: क्या घट रहा था? क्यों घट रही थीं ये बातें तूम जब तुम ध्यान नहीं करते तो ये नहीं घटतीं। सारा दिन तुम वैसे ही मौजूद होते हो और हाथ कभी नहीं खुजलाता, सिर में कोई दर्द नहीं होता, पेट बिलकुल ठीक—ठाक होता है और टलें ठीक रहती हैं। हर चीज ठीक होती है। वस्तुत: क्या घट रहा था ध्यान में? ध्यान में ये चीजें अचानक क्यों घटने लगती हैं?

शरीर मालिक बना रहा है बहुत लंबे समय से, और ध्यान में तुम शरीर को इसकी मालकियत से बाहर फेंक रहे होते हो। तुम उतार दे रहे हो उसे सिंहासन से। वह चिपकता है; वह हर तरह से कोशिश करता है मालिक बने रहने की। वह तुम्हें विभ्रांत करने को बहुत चीजें निर्मित करेगा जिससे कि ध्यान खो जाये। तुम संतुलन से दूर हट जाते हो और शरीर फिर आ चढ़ता है सिंहासन पर। अब तक, शरीर ही बना रहा है मालिक और तुम बने रहे हो गुलाम।

ध्यान द्वारा, तुम बदल रहे हो सारी चीज को ही, यह एक बड़ी क्रांति है और निस्संदेह कोई शासक सत्ता के बाहर होना नहीं चाहता। शरीर राजनीतिया चलाता है—यही तो घट रहा है। जब वह निर्मित करता है काल्पनिक पीड़ा : खुजली, चींटियों का रेंगना तो शरीर कोशिश कर रहा होता है तुम्हारा ध्यान भंग करने की।

ऐसा स्वाभाविक है, क्योंकि इतने लंबे समय से शरीर के पास सत्ता बनी रही है। बहुत जन्मों से यह बना रहा सम्राट और तुम बने रहे गुलाम। अब तुम बदल रहे हो—हर चीज उलट—पुलट गयी है। तुम अपने सिंहासन को वापस ले रहे होते हो। ऐसा स्वाभाविक है कि तुम्हारी शाति भंग करने को जो कुछ किया जा सकता है वह कुछ करना ही चाहिए शरीर को। यदि तुम अ-शांत हो जाते हो, तो तुम भटक जाते हो।

साधारणतया लोग इन चीजों को दबा देते हैं। वे जप करने लगेंगे किसी मंत्र का। वे नहीं ध्यान देंगे शरीर पर।

मैं तुम्हें किसी प्रकार का दमन नहीं सिखा रहा हूं। मैं सिखाता हूं केवल जागरूकता। तुम मात्र देखो, ध्यान दो। क्योंकि वह झूठ है भ्रम है, तुरंत तिरोहित हो जायेगा वह।

जब सारी पीड़ाएं और खुजलाहटें और चींटियां गायब हो चुकी होती हैं और शरीर गुलाम होने के अपने सही स्थान पर जा बैठा होता है, तो अकस्मात इतना आनंद उमगने लगता है कि तुम उसको अपने में समा नहीं सकते हो। अचानक इतना अधिक उत्सव उमड़ने लगता है तुम्हारे भीतर कि तुम उसे अभिव्यक्त भी नहीं कर सकते; उमड़ने लगती है कहीं पार की समझ की शाति, उमडूने लगता है एक आनंद जो कि इस संसार का नहीं होता।

��✨��  *ओशो*  ��✨��

Suffering

When we argue with what was, the only person who is going to suffer is us. It doesn't matter why we're arguing. It doesn't matter how justified our resistance is. When we begin to look deeply at what our mind is doing, we'll see that our conclusions and justifications for our own suffering are what allow the suffering to continue.

~ Adyashanti
(from 'falling into Grace: insights on the end of suffering')

Osho

Life is very precious and the greatest treasure is hidden in it -- and that treasure is of becoming a witness.

Let body do what it likes

Let the body do what it likes. Thinking thus, I always abide in my own Self as the Perfect fountainhead of Bliss and pure uninterrupted consciousness. I am therefore in the state of perfection and remain unblemished.

~ 'Tripura Rahasya', chapter XVII (104-105)

Surrender

Surrender is a central theme in Bhagavan's teachings. It is the ego/mind that claims ownership of things and objects. However, when we surrender the ego/mind to the Lord, the Self that sits in our Heart, grace floods our being and Self is Realized with immediacy as our own true nature.

Here

Papaji Says:  "Here in this moment there is no problem and daily life is within this moment, you cannot walk out of it. Just try to invite past and future problems into this moment.
They cannot touch Here so do things of Now Now,
and do not touch yesterday or tomorrow."
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.papajidaily

Quotes

When it is realized that you live in the present moment, that you are indeed the present moment, (the what-is here and now) and that therefore apart from this there is no past and no future, you cannot but relax and taste to the full, the pleasure or the pain, His will - the present moment. And then everything becomes obvious: why this universe exists, why sentient beings have been produced, why sensitive organs, why space, time and change. The whole problem of analyzing and justifying nature, of trying to make life mean something in terms of words and lateral thinking - all this becomes meaningless. Obviously, it all exists for this moment, this kshana. It is a dance, and when you are dancing, there is only the dance, not any intent of getting somewhere.

- Ramesh S. Balsekar, 'A Living Gem from Ramesh’ - Advaita Fellowship Newsletter, August 2010
That this entire phenomenal show of the universe has no purpose indicates the obvious futility of trying to become something special. Once the self-conscious ego takes over all spontaneity is at once destroyed. Just simply be as you are. The purposeless vision enjoys everything.

~~ Ramesh Balsekar (paraphrased) 
........

Consciousness has produced this play. 
Consciousness has written the script. 
Consciousness is playing all the characters. 
And Consciousness is witnessing the play. 
It's a one man show. 

