Prabhaker

Self-inquiry is mainly known today through the teachings of Ramana Maharshi. It is an ancient method of meditation, but full of dangers. Unless you are alert, the greater possibility is that you will be led astray by the method rather than to the right goal. Raman used to give a technique to his disciples: they were just to enquire, “Who am I?” If you want to go rightly into the method, then the question has not to be verbally asked. “Who am I?” has not to be repeated verbally. Because as long as it remains a verbal question, you will supply a verbal answer from the head. You have to drop the verbal question. It has to remain just a vague idea, just like a thirst. Not that “I am thirsty,”—can you see the difference? When you are thirsty, you feel the thirst. And if you are in a desert, you feel the thirst in every fiber of your body. You don’t say, “I am thirsty, I am thirsty.” It is no longer a linguistic question, it is existential. If “Who am I?” is an existential question, if you are not asking it in language but instead the feeling of the question is settling inside your center, then there is no need for any answer. Then it is none of the mind’s business.The mind will not hear that which is non-verbal, and the mind will not answer that which is non-verbal. Raman Maharshi, used only this method for his disciples: “Who am I?” But they are nowhere near the ultimate experience. And the reason is because they know the answer already.

@quantum Ramana Maharshi’s whole system of meditation was based on self inquiry. He used to say, “There is only one form of meditation, and that is to ask yourself, ‘Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?’’’ He would say, “Put all the energy that you possess, put your whole life’s energy at stake in asking just this one question, ‘Who am I?’ Ask this question as if your life depended on it. Let each and every cell of your body cry out for this answer. And go on asking this question, but don’t give any answers, because all the answers you give will be false. Let the answer come by itself, don’t give the answer. You are always in such a hurry to supply the answer, and all your answers born out of your hurry are false – because such answers are already present in your head even before the question has been asked.” Ask, “Who am I?” but don’t give any answer. Use all your energy in asking the question, and don’t save any of it for answering – because your answer does not have any value. Your answer will be something which you have heard somewhere or the sayings of some sages or from your social conditioning. It will be like dust which has gathered on you from the outside: it will have no value. Ask as if you do not have any answer left to give. In your process of asking the question, all your answers should have dropped away and only the question should be left. And the day that only your question remains, your question will shoot like an arrow into your innermost self – because then there aren’t any answers on the periphery to stop it. Then, you will travel inwards, then you know. But that knowing is not an answer: it is an existential experience.

Language has its limitations, we can't do anything about it. When a wave appears in the sea, it can think it exists, still it is sea, not separate.

Enlightenment remembrance of that which is already there. You have forgotten who you are. The only thing that has to be done is that you have to remember who you are. The question is only of remembering.

The great cosmic joke is that you are what you are seeking.

If you want to be enlightened, you have to die a psychological death. You have to be reborn as a new spiritual being, and you don't know anything about spirituality. All that you know about yourself is your mind, centered around the ego. It is not so cheap, to reach to the ultimate realization of truth. You will have to create the path by walking yourself; the path is not ready-made. Enlightenment also needs you to be ready to be killed.

It is a mystery. Mystery means there is no way to solve it, whatever you do is going to fail. Rather, live it -- drop solving. Perhaps through living you will come to an understanding. But that will not be the answer, it will be more than the answer; it will be an alive experience. You will have become part of the mystery itself. Great courage and patience is needed. It the greatest gamble you can play.

Mind will try to convince you that, “With me is safety, security; with me you are living under a shelter, well guarded. I take every care of you. With me you are efficient". It is just like the staff of a blind man. The blind man needs the staff just to grope his way because he does not have eyes. But when you have eyes you can drop it. A staff cannot be a substitute for eyes: it is just a groping in the dark. A blind man needs it, and it is helpful.

You can know it through logic, words, language. You can live it. Something can be said about enlightenment but it whatever said will not be enough.

MIND IS A DISEASE. This is a basic truth the East mysticism has discovered. The West says mind can become ill, can be healthy. Western psychology depends on this: the mind can be healthy or ill. But the East says mind as such is the disease, it cannot be healthy. No psychiatry will help; at the most you can make it normally ill. End of the mind is enlightenment.

Enlightenment is not of the mind. Enlightenment is freedom from the mind; it is transcending mind, it is going beyond mind. Enlightenment has nothing to do with mind; it has something to do with awareness of the mind. Awareness is simply disidentification with the mind; mind is left behind as a mechanism. The moment the mind is completely left behind and there is only pure awareness, just a luminosity, it is enlightenment.

