Laughter is truly religious. Religion remains dead without a sense of humor as a foundation to it. Laughter is prayer. If one can laugh one has learnt how to pray. Only a person who can laugh, not only at others but at himself also, can be religious. A person who can laugh absolutely, who sees the whole ridiculousness and the whole game of life, becomes enlightened in that laughter. When the laughter comes from the heart one can immediately feel a different vibe -- an overflowing. That man is really happy. Sharing his insight, Osho says bringing laughter to everyday life can cure tensions, anxieties, worries; the whole energy can flow into laughter. And there is no need that there should be some occasion, some cause. In this issue, Osho speaks on the tremendous beauty and lightness of laughter that keeps over flowing once the day starts with a laughter. Read more…….
“In a few Zen monasteries, every monk has to start his morning with laughter, and has to end his night with laughter -- the first thing and the last thing! You try it. It is very beautiful. It will look a little crazy -- mm? -- because so many serious people are all around. They will not understand. If you are happy, they always ask why. The question is foolish! If you are sad, they never ask why. They take it for granted -- if you are sad, it's okay. Everybody is sad. What is new in it? Even if you want to tell them, they are not interested because they know all about it, they themselves are sad. So what is the point of telling a long story? -- cut it short!
But if you are laughing for no reason, then they become alert -- something has gone wrong. This man seems to be a little crazy because only crazy people enjoy laughter; only in madhouses will you find crazy people laughing. This is unfortunate, but this is so.
It will be difficult, if you are a husband or a wife it will be difficult for you to suddenly laugh early in the morning. But try it -- it pays tremendously. It is one of the most beautiful moods to get up with, to get out of the bed with. For no reason! because there is no reason. Simply, you are again there, still alive -- it is a miracle! It seems ridiculous! Why are you alive? And again the world is there. Your wife is still snoring, and the same room, and the same house. In this constantly changing world -- what Hindus call the 'maya' -- at least for one night nothing has changed? Everything is there: you can hear the milkman and the traffic has started, and the same noises -- it is worth laughing for!
One day you will not get into the morning. One day the milkman will knock at the door, the wife will be snoring, but you will not be there. One day, death will come. Before it knocks you down, have a good laugh -- while there is time, have a good laugh.
And look at the whole ridiculousness: again the same day starts; you have done the same things again and again for your whole life. Again you will get into your slippers, rush to the bathroom -- for what? Brushing your teeth, taking a shower -- for what? Where are you going? Getting ready and nowhere to go! Dressing, rushing to the office -- for what? Just to do the same thing again tomorrow?
Look at the whole ridiculousness of it -- and have a good laugh. Don't open your eyes. The moment you feel that sleep is gone, first start laughing, then open the eyes -- and that will set a trend for the whole day. If you can laugh early in the morning you will laugh the whole day. You have created a chain effect; one thing leads to another. Laughter leads to more laughter.
And almost always I have seen people doing just the wrong thing. From the very early morning they get out of bed complaining, gloomy, sad, depressed, miserable. Then one thing leads to another -- and for nothing. And they get angry... it is very bad because it will change your climate for the whole day, it will set a pattern for the whole day.
Zen people are more sane. In their insanity they are saner than you. They start with laughter... and then the whole day you will feel laughter bubbling, welling up. There are so many ridiculous things happening all over! God must be dying of His laughter -- down the centuries, for eternity, seeing this ridiculousness of the world. The people that He has created, and all the absurdities -- it is really a comedy. He must be laughing.
If you become silent after your laughter, one day you will hear God also laughing, you will hear the whole existence laughing -- trees and stones and stars with you.
And the Zen monk goes to sleep in the night again with laughter. The day is over, the drama is closed again -- with laughter he says "Goodbye, and if I survive again, tomorrow morning I will greet you again with laughter."
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.”
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
************Friendship*************
Friendship is a bond that has been widely cherished and valued. Many quotes and poems have been inspired by the uniqueness of friendship. Osho says “Friendship is something immensely valuable. Love tends to be possessive; friendship is non-possessive love. Friendship is all that is good in love minus that which is not good. Friendship is the very essential core of love. To rise to friendship is really a great spiritual growth.”
Sharing His insight on the essence of friendship, Osho says apart from human beings the whole existence can be befriended. Osho says “And if you can befriend existence, existence will befriend you a thousandfold. It returns to you in the same coin but multiplied. It echoes you. If you throw stones at existence you will be getting back many more stones. If you throw flowers, flowers will be coming back. Life is a mirror, it reflects your face. Be friendly, and all of life will reflect friendliness.”
Bringing out the difference between love and friendship, Osho says friendship is a rare, unique and beautiful phenomenon and it is the ultimate flowering of love. Read more……….
“Friendship is the ultimate flowering of love. Love has something earthly about it because love has something of passion in it. But friendship is pure fragrance; it is unearthly. If love moves in the right direction it becomes friendship. If it does not move in the right direction it becomes enmity. Love is a dilemma. If you love, then only two alternatives are possible: either you will turn into enemies or you will become friends. You cannot remain in between; one has to be either this or that.
Millions of lovers turn into enemies, the majority of lovers turn into enemies, because they don't know how to transform love into friendship. Enmity is easy -- it is falling down, and the fall is always easy. Friendship is rising high, soaring high, climbing high, and the climb is always hard. And friendship requires great transformation in your inner alchemy.