~ Ramesh Balsekar
.........
Thoughts are bound to arise. The trick is not to get involved.but to ignore them altogether. ~Ramesh Balsekar
.......
The only ultimate understanding is that nothing is. Not even he who understands. ~Ramesh Balsekar
.....
The self realization is not only effortless what you are trying to find is what you already are. ~Ramesh Balsekar
.....
The final truth, as Ramana Maharshi and Nisargadatta Maharaj and all the sages before them have clearly stated, is that there is neither creation nor destruction, neither birth nor death, neither destiny nor free will, neither any path nor any achievement. All there is is Consciousness. 

~ Ramesh Balsekar
..........
Ceasing to conceptualize means ceasing to perceive objectively, which means perceiving non-objectively. It is to see the universe without choice or judgement and without getting into subject-object relationship. What happens then? Nothing, except that you are what you were before you were born: everything.

~ Ramesh Balsekar
The desire for enlightenment once drove an earnest and highly determined individual to spend several years in the company of a spiritual teacher. During these years he proved himself a devoted disciple who was totally committed to the attainment of spiritual realization.

When the time came for him to leave and return to his native place, his guru made him promise that he would write every month, reporting on his spiritual progress. The disciple gave his promise and received his guru’s blessing. They said their farewells and parted.

The disciple had been gone just over a month when his first letter arrived:

“I am experiencing the Oneness with the Universe,” he wrote.
The master said nothing, but crumpled up the letter and dropped it in the bin.

The next month’s report came promptly and stated:

“The Divinity present in all things has been revealed to me. I behold It in a flower, in a stone, in the very air, everywhere.”
Again the master read the letter, crumpled it up and tossed it into the bin without a word.

For four months the letters arrived regularly. In his third message the disciple declared:

“The mystery of the One and the Many has been revealed to me. I now know and truly comprehend there is no difference between you and me or anything else.” Once read, this missive also ended up in the guru’s waste-paper basket. In the fourth letter the disciple said, “No one is born, lives or dies, because there is no one who exists.”
This letter too was read without comment and followed its predecessors, slipping with a rustle into the trash.

After the fourth month, however, no further letters arrived. No letter in the fifth month, no letter in the sixth month, no letter for a whole year! As the time passed and brought no news, the master became increasingly curious as to what had happened with his beloved disciple. Eventually, he wrote to him inquiring about his spiritual progress, and reminding the disciple of his promise to keep him informed.

Some time later, the guru was handed a letter addressed in a familiar hand. It was from his distant disciple. The guru opened it and read, [and laughed out loud] with obvious delight. His attendant disciples were puzzled as to what had prompted this outburst of joy. Beaming gladly, the guru passed them the letter.

They saw that it contained just three words, and the three words were:

“Enlightenment? Who cares!”

..........
We are born alone, we live alone, and we die alone. Aloneness is our very nature, but we are not aware of it. Because we are not aware of it, we remain strangers to ourselves, and instead of seeing our aloneness as a tremendous beauty and bliss, silence and peace, at-easeness with existence, we misunderstand it as loneliness.

~ Osho

Bliss is true happiness. What you call happiness is just misery in disguise. What you call happiness is nothing but entertainment, pleasure. It is momentary -- it cannot be true. Truth has to have one quality, and the quality is of eternity. If something is true it is eternal; if it is untrue it is momentary. True happiness is found only when the mind completely ceases functioning. It does not come from the outside. It wells up within your own being, it starts overflowing you. You become luminous. You become a fountain of bliss.

~ Osho

I am not interested in communicating something to you,
I am interested in communion.
Communication means my mind talking to your mind.
Communion means I am not a mind,
you are not a mind -
just your heart melting into my heart,
no words.

~ Osho

Advaita (Nonduality, Oneness, One Love)
I have no system. Systems can only be dead, they cannot be alive. I am a non systematic, anarchistic flow; not even a person, just a process. I don't know what I said to you yesterday. The person who said it is not here to answer; he is gone, I am here. And I am answerable only for this moment, so don't wait for tomorrow for I will not be here. And who is going to make consistency, who is going to find a thread that is not contradictory? There is nobody. And I would like you to be the same.

Just this moment exists, absolutely consistent, for there can be no comparison. There is no past, no future; only this moment is. How can you compare? If you live in this moment there will come a consistency which is not of a system, which is of life, which is of the energy itself. That will be an inner consistency of your very being, not of the mind.

~ Osho
Oh, don't take life so seriously!
Because seriousness is a great dis-ease,
and not only a disease but a suicide also.
Be playful -- totally
because that is the only way to be living.
Life is a play, a leela.

If you can act and live as if acting and living in a dream
and still be a witness to it
then you will be in the cosmic flow, the Tao.

And to be in the cosmic flow is to be free --
free from oneself, the Ego.
The Ego is the seriousness, the disease,
and the Tao, the egoless existence, is the bliss,
the ecstasy.

~ Osho
Love deeply. It is not a question of relationship. Love is a way of life. Be loving - to the trees, to the animals, to the birds, to the rocks, to the pebble. It is not a question of to whom, it is a question of your heart throbbing with love. It has nothing to do with the object of love but with the subjectivity of love.

Then suddenly you have the Midas touch: whatsoever you touch becomes golden. Small things in your hands become extraordinarily beautiful. Your actions, ordinary actions, start having the quality of the extraordinary. Then whatsoever you say is poetry and whatsoever you live is music. Even while you are asleep your energy is in a celebration.

~ Osho
Tears are far more beautiful than anything that you have with you, because tears come from the overflow of your being. Tears are not necessarily of sadness; sometimes they come out of great joy and sometimes they come out of great peace and sometimes they come out of ecstasy and love. In fact they have nothing to do with sadness or happiness. Anything that stirs your heart too much, anything that takes possession of you, anything that is too much, that you cannot contain and it starts overflowing - that brings tears.

Accept them with great joy, relish them, nourish them, welcome them, and through tears you will know how to pray.

Through tears you will know how to see. Tear-filled eyes are capable of seeing truth. Tear-filled eyes are capable of seeing the beauty of life and the benediction of it.

~ Osho

SOMETIMES IT IS GOOD TO GO WRONG.

It is very good to go astray sometimes. It is not always good to remain good, so don't be worried about that.