You can go on searching and you will find many things in life, but nothing is going to satisfy. Just a moment´s illusion when a desire is fulfilled. For a moment you feel good, but only for a moment. As one desire disappears, ten desires arise in its place. Again the whole turmoil starts, again the whole trip. And it is a non-ending process. Only with finding your center does that process stop, that wheel moves no more. Everything else in life is promises, but only false promises. The goods are never delivered. Money promises that if you have it you will be helped. But people go on becoming richer and richer and happiness never arrives. It is always there like the horizon - very elusive. Relationships give you the idea that everything will be good now and you will live in happiness forever, but it never happens. Only with finding your center, satisfaction happens.

http://seedsofwisdom.tumblr.com/post/113860080514/osho-talks-about-crow Truth can't be said, something can be said about truth. Truth is always paradoxical. Vegetarian food can be taken in a quantity (too much or too less) and in a manner (too oily, spicy) , which makes meditation difficult. Food eaten in a hurry, less consciously , when not chewed properly can create difficulty. It is not all about food, but the person who is taking that food is also important. Become more and more conscious, become more and more aware, you will know what to eat, how to eat.

Difficult Situation For Buddha, cunning mind of man One day a Buddhist monk came with a very puzzled look. He said, ”I am in a strange difficulty. A bird flying dropped a piece of meat into my begging bowl. I was coming back from begging in the city, to settle under some tree” – in the garden where they were staying – ”to eat my food. Now the problem is, if I throw out this piece of meat I am going against your teaching that, ‘Everything has to be eaten that falls into your begging bowl.’ And if I eat it, I am still going against your teaching of, ‘Always be vegetarian.’ Now what am I supposed to do?” The whole assembly of monks also were in a strange position: how is Buddha going to solve it? Buddha thought, ”If I say ‘throw it’, that will become a universal thing. People will start choosing: whatever is good, delicious they will eat and the remaining they will throw out. The country supports the monks. This will be against the people who are supporting you. With great hardship they earn, and you throw away their food. So I cannot say to throw it out. ”And as far as birds are concerned, it is very unlikely that again, in the centuries following, any bird will repeat this. So there is no danger, if only one person eats on one day a small piece of meat.” He said, ”Eat everything that has fallen into your begging bowl.” And this became for the cunning mind of man a loophole, that, ”Buddha is not against meat; just you have not to kill, he is against killing. If meat is given to you, offered to you, you have to respectfully receive it.” So now in China and Japan, all the Buddhists are non-vegetarian. And in many food shop, restaurant they make it clear that here non-vegetarian food is available which has not been especially killed – it is from animals dying on their own. Now, so many animals don’t die on their own.

I can explain all these terms, even if you understand it intellectually , it is not going to do any good. Unless you find through your awareness that eating meat is nonessential, become more and more conscious, become more and more aware, and let your awareness decide. It's like a man who climbs the mountain and all the time brings a lot of stones. Perhaps even carrying the stones, you can reach the top of the mountain, but it creates unnecessary complexity. You could throw the stones, you could relieve yourself and your ascent could become easier, more pleasant.

Emerald Wilkins from ' The Diamond Net ', helping people move towards wholeness and authenticity.

Somebody came to Buddha and asked him, "You go on saying that life is suffering, dukkha; you go on saying that the house is on fire, and I realize that this is so, but how should we come out of that house which is on fire?" Buddha said, "You are not seeing that the house is on fire. If the house is on fire you will not come to ask me, you will simply jump out of that house." You won't go to find somebody to learn techniques. When you realize the house is on fire, you simply jump out of it; there is no method. It is not your realization. This knowing is not your knowledge, this wisdom has not been achieved through your own efforts. It is borrowed, it is cheap. You have heard that life is dream, illusion, suffering, but you have not realized it. If you realize in dream that it is a dream the dream is broken, the dream cannot exist. It exists through your cooperation, your identification is needed. If you are committed to it, if you get involved in it, only then can it continue. And the same happens with the greater dream which is life. When you realize this is a dream, immediately you have become a Buddha, you are enlightened. But this enlightenment cannot happen to you by others' knowing, others' wisdom.