Jealousy has to be dropped, possessiveness has to be dropped; the very idea of dominating the other has to be dropped; clinging has to be dropped. All kinds of dependencies have to be dropped. Friendship demands great sacrifices, but if all these things are dropped love is purified and soon love remains just a fragrance. Then love brings not only friendship, it brings freedom.
Friendship is a spiritual phenomenon. In the world friendship is almost disappearing. There are acquaintances but not friends any more. In fact the modern man cannot understand the idea of friendship at all; it has become so unknown. We read the ancient stories about friendships, great friendships, but we think they are just stories. They cannot happen in fact, because those things are not happening at all in our lives. In our lives love is turning sour, love is turning bitter, love is turning poisonous. We have forgotten how to make nectar out of it.
My effort here is to help you to know how to love and how to purify love. Love contains the greatest treasure there is, but it has to be purified. If you don't purify it, it is dangerous; it will kill you. It kills many people.
If love does not become a flower it becomes a cancer. k is playing with fire, hence many people have decided not to move in the world of love at all. They are satisfied with having a sexual relationship, not a love relationship. They are afraid, and in a way they are right too, because out of one hundred, ninety-nine cases are just proof that love ultimately turns bitter and poisonous. The exception only proves the rule. It should not be so if the art of love is understood rightly; and sannyas is the art of love.
Love is the greatest object of meditation. Love has to be contemplated, meditated on. Love has to be experienced, watched, witnessed, so that we can sort it out, so that we can take the weeds out. Once the weeds are taken out, roses start blooming. Those roses are the roses of friendship.
In one sense you can call them friendship; in another sense they are the roses of prayer, because the person who knows what friendship is, is bound to know how to befriend the whole existence. If you can befriend one person, you know the art. The tacit understanding has happened; you can befriend the whole existence. That's what prayer is: feeling at home with existence.
And remember one fundamental law: whatsoever you are to existence, existence is to you a thousandfold. If you are a friend to existence, existence is a friend to you a thousandfold. If you are an enemy, existence is inimical to you a thousandfold. And because the modern mind has been conditioned to conquer nature and to fight nature and to be victorious over nature -- all rubbish, all nonsense -- we have destroyed nature, we have destroyed humanity. Now something has to be started again from abc, otherwise humanity is doomed.
Sannyas is just an effort to create a new man, to bring a new humanity, to give birth to a new idea of a human being... full of love, friendship, trust, prayer.”
Sharing His insight on the essence of friendship, Osho says apart from human beings the whole existence can be befriended. Osho says “And if you can befriend existence, existence will befriend you a thousandfold. It returns to you in the same coin but multiplied. It echoes you. If you throw stones at existence you will be getting back many more stones. If you throw flowers, flowers will be coming back. Life is a mirror, it reflects your face. Be friendly, and all of life will reflect friendliness.”
Bringing out the difference between love and friendship, Osho says friendship is a rare, unique and beautiful phenomenon and it is the ultimate flowering of love. Read more……….
“Friendship is the ultimate flowering of love. Love has something earthly about it because love has something of passion in it. But friendship is pure fragrance; it is unearthly. If love moves in the right direction it becomes friendship. If it does not move in the right direction it becomes enmity. Love is a dilemma. If you love, then only two alternatives are possible: either you will turn into enemies or you will become friends. You cannot remain in between; one has to be either this or that.
Millions of lovers turn into enemies, the majority of lovers turn into enemies, because they don't know how to transform love into friendship. Enmity is easy -- it is falling down, and the fall is always easy. Friendship is rising high, soaring high, climbing high, and the climb is always hard. And friendship requires great transformation in your inner alchemy.
Jealousy has to be dropped, possessiveness has to be dropped; the very idea of dominating the other has to be dropped; clinging has to be dropped. All kinds of dependencies have to be dropped. Friendship demands great sacrifices, but if all these things are dropped love is purified and soon love remains just a fragrance. Then love brings not only friendship, it brings freedom.
Friendship is a spiritual phenomenon. In the world friendship is almost disappearing. There are acquaintances but not friends any more. In fact the modern man cannot understand the idea of friendship at all; it has become so unknown. We read the ancient stories about friendships, great friendships, but we think they are just stories. They cannot happen in fact, because those things are not happening at all in our lives. In our lives love is turning sour, love is turning bitter, love is turning poisonous. We have forgotten how to make nectar out of it.
My effort here is to help you to know how to love and how to purify love. Love contains the greatest treasure there is, but it has to be purified. If you don't purify it, it is dangerous; it will kill you. It kills many people.
If love does not become a flower it becomes a cancer. k is playing with fire, hence many people have decided not to move in the world of love at all. They are satisfied with having a sexual relationship, not a love relationship. They are afraid, and in a way they are right too, because out of one hundred, ninety-nine cases are just proof that love ultimately turns bitter and poisonous. The exception only proves the rule. It should not be so if the art of love is understood rightly; and sannyas is the art of love.
Love is the greatest object of meditation. Love has to be contemplated, meditated on. Love has to be experienced, watched, witnessed, so that we can sort it out, so that we can take the weeds out. Once the weeds are taken out, roses start blooming. Those roses are the roses of friendship.
In one sense you can call them friendship; in another sense they are the roses of prayer, because the person who knows what friendship is, is bound to know how to befriend the whole existence. If you can befriend one person, you know the art. The tacit understanding has happened; you can befriend the whole existence. That's what prayer is: feeling at home with existence.