It is as it should be. Nature takes its own course. Simply remain with the moment. Live the moment with your total being involved in it, committed to it, absorbed in it. Become drunk with the moment, and then whatsoever happens will be good.

Even if it is not good, it will be good. At least eventually it will prove to be good. Even if you go wrong sometimes, finally you will find that that was also part of being right. It was needed. Life is really a mystery, and the mystery is because of this paradox.

~ Osho
Advaita (Nonduality, Oneness, One Love)
I have been constantly inconsistent so that you will never be able to make a dogma out of me. You will simply go nuts if you try. I am leaving something really terrible for scholars. They will not be able to make any sense out of it. They will go nuts; and they deserve it, they should go nuts. But nobody can create an orthodoxy out of me, it is impossible.

From my words you can get burned, but you will not be able to find any kind of theology, dogmatism.

When I am speaking to you it is a totally different thing than when you will be reading it in a book, because when you are reading in a book it is only a word; when you are listening to the Master it is more than the word. The presence of the Master is overpowering! Before the word reaches you, the Master has already reached; he is already overflooding you. Your heart is breathing with the Master, beating with the Master in the same rhythm. You are breathing in the same rhythm. There is a communion, an invisible link. The presence of the Master, his gestures, his eyes... the words spoken by him are ordinary words, but when spoken by a Master they carry something of the beyond; they carry some silence, some meditativeness, some of his experience, because they come from his innermost core.

What I am doing here is play -- it is not work. When I am gone, my work is to be known as play, never as work.

Life is love and love is celebration. Celebration is the very core of religion, the soul. Without celebration religion becomes a corpse. And that's what has happened to religions in the past again and again: they become serious. And the moment they become serious, only the dead body is there.

Religion remains alive only through celebration. When Buddha is there, there is celebration. When Krishna is there, there is celebration. When Jesus is there, there is celebration. The moment the Master leaves the body the disciples become very serious, they become fanatics, and they start becoming missionaries: they want to convert the whole world. They start arguing, proving, disproving; they create theology. And slowly slowly the soul dies -- they become too engaged with other things. Religion lives only through celebration, as celebration. But this point has been missed again and again; that's why so many religions were born but they all died, and they all died a premature death. It was not necessary to die; they could have lived and served humanity.

~ Osho
The moment you are illuminated, the whole of existence is illuminated. If you are dark, then the whole of existence is dark. It all depends on you.

Meditation simply means transforming your unconsciousness into consciousness. Normally only one-tenth of our mind is conscious, and nine-tenths is unconscious. Jus a small part of our mind, a thin layer, has light; otherwise the whole house is in darkness. And the challenge is to grow that small light so much that the whole house is flooded with light, that not even a nook or corner is left in the darkness.

When the whole house is full of light, then life is a miracle; it has the quality of magic. Then it is no longer ordinary -- everything becomes extraordinary. The mundane is transformed into the sacred, and the small things of life start having such tremendous significance that one could not have ever imagined it. Ordinary stones look as beautiful as diamonds; the whole of existence becomes illuminated. The moment you are illuminated, the whole of existence is illuminated. If you are dark, then the whole of existence is dark. It all depends on you.

~ Osho
All growth needs love -- but unconditional love. If love has conditions then growth cannot be total, because those conditions will come in the way. Love unconditionally. Don't ask anything in return. Much comes on its own -- that's another thing. Don't be a beggar. In love be an emperor. Just give it and see what happens... a thousandfold it comes back. But one has to learn it. Otherwise one remains a miser; one gives a little and waits for much to come back, and your waiting, your expectation, destroys the whole beauty of it.

~ Osho
Love allows freedom; not only allows, but strengthens freedom. And anything that destroys freedom is not love. It must be something else. Love and freedom go together, they are two wings of the same bird. Whenever you see that your love is going against your freedom, then you are doing something else in the name of love. Let this be your criterion: freedom is the criterion; love gives you freedom, makes you free, liberates you. And once you are totally yourself, you feel grateful to the person who has helped you. That gratefulness is almost religious. You feel in the other person something divine. He has made you free, or she has made you free, and love has not become a possessiveness.

~ Osho
There are only two types of people: one, who escape from their loneliness the majority, the ninety-nine point nine percent, who escape from themselves; and the remaining point one percent is the meditator, who says, "If loneliness is a truth, then it is a truth; then there is no point in running away from it. It is better to go into it, encounter it, see it face to face, what it is." Meditation means going into your loneliness wholeheartedly, to discover it, to investigate into it, to inquire into it. That's what meditation is all about.

~ Osho
If you really want to laugh you will have to learn how to weep. If you cannot weep and if you are not capable of tears, you will become incapable of laughter. A man of laughter is also a man of tears -- then a man is balanced. A man of bliss is also a man of silence. A man who is ecstatic is also a man who is centered. They both go together. And out of this togetherness of polarities a balanced being is born. And that is what the goal is.

~ Osho
Misery is a by-product, so is bliss. Misery is a by-product of being asleep, bliss is a by-product of being awake. Hence you cannot seek and search for bliss directly, and those who seek and search for bliss directly are bound to fail, doomed to fail. Bliss can be attained only by those who don't seek bliss directly; on the contrary, they seek awareness. And when awareness comes, bliss comes of its own accord, just like your shadow, unshakable.

~ Osho
The word courage is very interesting. It comes from a Latin root cor, which means `heart'. So to be courageous means to live with the heart. And weaklings, only weaklings, live with the head; afraid, they create a security of logic around themselves. Fearful, they close every window and door - with theology, concepts, words, theories - and inside those closed doors and windows, they hide.

The way of the heart is the way of courage. It is to live in insecurity; it is to live in love, and trust; it is to move in the unknown. It is leaving the past and allowing the future to be. Courage is to move on dangerous paths. Life is dangerous, and only cowards can avoid the danger - but then, they are already dead. A person who is alive, really alive, vitally alive, will always move into the unknown. There is danger there, but he will take the risk. The heart is always ready to take the risk, the heart is a gambler. The head is a businessman. The head always calculates - it is cunning. The heart is non-calculating.