@Muhammad One of the problems that every human being has to face is the world in which he is born. His being and the intentions of the world don't go together. The world wants him to serve, to be a slave, to be used by those who are in power. And naturally he resents it. He wants to be himself. The world does not allow anybody to be what he is by nature supposed to be. The world tries to mold every person into a commodity: useful, efficient, obedient - never rebellious, never asserting itself, never declaring its own individuality, but always being subservient, almost like a robot. The world does not want you to be human beings. It wants you to be efficient machines. The more efficient you are, the more respectable, the more honored. Initiation into meditation simply means the beginning of dropping all your masks. Don't be impatient. You have been conditioned for so long, for so many years - your whole life - now unconditioning will also take a little time. You have been burdened with all kinds of false, pseudo ideas. It will take a little time to drop them, to recognize that they are false and they are pseudo. In fact, once you recognize something as false, it is not difficult to drop it. The moment you recognize the false as false, it falls by itself.

Very few people are sleeping well, so when you have not slept well in the night you are a little tired during the day. If that is the case, then do something with your sleep. It should be made deeper. Time is not much of a question – you can sleep for eight hours, and if it is not deep you will feel hungry for sleep, starved – depth is the question. Man is made by nature to work hard for at least eight hours. Unless he works hard for eight hours he does not earn the right to have a deep sleep.

Let business be business, and meditation be meditation. Don't try to combine them. One day you will wake up immensely overjoyed that they have mixed. You can't do it. you can only wait, you have just to be patient. Meditation is life, not livelihood. It has nothing to do with what you do; it has everything to do with what you are. Yes, business should not enter into your being, that is true. If your being also has become businesslike, then it is difficult to meditate. If your being has become businesslike, then you have become too calculative. And a calculative person is a cowardly person: he thinks too much, he cannot take any jumps. You cannot carry your cleverness there. In fact, cleverness is not true intelligence either; cleverness is a poor substitute for intelligence. People who are not intelligent learn how to be clever. People who are intelligent need not be clever. Your ego is telling you it is hollow and meaningless, it is not. Don't judge, accept egoic environment, don't resist. Unless you remain calm in marketplace, your meditation haven't ripened.

If you want crazy things to happen try OSHO Dynamic Meditation, Osho devised this meditation to awaken kundalini energy.

1. Declare your desire to expand. Ask the Universe to open you. 2. Stand in open posture, arms out to the side with palms facing forward, and feet solidly hip-width apart. 3. Repeat these affirmations 3 times or until you feel a physical, emotional or mental shift. I am safe to expand and embrace love. I release what has contracted me. I am ready to feel lighter and freer. I breathe in trust as I begin opening. <repeat until you feel that shift inside> 4. Wrap your arms around yourself in gratitude for the energy shift you’ve just created.

After complete spiritual enlightenment there is no one left to do self-inquiry, there is no self either. You are one with existence.

I don't vote, I have never applied for my voter ID card. I don't vote criminals. The criminal is poor; he is uneducated, unsophisticated and simple-hearted. The politician is a hypocrite -- cunning, diplomatic, sophisticated. But their essential reality is the same. In other words, the criminal is a politician who could not succeed, and the politician is a criminal who has succeeded in attaining power. They are both violent. But if you have to choose between the two, the criminal is certainly the better. He does harm, but his harm is very limited -- maybe he kills someone, but numbers for Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler are available. Joseph Stalin alone killed more than one million people after the revolution in Russia. Adolf Hitler killed six million Jews inside Germany, and in the whole second world war he killed near about thirty million people. Criminals have a very limited score. Politicians are great criminals. So great that you accept them as your heroes, so great that they create history. The politician is the criminal who has not been caught, and the criminal is the politician who is not clever enough, who has been caught. The ordinary criminal uses direct means. That's why he is caught. The politician uses very indirect means. Politicians are criminals with very clever, cunning, planning minds. Criminals are poor people, small politicians -- not knowing how to do things. They go on doing things and getting caught.

No political parties, because they pressurize. They accumulate money, they gather people into a certain group, make them faithful to a certain ideology, almost like religion. Political parties are dangerous just as religions are dangerous. Anybody who is chosen should be chosen because of his merit. If you choose a secretary for finance, then you will choose the best economist in your country. People who don’t know anything of economics become finance secretaries, ministers. People who don’t know anything about education become education ministers. In India I knew a man who was just an idiot. He knew nothing about medicine and he became the health minister. In a meritocracy this type of man can never become a health minister, because there will be more qualified people running for the post. Vice-chancellors who have an experience of the whole of life will be standing for the post of the education minister.