And remember one fundamental law: whatsoever you are to existence, existence is to you a thousandfold. If you are a friend to existence, existence is a friend to you a thousandfold. If you are an enemy, existence is inimical to you a thousandfold. And because the modern mind has been conditioned to conquer nature and to fight nature and to be victorious over nature -- all rubbish, all nonsense -- we have destroyed nature, we have destroyed humanity. Now something has to be started again from abc, otherwise humanity is doomed.
Sannyas is just an effort to create a new man, to bring a new humanity, to give birth to a new idea of a human being... full of love, friendship, trust, prayer.”
Inner Centering
Meditation - Look lovingly at object
Inspiration - Look lovingly at some object. Do not go to another object. Here in the middle of the object - the blessing.
Technique - Look lovingly on some object. Do not go on to another object. Here in the middle of the object -- the blessing
I should repeat it: look lovingly on some object. Do not go on to another. Do not move to another object. Here in the middle of this object -- the blessing.
Look lovingly on some object... Lovingly is the key. Have you ever looked lovingly at any object? You may say yes because you do not know what it means to look lovingly at an object. You may have looked lustfully at an object -- that is another thing. That is totally different, diametrically opposite. So first, the difference; try to feel the difference.
A beautiful face, a beautiful body -- you look at it, and you feel that you are looking at it lovingly. But why are you looking at it? Do you want to get something out of it? Then it is lust, not love. Do you want to exploit it? Then it is lust, not love. Then really, you are thinking of how to use this body, how to possess it, how to make this body an instrument for your happiness.
Lust means how to use something for your happiness; love means your happiness is not at all concerned. Really, lust means how to get something out of it and love means how to give something. They are diametrically opposite.
If you see a beautiful face and you feel love toward the face, the immediate feeling in your consciousness will be how to do something to make this face happy, how to do something to make this man or this woman happy. The concern is not with yourself, the concern is with the other.
In love the other is important; in lust you are important. In lust you are thinking how to make the other your instrument; in love you are thinking how to become an instrument yourself. In lust you are going to sacrifice the other; in love you are going to sacrifice yourself. Love means giving; lust means getting. Love is a surrender; lust is an aggression.
What you say is meaningless. Even in lust you talk in terms of love. Your language is not very meaningful, so do not be deceived. Look within, and then you will come to understand that you have not once in your life looked lovingly toward someone or some object.
The second distinction to be made: this sutra says, look lovingly on some object. Really, even if you look lovingly at something material, insentient, the object will become a person. If you look lovingly at it, your love is the key to transform anything into a person. If you look lovingly at a tree, the tree becomes a person.
Just the other day I was talking with Vivek, a close disciple, and I told her that when we move to the new ashram we will name every tree, because every tree is a person. Have you ever heard of anyone naming a tree? No one names a tree because no one feels love for it. If the case were otherwise, a tree would become a person. Then it is not just one in a crowd, it becomes unique.
You name dogs and cats. When you name a dog and you call it Tiger or something else, the dog becomes a person. Then it is not just one dog amongst other dogs, it has a personality; you have created a person. Whenever you look lovingly at something, it becomes a person.
And the contrary is also true. Whenever you look with lustful eyes toward a person, the person becomes an object, a thing. That is why lustful eyes are repulsive -- because no one likes to become a thing. When you look at your wife with lustful eyes -- or at any other woman, or man, with lustful eyes -- the other feels hurt. What are you doing really? You are changing a person, a living person, into a dead instrument. You are thinking of how to "use," and the person is killed.
That is why lustful eyes are repulsive, ugly. When you look at someone with love, the other is raised. He becomes unique. Suddenly he becomes a person. A person cannot be replaced; a thing can be replaced. A `thing' means that which is replaceable; a `person' means that which cannot be replaced: there is no possibility of replacing him or her. A person is unique; a thing is not unique.
Love makes anything unique. That is why without love you never feel like a person. Unless someone loves you deeply, you never feel that you have any uniqueness. You are just one in a crowd -- just a number, a datum. You can be changed.
For example, if you are a clerk in an office or a teacher in a school or a professor in a university, your professor-hood is replaceable. Another professor will replace you; he can replace you at any moment because you are just used there as a professor. You have a functional meaning and significance.
If you are a clerk, someone else is easily able to do the work. The work will not wait for you. If you die this moment, the next moment someone will replace you and the mechanism will continue. You were just a figure -- another figure will do. You were just a utility.
But then someone falls in love with this clerk or this professor. Suddenly the clerk is no more a clerk; he has become a unique person. If he dies, then the beloved cannot replace him. He is irreplaceable. Then the whole world may go on in the same way, but the one who was in love cannot be the same. This uniqueness, this being a person, happens through love.
This sutra says, look lovingly at some object. It makes no distinction between an object and a person. There is no need, because when you look lovingly anything will become a person. The very look changes, transforms.
You may or may not have observed what happens when you drive a particular car, say a Fiat. There are thousands and thousands and thousands of Fiats exactly similar, but your car, if you are in love with it, becomes unique -- a person. It cannot be replaced; a relationship is created. Now you feel this car as a person. If something goes wrong... a slight sound, and you feel it. And cars are very temperamental. You know the temper of your car -- when it feels good and when it feels bad. The car becomes, by and by, a person.
Why? If there is a love relationship, anything becomes a person. If there is a lust relationship, then a person will become a thing. And this is one of the most inhuman acts man can do -- to make someone a thing.
Look lovingly at some object... So what is one to do? When you look lovingly, what are you to do? The first thing: forget yourself. Forget yourself completely! Look at a flower and forget yourself completely. Let the flower be; you become completely absent. Feel the flower, and a deep love will flow from your consciousness toward the flower. And let your consciousness be filled with only one thought -- how you can help this flower to flower more, to become more beautiful, to become more blissful. What can you do?