~ Osho
LOVE NEVER POSSESSES AND LOVE CAN NEVER BE POSSESSED

If it is really love, then it never thinks of the future. Then there is no problem of the future. Tomorrow does not exist for real love; time does not exist for real love. If you love a person, you love a person. What will happen tomorrow - who cares? Today is so much, this moment is an eternity. What will happen tomorrow, we will see, when tomorrow comes. And tomorrow never comes. Real love is of the present.

Always remember: Anything real has to be part of awareness, has to be part of the present, has to be part of meditation. Then there is no problem! And there is no question of attraction, and there is no question of fear. Real love shares; it is not to exploit the other, it is not to possess the other. When you want to possess the other, then the problem arises: The other may possess you. And if the other is more powerful, more magnetic, naturally you will be a slave. If you want to become the master of the other, then the fear arises that "I may be reduced to a slave." If you don't want to possess the other, then the fear never arises that the other may possess you. Love never possesses.

Love never possesses and love can never be possessed. True love leads you into freedom. Freedom is the highest peak, the ultimate value. And love is closest to freedom; the next step after love is freedom. Love is not against freedom; love is a stepping-stone toward freedom. That's what awareness will make clear to you: that love has to be used as a stepping-stone for freedom. If you love, you make the other free. And when you make the other free, you are made free by the other.

Love is a sharing, not an exploitation. And in fact love never thinks in terms of ugliness and beauty either. You will be surprised: Love never thinks in terms of ugliness and beauty. Love only acts, reflects, meditates - never thinks at all. Yes, sometimes it happens that you fit with somebody - suddenly, everything falls into harmony. It is not a question of beauty or ugliness. It is a question of harmony, a rhythm.

~ Osho
Multi are His forms, many are His ways, and millions are His faces. One has to learn to recognize Him in whatsoever form He comes. He will try to deceive you but you are not to be deceived. When He comes as sadness, remember that is also His image. Maybe this is needed right now.

~ Osho

You have to understand one thing: that enlightenment is not an escape from pain but an understanding of pain, an understanding of your anguish, an understanding of your misery -- not a cover-up, not a substitute, but a deep insight: "Why am I miserable, why is there so much anxiety, why is there so much anguish, what are the causes in me that are creating it?" And to see those causes clearly is to be free from them. Just an insight into your misery brings a freedom from misery. And what remains is enlightenment. Enlightenment is not something that comes to you. It is when pain and misery and anguish and anxiety have been understood perfectly well and they have evaporated because now they have no cause to exist in you -- that state is enlightenment.

~ Osho

Being simply is. There is no evolution, there is no time involved in it. It is eternity, it is not "becoming." Nothing needs to be added to it, nothing can be added to it. It's a creation of existence. It comes out of perfection, hence it is perfect.

~ Osho
The ego is afraid to love because in love, life comes to a peak. But whenever there is a peak of life there is also a peak of death -- they go together. In love you die and you are reborn. The same happens when you come to meditate or to pray, or when you come to a Master to surrender. The ego creates all sorts of difficulties, rationalisations not to surrender: 'Think about it, brood about it, be clever about it.' When you come to a Master, again the ego becomes suspicious, doubtful, creates anxiety, because again you are coming to life, to a flame where death will also be as much alive as life.

~ Osho
Consciousness without thinking: that's what awareness is. Being alert and with no thought.

The person who follows the path of awareness finds love as a consequence of his awareness, as a by-product, as a shadow. And the person who follows the path of love finds awareness as a consequence, as a by-product, as a shadow of love. They are two sides of the same coin. And remember: if your awareness lacks love then it is still impure; it has not yet known one hundred percent purity. It is not yet REALLY awareness; it must be mixed with unawareness. It is not pure light; there must be pockets of darkness inside you still working, functioning, influencing you, dominating you. If your love is without awareness, then it is not love yet. It must be something lower, something closer to lust than to prayer.

So let it be a criterion if you follow the path of awareness, let love be the criterion. When your awareness suddenly blooms into love, know perfectly well that awareness has happened, Samadhi has been achieved. If you follow the path of love, then let awareness function as a criterion, as a touchstone. When suddenly, from nowhere, at the very center of your love a flame of awareness starts arising, know perfectly well... rejoice! You have come home.

~ Osho
Consciousness without thinking: that's what awareness is. Being alert and with no thought.

The person who follows the path of awareness finds love as a consequence of his awareness, as a by-product, as a shadow. And the person who follows the path of love finds awareness as a consequence, as a by-product, as a shadow of love. They are two sides of the same coin. And remember: if your awareness lacks love then it is still impure; it has not yet known one hundred percent purity. It is not yet REALLY awareness; it must be mixed with unawareness. It is not pure light; there must be pockets of darkness inside you still working, functioning, influencing you, dominating you. If your love is without awareness, then it is not love yet. It must be something lower, something closer to lust than to prayer.

So let it be a criterion if you follow the path of awareness, let love be the criterion. When your awareness suddenly blooms into love, know perfectly well that awareness has happened, Samadhi has been achieved. If you follow the path of love, then let awareness function as a criterion, as a touchstone. When suddenly, from nowhere, at the very center of your love a flame of awareness starts arising, know perfectly well... rejoice! You have come home.

~ Osho
Start dying each moment to the past. Clean yourself of the past each moment. Die to the known so that you become available to the unknown. With dying and being reborn each moment you will be able to live life and you will be able to live death also.

~ Osho

Much is being missed because of fear. We are too attached to the body and we go on creating more and more fear because of that attachment. The body is going to die, the body is part of death, the body is death -- but you are beyond the body. You are not the body; you are the bodiless. Remember it. Realize it. Awaken yourself to this truth -- that you are beyond the body. You are the witness, the seer.

~ Osho
Awareness means that whatsoever is happening in the moment is happening with complete consciousness; you are present there. If you are present when anger is happening, anger cannot happen. It can happen only when you are fast asleep. When you are present, immediate, transformation starts in your being, because when you are present, aware, many things are simply not possible. All that is called sin is not possible if you are aware. So, in fact, there is only one sin and that is unawareness.