It is not meaningful whether you can do or not; that is not relevant. The feeling of what you can do -- this pain, this deep ache over what you can do to make this flower more beautiful, more alive, more flowering -- is meaningful. Let this thought reverberate into your whole being. Let every fiber of your body and mind feel it. You will be transfixed in an ecstasy, and the flower will become a person.
Do not go on to another object... You cannot go. If you are in a love relationship, you cannot go. If you love someone in this group, then you forget the whole crowd; only one face remains. Really, you do not see anyone else, you see only one face. All the others are there, but they are subliminal -- just on the periphery of your consciousness. They are NOT. They are just shadows; only one face remains. If you love someone then only that face remains, so you cannot move.
Do not go to another object, remain with one. Remain with a roseflower or remain with a beloved's face. Remain there loving, flowing, with just one heart, with the feeling of, "What can I do to make the loved one happier, blissful?"
Here in the middle of the object -- the blessing. And when this is the case you are absent, not concerned with yourself at all, not selfish, not thinking in terms of your pleasure, your gratification. You have forgotten yourself completely, and you are just thinking in terms of the other. The other has become the center of your love; your consciousness is flowing toward the other. With deep compassion, with a deep feeling of love, you are thinking, "What can I do to make the loved one blissful?" In this state, suddenly, here in the middle of the object -- the blessing. Suddenly, as a by-product, the blessing comes to you. Suddenly you become centered.
This looks paradoxical because this sutra says to forget yourself completely, not to be self-centered, to move to the other completely. Buddha is reported to have said continuously that whenever you are praying, pray for others -- never for yourself. Otherwise the prayer is just useless.
One man came to Buddha and he said, "I accept your teaching, but only one thing is very difficult to accept. You say that whenever we do prayer we are not to think about ourselves, we are not to ask anything about ourselves. We have to say, `Whatsoever may be the result of my prayer, let that result be distributed to all. If blessing happens, let it be distributed to all.'"
The man said, "This is okay, but can I make only one exception? Not to my immediate neighbor -- he is my enemy. Let this blessing be distributed to all except to my immediate neighbor."
The mind is self-centered, so Buddha said, "Your prayer is useless. Nothing will come out of it unless you are ready to give all, to distribute all, and then all will be yours."
In love you are to forget yourself. It looks paradoxical: then when and how will the centering happen? By being totally concerned with the other, with the other's happiness, when you forget yourself completely and only the other remains there, suddenly you are filled with bliss -- the blessing.
Why? Because when you are not concerned with yourself you become vacant, empty; the inner space is created. When your mind is totally concerned with the other, you become mindless within. Then there are no thoughts inside. And then this thought -- "How can I be helpful? How can I create more bliss? How can the other be more happy?" -- cannot continue any more, because really, there is nothing you can do. This thought becomes a stop. There is nothing you can do. What can you do? If you think you can do, you are still thinking in terms of yourself -- ego.
With the love object one becomes totally helpless -- remember this. Whenever you love someone you feel totally helpless. That is the agony of love: one cannot feel what he can do. He wants to do everything, he wants to give the whole universe to the lover or the beloved -- but what can he do? If you think that you can do this or that, you are still not in a love relationship. Love is very helpless, absolutely helpless, and that helplessness is the beauty, because in that helplessness you are surrendered.
Love someone and you will feel helpless; hate someone and you can do something. Love someone and you are absolutely helpless -- because what can you do? Whatsoever you can do seems insignificant, meaningless; it is never enough. Nothing can be done. And when one feels that nothing can be done, one feels that one is helpless. When one wants to do everything and feels nothing can be done, mind stops. In this helplessness surrender happens. You are empty. That is why love becomes a deep meditation.
Really, if you love someone, no other meditation is needed. But because no one loves, one hundred and twelve methods are needed -- and even they may not be enough.
Someone was here the other day. He was telling me, "It gives me much hope. I have heard for the first time from you that there are one hundred and twelve methods. It gives me much hope, but somewhere a depression also comes into the mind: only one hundred and twelve methods? And if these one hundred and twelve methods don't work for me, then is there no one hundred and thirteenth?"
And he is right. He is right! If these one hundred and twelve methods do not work for you, then there is no go. So as he suggests, a depression also follows hope. But really, methods are needed because the basic method is missing. If you can love, no method is needed.
Love itself is the greatest method, but love is difficult -- in a way impossible. Love means putting yourself out from your consciousness, and in the same place, where your ego has been in existence, putting someone else. Replacing yourself by someone else means love -- as if now you are not and only the other is.
Jean Paul Sartre says that the other is the hell, and he is right. He is right because the other creates only hell for you. But he is wrong also because if the other can be hell, the other can he heaven. If you live through lust, the other is a hell because then you are trying to kill that person. You are trying to make that person a thing. Then that person will also react and will try to make you a thing, and that creates hell.
So every husband and every wife, they are creating hell for each other because each one is trying to possess the other. Possession is possible only with things, never with persons. You can only be possessed by a person; you can never possess a person. A thing can be possessed, but you try to possess persons. Through that effort persons become things. If I make you into a thing, you will react. Then I am your enemy. Then you will try to make a thing out of me -- that creates hell.
You are sitting in your room alone, and then suddenly you become aware that someone is peeping through the keyhole. Observe minutely what happens. Have you felt any change? And why do you feel angry about this peeping Tom? He is not doing anything to you -- just peeping. Why do you feel angry? He has changed you into a thing. He is observing; he has made you into a thing, into an object. That gives you an uneasiness.
And the same will happen to him if you come near the keyhole and look through it. The other will become shattered, shocked. He was a subject just a moment before: he was the observer and you were the observed. Now suddenly he has been caught. He has been observed observing you, and now he has become a thing.
When someone is observing you, suddenly you feel your freedom has been disturbed, destroyed. That is why, unless you are in love with someone, you cannot stare. That stare becomes ugly and violent -- unless you are in love. If you are in love then a stare is a beautiful thing, because your stare is not changing the other into a thing. Then you can look directly into the eyes; then you can go deep into the eyes of the other. You are not changing him into a thing. Rather, through your love your look is making him a person. That is why only the stares of lovers are beautiful; otherwise stares are ugly.
Psychologists say there is a time limit. And you all know, observe and you will come to know, what the time limit is for how long you can stare into someone's eyes, if he is a stranger. There is a time limit. One moment more, and the other will become angry. Just a passing look in public can be pardoned because it seems as if you were just seeing, not looking.
A look is a deep thing. If I just see you when passing, no relationship is created. Or I am passing and you look at me, just while passing -- no offense is meant so it is okay. But if you suddenly stand and look at me, you become an observer. Then your look will disturb me and I will feel insulted: "What are you doing? I am a person, not a thing. This is not the way to look."
Because of this, clothes have become so meaningful. Only when you love someone can you be easily naked, because the moment you are naked your whole body becomes an object. Someone can look at your whole body, and if he is not in love with you his eyes will turn your whole body, your whole being, into an object. But when you are in love with someone you can be naked without feeling that you are naked. Rather, you would like to be naked, because you would like this transforming love to transform your whole body into a person.
Whenever you are turning someone into a thing, that act is immoral. But if you are filled with love, then in that love-filled moment with any object this phenomenon, this blessing, is possible. It happens.
In the middle of the object -- the blessing. Suddenly you have forgotten yourself -- the other was there. Then when the right moment comes, when you are no longer present, absolutely absent, the other will also become absent. And between the two the blessing happens. That is what lovers feel. That blessing is also because of an unknown, unconscious meditation.
When two lovers are there, by and by they both become absent. A pure existence remains -- without any egos, without any conflict... just a communion. In that communion one feels blissful. It is wrongly inferred that the other has given that bliss to you. That bliss has come because unknowingly you have fallen into a deep meditative technique.
You can do it consciously -- and when you do it consciously it goes deeper, because then you are not obsessed with the object. This is happening every day. If you love someone, you feel blissful not because of him or her, but because of love. And why because of love? Because this phenomenon happens -- this sutra happens.
But then you become obsessed. Then you think that because of A, because of A's proximity, nearness, because of A's love this blessing happens. Then you think, "I must possess A, because without A being present I may not be able to get this blessing again." You become jealous. If someone else possesses A, then he will be blissful and you will feel miserable, so you want to take away all possibilities of A being possessed by anyone else. A should be possessed only by you, because you have glimpsed a different world through him. Then the moment you try to possess, you will destroy the whole beauty and the whole phenomenon.
When the lover is possessed, love is gone. Then the lover is just a thing. You can use it, but the blessing will never come again, because that blessing was coming when the other was a person. The other was made, created: you created the person in the other, and the other created the person in you. No one was an object. Both were subjectivities meeting -- two persons meeting, not one person and one thing.
But the moment you possess, this will become impossible. And mind will try to possess because mind thinks in terms of greed: "One day bliss has happened, so it must happen to me every day. So I must possess." But the bliss happens because there is no possession. And the bliss happens not because of the other, really, but because of you. Remember this, the bliss happens because of you. Because you are so absorbed in the other, the bliss happens.
It can happen with a roseflower, it can happen with a rock, it can happen with the trees, it can happen with anything. Once you know the situation in which it happens, it can happen anywhere. If you know that you are not, and with a deep love your consciousness has moved to the other -- to the trees, to the sky, to the stars, to anyone; when your total consciousness is addressed to the other it leaves you, it moves away from you -- in that absence of the self is the blessing.
Inspiration - Look lovingly at some object. Do not go to another object. Here in the middle of the object - the blessing.
Technique - Look lovingly on some object. Do not go on to another object. Here in the middle of the object -- the blessing
I should repeat it: look lovingly on some object. Do not go on to another. Do not move to another object. Here in the middle of this object -- the blessing.
Look lovingly on some object... Lovingly is the key. Have you ever looked lovingly at any object? You may say yes because you do not know what it means to look lovingly at an object. You may have looked lustfully at an object -- that is another thing. That is totally different, diametrically opposite. So first, the difference; try to feel the difference.
A beautiful face, a beautiful body -- you look at it, and you feel that you are looking at it lovingly. But why are you looking at it? Do you want to get something out of it? Then it is lust, not love. Do you want to exploit it? Then it is lust, not love. Then really, you are thinking of how to use this body, how to possess it, how to make this body an instrument for your happiness.
Lust means how to use something for your happiness; love means your happiness is not at all concerned. Really, lust means how to get something out of it and love means how to give something. They are diametrically opposite.
If you see a beautiful face and you feel love toward the face, the immediate feeling in your consciousness will be how to do something to make this face happy, how to do something to make this man or this woman happy. The concern is not with yourself, the concern is with the other.