~ Osho
Advaita (Nonduality, Oneness, One Love)
To live without a problem is very difficult, almost humanly impossible. Why? Because a problem gives you a distraction. A problem gives you an occupation. A problem gives you a busyness without any business. A problem engages you. If there is no problem, you will not be able to cling to the periphery of your being. You will be sucked by the center.

And the center of your being is empty. It is just like the hub of a wheel. The whole wheel moves on the empty hub. Your innermost core is empty, nothing, nothingness, shunyam, void, abysslike. You are afraid of that emptiness, so you go on clinging to the rim of the wheel or, at the most, if you are a little daring, then you go on clinging to the spokes; but you never move towards the hub. One starts feeling afraid, shaky.

Problems help you. Some problem to solve; how can you go within? People come to me and they say, "We want to go within, but there are problems." They think because of the problems they are not going within. The real case is just the opposite: because they don't want to go within, they are creating problems.

Let this understanding become as deep in you as possible: your problems are all bogus.

~ Osho
To me, love is a by-product of a meditative mind. It is not related to sex; it is related to dhyana, meditation. The more silent you become, the more at ease with yourself you will be, the more fulfilled you will feel, and the more a new expression of your being will be there. You will begin to love. Not anyone in particular. It may happen with someone in particular, but that is another thing. You begin to love. This loving becomes your way of existing. It can never turn into repulsion because it is not an attraction.

~ Osho

Everybody gathers dust. Not only do you gather, you cling to it, you think it is a treasure. The past is gone; why do you cling to it? You cannot do anything about it. You cannot go back, you cannot undo it. Why do you cling to it? And if you cling to the past and you think it is a treasure, of course your mind will want to live it again and again in the future. Your future cannot be anything but your modified past - a little refined, a little more decorated. But it is going to be the same because the mind cannot think of the unknown; the mind can only project the known, that which you know.

~ Osho
Everything is as it should be. So peaceful are the hills in the full moon night... rivers are at peace, dancing in the full moon night. Because of their dance the full moon's reflection becomes a silver spread over all. Everything is silent and peaceful, there is no frustration in the hills, there is no frustration in the rivers. Even the frog in the moon shines brightly alone.

If you look at nature, just taking man and his mind away, everything is bliss, everything is buddha. It is only man's mind that creates trouble, because it cannot allow a let-go.

Man can also be as happy as the hills and as peaceful as the rivers if he looks at the moon and the surroundings without any mind. With no thought, he will also become part of the whole scene.

But man remains always concerned with his own stupid ideas. When the whole existence is rejoicing, it is only man who is worried. Have you ever seen a tree worried? No animal is ever worried. Even in dying, it dies peacefully. Such is the way of existence, that anything that is born is going to die.

But man's mind intrudes, always creates problems, because it expects things to be different than they are. He is not ready to accept the suchness of existence; he wants it according to him. This, according to him, is the whole misery. Everybody is trying that everything should be according to him. One may say it, one may not say it, but even without saying it, your mind is weaving thoughts about how things should be brought according to YOUR idea -- and this is impossible.

You cannot change existence.

All that you can do is drop your mind.

~ Osho

(Source: "Rinzai: Master of the Irrational", Chapter 6: 'All you can do is drop your mind')
The ego cannot be dropped. It is just like darkness -- you cannot drop darkness, you can only bring light in. The moment light is, darkness is no more.

Meditation can be learned. Meditation functions as a light, meditation IS light.

Become light, and you will not find the ego anywhere.

If you want to drop it you will be in trouble, because who is this one who wants to drop it? It is the ego itself -- now playing a new game, the game called spirituality, religion, self-realization. Who is asking this question? It is the ego itself, befooling you. And when the ego asks how the ego can be dropped, naturally you think, "This can't be the ego. How can ego ask for its own suicide?" That's how ego goes on deceiving you.

Your self-nature has no questions, it needs no answers. Your self-nature is absolutely light, full of light. It knows no darkness, it has never met any darkness.

You need not drop the ego. Just look in, search for where it is -- first find it. Don't worry about self-nature right now. Just go in, search for the ego, and you will not find it; instead you will find your self-nature, luminous, fragrant like a lotus flower. One never comes across such beauty anywhere else. It is the most beautiful experience of life. And once you have seen your own lotus of light, your own lotus blossoming, the ego is finished forever.

~ Osho

(Source: "The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha", Vol 12, Chapter 10, Question 1)
Love dissolves identity.

In love, I am not and you are not; only love is.

Love does not happen between two persons. Between two persons what happens is only fight, in different names. It may be in the name of love, it may be in the name of something beautiful, but as long as two persons cling to their identities, to their personalities which they have cultivated their whole lives... Naturally, there is great investment.

Love comes like a wild breeze and takes away all your cultivated identity. You are left just a pure silence, a serenity. You cannot even say that "I am." Even that will be a disturbance.

There is tremendous isness, but there is no identity left.

~ Osho

(Source: "Om Mani Padme Hum", ch. 18
Advaita (Nonduality, Oneness, One Love)
Love yourself, love immensely, and in that very love your pride, your ego and all that nonsense, will disappear. And when it has disappeared your love will start reaching to other people. And it will not be a relationship but a sharing. And it will not be an object/subject relationship but a melting, a togetherness. It will not be feverish, it will be a cool passion. It will be warm and cool together. It will give you the first taste of the paradoxicalness of life.

~ Osho
Question: WHAT IS HERENOW?

OSHO: Thought is the capacity of not being here -- so thought cannot exist in the herenow, it cannot be part of it. That is impossible. Thought can only be either of the past or of the future. Thought can never be of the present. In the VERY process of thinking, that is implied; it is intrinsic to it.

The moment you think, either you think of the past or you think of the future. It may be the immediate past, but it is still past ­ it is never the present, it cannot be the present.

Thought needs space. And the present moment has no space in it. Thought creates the past and the future to live in. The bigger the past, the more easily thought can move; the bigger the future, again, the more easily thought can move. The present is not capable of giving that space for thought to move.

The present moment is a moment of no-mind.