In love the other is important; in lust you are important. In lust you are thinking how to make the other your instrument; in love you are thinking how to become an instrument yourself. In lust you are going to sacrifice the other; in love you are going to sacrifice yourself. Love means giving; lust means getting. Love is a surrender; lust is an aggression.
What you say is meaningless. Even in lust you talk in terms of love. Your language is not very meaningful, so do not be deceived. Look within, and then you will come to understand that you have not once in your life looked lovingly toward someone or some object.
The second distinction to be made: this sutra says, look lovingly on some object. Really, even if you look lovingly at something material, insentient, the object will become a person. If you look lovingly at it, your love is the key to transform anything into a person. If you look lovingly at a tree, the tree becomes a person.
Just the other day I was talking with Vivek, a close disciple, and I told her that when we move to the new ashram we will name every tree, because every tree is a person. Have you ever heard of anyone naming a tree? No one names a tree because no one feels love for it. If the case were otherwise, a tree would become a person. Then it is not just one in a crowd, it becomes unique.
You name dogs and cats. When you name a dog and you call it Tiger or something else, the dog becomes a person. Then it is not just one dog amongst other dogs, it has a personality; you have created a person. Whenever you look lovingly at something, it becomes a person.
And the contrary is also true. Whenever you look with lustful eyes toward a person, the person becomes an object, a thing. That is why lustful eyes are repulsive -- because no one likes to become a thing. When you look at your wife with lustful eyes -- or at any other woman, or man, with lustful eyes -- the other feels hurt. What are you doing really? You are changing a person, a living person, into a dead instrument. You are thinking of how to "use," and the person is killed.
That is why lustful eyes are repulsive, ugly. When you look at someone with love, the other is raised. He becomes unique. Suddenly he becomes a person. A person cannot be replaced; a thing can be replaced. A `thing' means that which is replaceable; a `person' means that which cannot be replaced: there is no possibility of replacing him or her. A person is unique; a thing is not unique.
Love makes anything unique. That is why without love you never feel like a person. Unless someone loves you deeply, you never feel that you have any uniqueness. You are just one in a crowd -- just a number, a datum. You can be changed.
For example, if you are a clerk in an office or a teacher in a school or a professor in a university, your professor-hood is replaceable. Another professor will replace you; he can replace you at any moment because you are just used there as a professor. You have a functional meaning and significance.
If you are a clerk, someone else is easily able to do the work. The work will not wait for you. If you die this moment, the next moment someone will replace you and the mechanism will continue. You were just a figure -- another figure will do. You were just a utility.
But then someone falls in love with this clerk or this professor. Suddenly the clerk is no more a clerk; he has become a unique person. If he dies, then the beloved cannot replace him. He is irreplaceable. Then the whole world may go on in the same way, but the one who was in love cannot be the same. This uniqueness, this being a person, happens through love.
This sutra says, look lovingly at some object. It makes no distinction between an object and a person. There is no need, because when you look lovingly anything will become a person. The very look changes, transforms.
You may or may not have observed what happens when you drive a particular car, say a Fiat. There are thousands and thousands and thousands of Fiats exactly similar, but your car, if you are in love with it, becomes unique -- a person. It cannot be replaced; a relationship is created. Now you feel this car as a person. If something goes wrong... a slight sound, and you feel it. And cars are very temperamental. You know the temper of your car -- when it feels good and when it feels bad. The car becomes, by and by, a person.
Why? If there is a love relationship, anything becomes a person. If there is a lust relationship, then a person will become a thing. And this is one of the most inhuman acts man can do -- to make someone a thing.
Look lovingly at some object... So what is one to do? When you look lovingly, what are you to do? The first thing: forget yourself. Forget yourself completely! Look at a flower and forget yourself completely. Let the flower be; you become completely absent. Feel the flower, and a deep love will flow from your consciousness toward the flower. And let your consciousness be filled with only one thought -- how you can help this flower to flower more, to become more beautiful, to become more blissful. What can you do?
It is not meaningful whether you can do or not; that is not relevant. The feeling of what you can do -- this pain, this deep ache over what you can do to make this flower more beautiful, more alive, more flowering -- is meaningful. Let this thought reverberate into your whole being. Let every fiber of your body and mind feel it. You will be transfixed in an ecstasy, and the flower will become a person.
Do not go on to another object... You cannot go. If you are in a love relationship, you cannot go. If you love someone in this group, then you forget the whole crowd; only one face remains. Really, you do not see anyone else, you see only one face. All the others are there, but they are subliminal -- just on the periphery of your consciousness. They are NOT. They are just shadows; only one face remains. If you love someone then only that face remains, so you cannot move.
Do not go to another object, remain with one. Remain with a roseflower or remain with a beloved's face. Remain there loving, flowing, with just one heart, with the feeling of, "What can I do to make the loved one happier, blissful?"
Here in the middle of the object -- the blessing. And when this is the case you are absent, not concerned with yourself at all, not selfish, not thinking in terms of your pleasure, your gratification. You have forgotten yourself completely, and you are just thinking in terms of the other. The other has become the center of your love; your consciousness is flowing toward the other. With deep compassion, with a deep feeling of love, you are thinking, "What can I do to make the loved one blissful?" In this state, suddenly, here in the middle of the object -- the blessing. Suddenly, as a by-product, the blessing comes to you. Suddenly you become centered.
This looks paradoxical because this sutra says to forget yourself completely, not to be self-centered, to move to the other completely. Buddha is reported to have said continuously that whenever you are praying, pray for others -- never for yourself. Otherwise the prayer is just useless.
One man came to Buddha and he said, "I accept your teaching, but only one thing is very difficult to accept. You say that whenever we do prayer we are not to think about ourselves, we are not to ask anything about ourselves. We have to say, `Whatsoever may be the result of my prayer, let that result be distributed to all. If blessing happens, let it be distributed to all.'"
The man said, "This is okay, but can I make only one exception? Not to my immediate neighbor -- he is my enemy. Let this blessing be distributed to all except to my immediate neighbor."
The mind is self-centered, so Buddha said, "Your prayer is useless. Nothing will come out of it unless you are ready to give all, to distribute all, and then all will be yours."
In love you are to forget yourself. It looks paradoxical: then when and how will the centering happen? By being totally concerned with the other, with the other's happiness, when you forget yourself completely and only the other remains there, suddenly you are filled with bliss -- the blessing.
Why? Because when you are not concerned with yourself you become vacant, empty; the inner space is created. When your mind is totally concerned with the other, you become mindless within. Then there are no thoughts inside. And then this thought -- "How can I be helpful? How can I create more bliss? How can the other be more happy?" -- cannot continue any more, because really, there is nothing you can do. This thought becomes a stop. There is nothing you can do. What can you do? If you think you can do, you are still thinking in terms of yourself -- ego.
With the love object one becomes totally helpless -- remember this. Whenever you love someone you feel totally helpless. That is the agony of love: one cannot feel what he can do. He wants to do everything, he wants to give the whole universe to the lover or the beloved -- but what can he do? If you think that you can do this or that, you are still not in a love relationship. Love is very helpless, absolutely helpless, and that helplessness is the beauty, because in that helplessness you are surrendered.
Love someone and you will feel helpless; hate someone and you can do something. Love someone and you are absolutely helpless -- because what can you do? Whatsoever you can do seems insignificant, meaningless; it is never enough. Nothing can be done. And when one feels that nothing can be done, one feels that one is helpless. When one wants to do everything and feels nothing can be done, mind stops. In this helplessness surrender happens. You are empty. That is why love becomes a deep meditation.
Really, if you love someone, no other meditation is needed. But because no one loves, one hundred and twelve methods are needed -- and even they may not be enough.
Someone was here the other day. He was telling me, "It gives me much hope. I have heard for the first time from you that there are one hundred and twelve methods. It gives me much hope, but somewhere a depression also comes into the mind: only one hundred and twelve methods? And if these one hundred and twelve methods don't work for me, then is there no one hundred and thirteenth?"
And he is right. He is right! If these one hundred and twelve methods do not work for you, then there is no go. So as he suggests, a depression also follows hope. But really, methods are needed because the basic method is missing. If you can love, no method is needed.
Love itself is the greatest method, but love is difficult -- in a way impossible. Love means putting yourself out from your consciousness, and in the same place, where your ego has been in existence, putting someone else. Replacing yourself by someone else means love -- as if now you are not and only the other is.
Jean Paul Sartre says that the other is the hell, and he is right. He is right because the other creates only hell for you. But he is wrong also because if the other can be hell, the other can he heaven. If you live through lust, the other is a hell because then you are trying to kill that person. You are trying to make that person a thing. Then that person will also react and will try to make you a thing, and that creates hell.
So every husband and every wife, they are creating hell for each other because each one is trying to possess the other. Possession is possible only with things, never with persons. You can only be possessed by a person; you can never possess a person. A thing can be possessed, but you try to possess persons. Through that effort persons become things. If I make you into a thing, you will react. Then I am your enemy. Then you will try to make a thing out of me -- that creates hell.
You are sitting in your room alone, and then suddenly you become aware that someone is peeping through the keyhole. Observe minutely what happens. Have you felt any change? And why do you feel angry about this peeping Tom? He is not doing anything to you -- just peeping. Why do you feel angry? He has changed you into a thing. He is observing; he has made you into a thing, into an object. That gives you an uneasiness.
And the same will happen to him if you come near the keyhole and look through it. The other will become shattered, shocked. He was a subject just a moment before: he was the observer and you were the observed. Now suddenly he has been caught. He has been observed observing you, and now he has become a thing.
When someone is observing you, suddenly you feel your freedom has been disturbed, destroyed. That is why, unless you are in love with someone, you cannot stare. That stare becomes ugly and violent -- unless you are in love. If you are in love then a stare is a beautiful thing, because your stare is not changing the other into a thing. Then you can look directly into the eyes; then you can go deep into the eyes of the other. You are not changing him into a thing. Rather, through your love your look is making him a person. That is why only the stares of lovers are beautiful; otherwise stares are ugly.
Psychologists say there is a time limit. And you all know, observe and you will come to know, what the time limit is for how long you can stare into someone's eyes, if he is a stranger. There is a time limit. One moment more, and the other will become angry. Just a passing look in public can be pardoned because it seems as if you were just seeing, not looking.
A look is a deep thing. If I just see you when passing, no relationship is created. Or I am passing and you look at me, just while passing -- no offense is meant so it is okay. But if you suddenly stand and look at me, you become an observer. Then your look will disturb me and I will feel insulted: "What are you doing? I am a person, not a thing. This is not the way to look."
Because of this, clothes have become so meaningful. Only when you love someone can you be easily naked, because the moment you are naked your whole body becomes an object. Someone can look at your whole body, and if he is not in love with you his eyes will turn your whole body, your whole being, into an object. But when you are in love with someone you can be naked without feeling that you are naked. Rather, you would like to be naked, because you would like this transforming love to transform your whole body into a person.