Use the mind, but never get identified with it. The mind is a good slave, but a very bad master.

Now, if any mind answer is given to you, that won't be the right answer -- because anything that the mind can say as a definition of herenow will be wrong; anything whatsoever, it will be wrong. Mind knows nothing of herenow! How can it define it? Just be silent; for a moment, just be... and it is there.

THIS is herenow! I will not give you a definition, because definitions come from the mind, and definitions will be taken by the mind, and herenow is an existential experience... these trees, this bird calling, and the traffic noise, and the train, and the sun and the trees... and you, and me... and this silence, this presence....

Feel it! Experience it! That's what we are doing here! What is meditation? -- getting into here... now. What is love? -- getting into herenow. What is celebration? -- getting into herenow. But no definition is possible.

~ Osho

Source: "Walk Without Feet, Fly Without Wings and Think Without Mind", Chapter 3: 'Love is a Resurrection'
Witness

Just one quality of the Buddha has to be remembered. He consists only of one quality: witnessing.

This small word "witnessing" contains the whole of spirituality.

Witness that you are not the body.
Witness that you are not the mind.
Witness that you are only a witness.

As the witnessing deepens, you start becoming drunk with the Divine. This is what is called ecstasy.

~ Osho
Even a dancer needs a rest...
even a singer needs a rest.
Even a happy person needs rest.
One cannot remain in one mood continuously - there is no need.
When there are so many climates available, why get attached to one?
Why not be enriched by all?
A man who has attained to his essential center moves on dancing in different situations.
Sometimes it is hot,
sometimes it is cold;
sometimes it is joy, sometimes it is sadness -
but now everything brings him some message from the Whole.
Everything has become a messenger.

~ Osho
Lu-tsu says, "Accept the situation you are in. It must be the right situation for you; that's why you are in it." Existence cares for you. It is given to you not without any reason. It is not accidental; NOTHING IS accidental. Whatsoever is your need is given to you. If it were your need to be in the Himalayas, you would have been in the Himalayas. And when the need arises, you will find that either you go to the Himalayas or the Himalayas come to you. It happens... when the disciple is ready, the Master arrives. And when your inner silence is ready, God arrives. And whatsoever is needed on the path is always supplied. Existence cares, mothers.

~ Osho
A deep inner emptiness is needed; that inner emptiness becomes the womb. So I'm not saying stop doing, stop action; I'm not saying that. I am saying that whatsoever you are doing, let it be just an outside activity. Inside become feminine, silent, doors opened, empty, waiting.

~ Osho
Die to time
so that you are resurrected into
eternity.

Die to mind
so you become alive in
consciousness.

Die to thinking
so that you are born into
awareness.

~ Osho

Mind

Never mind the mind
Ignore mind intellect action stay as witness with no judgements good or bad
Asha nirasha ... hope and disappoints.

Nothing is truth
Wake up from dream and be witness.
Whatever destined to happen will happen whatever destined not to happen will not happen
.

Suffering

This is an auditorium, a big auditorium. Thoughts are flowing, pictures are flowing, this is a dream. Watch the dream and forget it. There should not be any struggle with the thoughts, not to struggle with the thoughts. Whatever is happening ok, it happens, so many things happening inside, just watch it, ignore it, it never remains steady. Mind is a flow of thoughts, it never remains steady. They come: good thoughts are there, bad thoughts are there, they come, it is nature, you are totally different from that. As if you are standing on the bank of a river, some good things are flowing, some bad things are flowing, just watch it, no impressions stay with you. Only mistake is you are measuring yourself in body form. Be a completely blank slate! Remove all the files, the wrong files, the illusionary files, and insert a new programme. Come to know Selfless Self. All our lifestyle is in connection to body knowledge. The whole lifestyle, the spiritual life is also illusion. Because we are having involvement something happens, because we are paying attention seriously it affects us, but if we ignore it, we are not affected. Don't take the touch! It's because you are taking the touch, that you are suffering.

Happiness

Happiness is our Essential Being

Happiness lies deep within us, in the very core of our being. Happiness does not exist in any external object, but only in us, who are the consciousness that experiences happiness. Though we seem to derive happiness from external objects or experiences, the happiness that we thus enjoy in fact arises from within us.

Whatever turmoil our mind may be in, in the centre of our being there always exists a state of perfect peace and joy, like the calm in the eye of a storm. Desire and fear agitate our mind, and obscure from its vision the happiness that always exists within it. When a desire is satisfied, or the cause of a fear is removed, the surface agitation of our mind subsides, and in that temporary calm our mind enjoys a taste of its own innate happiness.

Happiness is thus a state of being — a state in which our mind’s habitual agitation is calmed. The activity of our mind disturbs it from its calm state of just being, and causes it to lose sight of its own innermost happiness. To enjoy happiness, therefore, all our mind need do is to cease all activity, returning calmly to its natural state of inactive being, as it does daily in deep sleep.

True happiness is therefore the happiness of just being, which is the perfect and absolute happiness that in mystical literature is known as ‘beatitude’. This true happiness of being is also described as ‘the peace of God, which passeth all understanding’, because it is experienced in full only in the perfectly peaceful state of just being, which is the state in which all mental activity has subsided in the clarity of unobstructed self-consciousness. That is, since it can be experienced perfectly only in the state in which we are conscious merely of our own essential being and not of any thoughts or objects, true happiness or peace is beyond all mental comprehension.

- Michael James, http://www.happinessofbeing.com/

Real understanding

When you think you know something, pride, opinions and argumentativeness can be your emission.

When you think you know nothing, an air of openness and humility prevails. Then Real Understanding enters the mind.

Mooji

Truth

If you read any books, you go to any masters, this is Ultimate truth, except your Selfless Self nothing is there. What do you know? There is nothing to know. Whatever your knowing, you have got knowledge, it is illusion. No knowledge is knowledge. What is knowledge? Knowledge means just to identify oneself in real sense. We’re identifying ourself in body form and that is illusion, very simple thing, nothing complicated.We are giving more importance to body-knowledge, what ever knowledge we have extracted through body we are depending upon that, body-knowledge.

Suffering

When you look back at your own life, you see that with the suffering you went through, you would have avoided it each time if you possibly could, yet when you look at the depths of your character now, and the fact that you’re sitting here doing this work, you see it’s all a product of those experiences.
.
Weren’t those experiences part of what created the depth of your inner being?
I look back over the times when I was suffering miserably. I certainly wouldn’t lay it on myself if I’d had a choice, but it happened. It was part of the working out of my life plan, and now when I look back in perspective, I see the power of those experiences. I see how they deepened something in me that was necessary for the moment.
.
- Ram Dass

Be still never mind mind

CONVERSATIONS WITH ANNAMALAI SWAMI

Saint Tayumanuvar once said, 'Why all these maha yogas [great yogas]? All these yogas are maya!'

If you try to meditate without understanding that your real nature is Self, and Self alone, your meditation practice will only
lead you to more mental bondage.

Bhagavan once said. To keep the mind in the Self all you have to do is remain still'.

To realize the Self you don't actually have to do anything except be still. Just give up identifying with the mind and hold onto the Self. That is enough. Be still and cultivate the awareness of ‘I am the Self; the Self is all'. What difficulties can arise from doing a simple practice like this?

Q: The mind doesn't want to be ignored. It wants to spin round and round forever. I came to you because I thought that you might be able to help me to gain some control over my wayward thoughts.

AS: 'Who came here for help?' Find out who that person is. Don't automatically assume that he exists and that he needs help with his problems. If you think like this your problems will increase, not decrease.

Identifying oneself with the body and the mind results in
ignorance of the Self. This is how the ego takes birth. Detaching ourselves and disengaging from the body and the mind results in the death of the ego. Bhagayan once said to me: The one who limits the Self by believing himself to be the body and the mind has ‘killed’ his own Self.
For killing the Self he has to be punished. The punishment is birth and death and continuous misery.'

Living by the Words of Bhagavan, p. 287/88

Jnana

Jnana
The experience of the Self is sometimes called jnana or knowledge. This term should not be taken to mean that there is a person who has knowledge of the Self, because in the state of Self-awareness there is no localised knower and there is nothing that is separate from the Self that can be known. True knowledge, or jnana, is not an object of experience, nor is it an understanding of a state which is different and apart from the subject knower; it is a direct and knowing awareness of the one reality in which subjects and objects have ceased to exist. One who is established in
this state is known as a jnani.
From be As You Are, edited by David Godman

UNREALITY OF TIME AND SPACE - LILA'S STORY

UNREALITY OF TIME AND SPACE - LILA'S STORY

The Maharshi was often questioned about death and reincarnation. He would sometimes answer: "Let us know first who we are" or "The birth of the 'I-thought' is one's own birth, its death is the person's death. After the 'I'-thought has arisen the wrong identity with the body arises. Thinking yourself the body, you give false values to others and identify them with bodies. Just as your body has been born, grows and will perish, so also you think the other was born, grew up and died."

In so many ways Bhagavan tried to bring home to us the true nature of the Self, which is eternal, unborn and free. When an illogical sequence in an apparent death and rebirth was brought to his attention, he would often cite Lila's story from the Yoga Vasishta.

For example:
An elderly gentleman, formerly a co-worker with B. V. Narasimha Swami and author of some Vasishtadvaita work, visited the place for the first time. He asked about rebirths, if it is possible for the linga sarira (subtle body) to get dissolved and be reborn in two years after death.

Ramana Maharshi responded: "Yes. Surely. Not only can one be reborn, one may be twenty or forty or even seventy years old in the new body though only two years after death."

In another documented case of reincarnation, a boy who is seven years now recalls his past births. Enquiries go to show that the previous body was given up 10 months ago.

The question arises how the matter stood for six years and two months previous to the death of the former body. Did the soul occupy two bodies at the same time?

Sri Bhagavan pointed out that the seven years is according to the boy; ten months is according to the observer. The difference is due to these two different upadhis (limiting adjuncts). The boy's experience extending to seven years has been calculated by the observer to cover only 10 months of his own time. In order to explain this phenomenon, Sri Bhagavan again referred to Queen Lila's story in Yoga Vasishta.

Lila asked:
O Goddess, you said that it was only eight days ago that the holy man had died; and yet my husband and I have lived for a long time [in the present birth]. How can you reconcile this discrepancy? (The "holy man" was reincarnated as Lila's present husband, who had now again just died).

Goddess Saraswati said:
O Lila, just as space does not have a fixed span, time does not have a fixed span either. Just as the world and its creation are mere appearances, a moment and an epoch are also imaginary, not real. In the twinkling of an eye the jiva undergoes the illusion of the death-experience, forgets what happened before that, and in the infinite consciousness thinks 'I am this', etc., and 'I am his son, I am so many years old', etc. There is no essential difference between the experiences of this world and those of another - all this being thought-forms in the infinite consciousness. They are like two waves in the same ocean. Since these worlds were never created, they will never cease to be: such is the law. Their real nature is consciousness.

Even as in a dream there is birth, death and relationship all in a very short time, and even as a lover feels that a single night without his beloved is an epoch, the jiva thinks of experienced and non-experienced objects in the twinkling of an eye. And, immediately thereafter, he imagines those things (the world) to be real. Even those things which he had not experienced nor seen present themselves before him as in a dream.

This world and this creation is nothing but memory and dream. Distance, measures of time like a moment and an age, all these are hallucinations. This is one kind of knowledge-memory. There is another which is not based on memory of past experience. This is the fortuitous meeting of an atom and consciousness which is then able to produce its own effects.

Liberation is the realization of the total nonexistence of the universe as such. This is different from a mere denial of the existence of the ego and the universe! The latter is only half-knowledge.
Liberation is to realize that all this is pure consciousness.

- Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi & Yoga Vasistha

Ego I false

REALITY IS SIMPLY THE LOSS OF THE EGO.
TALK 146

Reality is simply the loss of the ego. Destroy the ego by seeking its identity. Because the ego is no entity it will automatically vanish and Reality will shine forth by itself. This is the direct method. Whereas all other methods are done, only retaining the ego. In those paths there arise so many doubts and the eternal question remains to be tackled finally. But in this method the final question is the only one and it is raised from the very beginning. No sadhanas are necessary for engaging in this quest.