Whenever you are turning someone into a thing, that act is immoral. But if you are filled with love, then in that love-filled moment with any object this phenomenon, this blessing, is possible. It happens.
In the middle of the object -- the blessing. Suddenly you have forgotten yourself -- the other was there. Then when the right moment comes, when you are no longer present, absolutely absent, the other will also become absent. And between the two the blessing happens. That is what lovers feel. That blessing is also because of an unknown, unconscious meditation.
When two lovers are there, by and by they both become absent. A pure existence remains -- without any egos, without any conflict... just a communion. In that communion one feels blissful. It is wrongly inferred that the other has given that bliss to you. That bliss has come because unknowingly you have fallen into a deep meditative technique.
You can do it consciously -- and when you do it consciously it goes deeper, because then you are not obsessed with the object. This is happening every day. If you love someone, you feel blissful not because of him or her, but because of love. And why because of love? Because this phenomenon happens -- this sutra happens.
But then you become obsessed. Then you think that because of A, because of A's proximity, nearness, because of A's love this blessing happens. Then you think, "I must possess A, because without A being present I may not be able to get this blessing again." You become jealous. If someone else possesses A, then he will be blissful and you will feel miserable, so you want to take away all possibilities of A being possessed by anyone else. A should be possessed only by you, because you have glimpsed a different world through him. Then the moment you try to possess, you will destroy the whole beauty and the whole phenomenon.
When the lover is possessed, love is gone. Then the lover is just a thing. You can use it, but the blessing will never come again, because that blessing was coming when the other was a person. The other was made, created: you created the person in the other, and the other created the person in you. No one was an object. Both were subjectivities meeting -- two persons meeting, not one person and one thing.
But the moment you possess, this will become impossible. And mind will try to possess because mind thinks in terms of greed: "One day bliss has happened, so it must happen to me every day. So I must possess." But the bliss happens because there is no possession. And the bliss happens not because of the other, really, but because of you. Remember this, the bliss happens because of you. Because you are so absorbed in the other, the bliss happens.
It can happen with a roseflower, it can happen with a rock, it can happen with the trees, it can happen with anything. Once you know the situation in which it happens, it can happen anywhere. If you know that you are not, and with a deep love your consciousness has moved to the other -- to the trees, to the sky, to the stars, to anyone; when your total consciousness is addressed to the other it leaves you, it moves away from you -- in that absence of the self is the blessing.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Business and Spirituality
Often business is looked down upon by spiritualists and spirituality is put off as non-practical by businessmen. Spirituality is the heart, business is the legs, and that is what the ancient people conceived. An individual or a society is incomplete without both these aspects. Business brings material comfort and spirituality brings mental and emotional comfort. Spirituality brings ethics and fair practice to business. In the body/mind complex depriving any one comfort means depriving both the comforts. You cannot talk spirituality to the poorest of the poor people without taking care of their basic needs. They need to be supported materially. There is no spirituality in the world that is devoid of service and service cannot happen if material needs are ignored. Service cannot happen only through the lips. For service to move you need legs.Every system has its flaws. As capitalism exploits the poor, socialism dampens individual creativity and entrepreneurial spirit. Spirituality is the bridge between socialism and capitalism. Spirituality gives the heart to serve to the capitalists and the spirit to innovate to the socialist.
Business and Spirituality
Often business is looked down upon by spiritualists and spirituality is put off as non-practical by businessmen. Spirituality is the heart, business is the legs, and that is what the ancient people conceived. An individual or a society is incomplete without both these aspects. Business brings material comfort and spirituality brings mental and emotional comfort. Spirituality brings ethics and fair practice to business. In the body/mind complex depriving any one comfort means depriving both the comforts. You cannot talk spirituality to the poorest of the poor people without taking care of their basic needs. They need to be supported materially. There is no spirituality in the world that is devoid of service and service cannot happen if material needs are ignored. Service cannot happen only through the lips. For service to move you need legs.Every system has its flaws. As capitalism exploits the poor, socialism dampens individual creativity and entrepreneurial spirit. Spirituality is the bridge between socialism and capitalism. Spirituality gives the heart to serve to the capitalists and the spirit to innovate to the socialist.
Desire for Truth
Buddha said that desire is the cause of all misery. If your desire does not get fulfilled, it leads to frustration and causes misery. Even if it does get fulfilled, it leaves you empty.Vasishta said that desire is the cause of pleasure. You get pleasure from an object or a person only when you desire them. When you do not desire an object, you do not get pleasure from it. For example, when a person is hot and thirsty, a sip of cold water gives him pleasure; but not if he is not thirsty. Whatever gives you pleasure binds you and bondage is misery.Sri Sri says when you desire for truth, all other desires drop off. You always desire for something that is not there. But, truth is always there! Desire for truth removes all other desires and it itself dissolves. And what remains is bliss.
Q. How do we know what is true love?
Sri Sri: How do we know false love, tell me? My dear! Love is love, you can't call it is true or false. Don't doubt love. We don't doubt hate. What is the guarantee that people hate you? May be at that time they were angry! Love is our nature. Because of desires and greed our love is sometimes not expressed. It becomes hidden. There is no prani (living being) without priti (love). Prana (life-force energy) has come from love. Thousands of atoms together form the body. Without love, all these atoms would be separated and that is nothing but death. When the Prana loves the body it stays in the body, there is life. When that love ends, there is death. We should not mistake emotions for love. Love is our nature, know the difference. :)
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