I am that i am

"I AM THAT I AM."

The pointers can be more or less true, but no matter what the pointer says, no matter how it says to get there, it doesn't say anything about what's beyond. Nothing.

Because as soon as you are beyond, as soon as you are being what you are, nothing applies anymore. That's why so many of the great spiritual teachers have said that there is nothing to know. In order to be free, in order to be enlightened, there is absolutely nothing to know, and there is no enlightenment as long as you think you know something.

As soon as you absolutely know that you don't know anything and there is absolutely nothing to know, that state is called enlightenment because all there is, is Being.

When there is Oneness, who is the One going to know about? The One knows only, "I am that. I am this." As it says in the Bible: "I AM THAT I AM." This is true awakened knowledge. All other knowledge is secondary.

Adyashanti, Emptiness Dancing

Karma is servant u control it do or not do

At one of my experiences in India,
I was with a yogi called Neem Karoli Baba.

And one day a bunch of us,
and one of the people there was Ram Dass,
you remember Ram Dass he was there too.

We were sitting in front of him,
when an old lady came up to him and spoke in Hindi,
whatever language they were talking I forgot.

And what she said was that her husband was dying,
"Would you please come and save him,
because only you can come and save him.”

And Neem Karoli Baba looked at me
and said, "Should I go?" and
I said, "yes go, let's all go."

So we walked about two miles to a little shack and
the husband was lying on the cot dying of some kind of disease.

And he looked at him and
all of a sudden the candles began to flicker.
So he turned around and ran out the house and
started to run back to the ashram and we all followed him.

And we said when we finally stopped we said,
"Baba what happened?
Why did you leave?" and
he said, "Ah, God wants him to die," and he died.

The point is this:
your life, your health or your sickness,
your riches or your poverty
has all been preordained by the law of Karma.
And whatever you're going to go through,
you're going to go through.

If you're supposed to become a health fanatic and
watch your health and eat the right things all the time,
you will do that and if you're not supposed to, you won't.

If you're supposed to take the middle path you will do that.
Everything is ordained, planned before time.
The only freedom we've got is to not identify with the process,
even though your body's going through it.

Do not attach yourself to what your body's going through.
Keep your mind above it,
keep your head in heaven and your feet on the ground.
So we have no choice in the matter.

Whatever is going to happen will happen.
So if we have to do all kinds of things and
we find ourselves running from one doctor to another doctor
and so forth, do not attach yourself to that
but do it anyway because you can't help it.

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Question : Can you try to clarify this a little more,
you've just been speaking of karma, and
yet I know that you believe that karma does not exist will you comment on that,
karma exists and karma does not exist?

Robert : Again the Buddha said,
"Karma is a taskmaster for the foolish and
the servant to the wise,"
meaning, if we in the level mentally of karma,
we will suffer and it'll become our task Master.
But if we lift our minds away from the condition and we keep our minds
on the absolute reality,
we will not suffer no matter what the body is going through.

Who suffers?
The mind, not the body, the body cannot suffer.

The body is merely a lump of flesh and bone and blood,
but it's animated by the mind, so the mind suffers and
allows the body to suffer, but the body can do nothing by itself.

So if the mind is taken away from the body something else will happen,
you'll be free.

(SA: What was the line again? Buddha's line, karma is the taskmaster for the foolish...)

...and the servant for the wise,
it's a servant because you do not pay any heed.

(SA: Control it.)
Exactly, you observe it and you do not respond.
So it becomes your servant when you do not respond to karma,
then you overcome it.

In other words if somebody becomes angry at you and you do not respond,
there is no karma, and you'll be free.

Karma again is like a person, who talks to you
and talks to you and talks to you but you say nothing.

What will that person do?
They'll get up and leave.
So when your karma sees that you're not paying any attention to it,
It dissipates and returns to the nothingness from whence it came.

Let's play some music.
Why don't you put the fan on while we're doing it?

To assure you there is a power that knows how to take care of all things if you
trust it. That power of course is you, but you don't know it.

I've been trying to get a hold of a certain picture of Ramana Maharshi for quite a
while but first I should tell you that, when I was seventeen,
I was led in mysterious ways to Arunachala, where I met Ramana.

I won't elaborate on that right now but
there was mysterious circumstances that caused that.
So going back to now, I tried to get a picture of Ramana Maharshi that I liked,
and sure enough last week George brings me the same picture as a present,
in color, that I had been looking for for a long time.

So I took it home and hung it on the wall.
But in the meanwhile I had a visitor from Hawaii.
He used to be one of my students came to see me,
he was traveling through and he brought a lae and put it around my neck.
So I took off the lei and put it around Ramana's picture,
and he said to me - after being on this path for so-called ten years or more,
he said, "I didn't know you worship gurus."

Now, he should've known better.
So I explained to him the facts. Ramana's not a guru, he is the same as my Self,
I am simply paying homage to my Self.
There is only one Self and we are all that.

So when I honor him with a lei I am doing it to me
because he is none other than my Self,
and you none other than my Self also. So it's not a guru worship,
it's bowing to your Self, praying to your Self, worshiping your Self,
because God dwells in you as you.

But this just goes to show you that there is a power that knows how to take
care of you, that loves you, that is always on your side.

It only requires one thing, surrender.
Surrender to your Self.
God, guru and Self are one,
bow down to your Self, love your Self.

When I speak of your Self I'm not referring to your ego self.
There is something about you that perhaps you're not aware of yet.
The absolute reality that we've been talking about.
It is you, that's what you worship, that is what you bow down to,
that is what you express.

Never defile your Self, by hating yourself.
Never believe there is any mistake you've made
that is going to rise up against you.
Everyone has made mistakes, forget it.

Begin to realize who you are,
begin to love yourself dearly, have mercy on yourself,
lift yourself up and become free,
any questions about that ?

~ Robert Adams, You Must Have Your Own Experience