Prabhaker

@Joseph Maynor The quality of the mind has basically changed. In Patanjali’s days, the center of the human personality was not the brain; it was the heart. And before that, it was not even the heart. It was still lower, near the navel. Hatha yoga developed methods which were useful, meaningful, to the person whose center of personality was the navel. Then the center became the heart. Only then could bhakti yoga be used. Bhakti yoga developed in the middle ages because that is when the center of personality changed from the navel to the heart. A method has to change according to the person to whom it is applied. Now, not even bhakti yoga is relevant. The center has gone even further from the navel. Now, the center is the brain. That is why teachings like those of Krishnamurti have appeal. No method is needed, no technique is needed — only understanding. But if it is just a verbal understanding, just intellectual, nothing changes, nothing is transformed. It again becomes an accumulation of knowledge. Osho, The Psychology of the Esoteric, Ch 4, Q 1, Excerpt The path of devotion is easy has created much trouble. So those who are not for the path of devotion go on it. But then they cannot become like Meera or Chaitanya; it is not for them. It is not for them! They have not chosen according to themselves. They have chosen according to the fallacious concept that is prevalent. Really, those who choose the path of bhakti, they do not really choose it to travel it. They think that through it there is nothing to be done and you gain everything. The path of bhakti is believed to be such that you need not do anything and you attain everything – that just bhakti is enough. They say that not even bhakti, but just naarn smaran – remembering of the name – will do. And particularly for the Kaliyuga! Really, those who do not want to do anything, they choose bhakti, and bhakti is not a promise that you will attain everything without doing anything. Bhakti demands your totality. It is not just naam smaran – you have to surrender yourself totally, but total surrender is arduous. This false belief has created so many so-called devotional people, but they are deceiving themselves. Choose according to you yourself; be aware of yourself first. Really, if you are aware of yourself you need not choose. You will begin to move on the path that is for you. Just be aware of yourself. Feel yourself more and more; meditate and feel yourself more and more. Then do not bother about any choice. Meera has never chosen. It has happened! Nor has Mahavir chosen. It has happened! If you know yourself, if you feel yourself and you meditate, by and by, you will move in the direction which is for you. You will move toward your destiny. If you choose, you will disturb things – because your choice is, after all, your choice. How can you choose your destiny? You can only allow it to happen; you cannot choose it. If you choose, then you fall into a deep fallacy. You are bound to choose wrongly. You are wrong, so you are bound to choose wrongly! Then much endeavour will be wasted, and you will go on rationalizing, ”Why am I doing so much, and such and such is not happening? If it is not happening, then there must be some reasons! My past karmas are creating a barrier. Or, I have to make a much greater effort. Or, I need much more time. Or, I started late, so in the next life I will start early.” Man goes on rationalizing. Rationalizations will not help. Do not try to choose. Rather, allow! Feel your swabhav – your nature – your Tao; feel your intrinsic possibilities. Be sensitive, meditate, and do not try to choose. By and by, you will move in a particular direction. That movement will come to you; it will not be a chosen effort. It will happen to you, it will grow in you, and you will begin to move. The Ultimate Alchemy, Vol 2 Osho

Gurdjieff said, “You are nothing but the body, and when the body dies you will die. Only once in a while does a person survive – one who has created soul (Atman) in his life survives death – not all. A Buddha survives; a Jesus survives, but not you! You will simply die, not even a trace will be left.” What was Gurdjieff trying to do? He was shocking you to the very roots; he was trying to take away all your consolations and foolish theories which go on helping you to postpone work upon yourself. Now, to tell people, “You don’t have any souls, you are just vegetables, just a cabbage or maybe a cauliflower” – a cauliflower is a cabbage with a college education – “but nothing more than that.” He was really a master par excellence. He was taking the very earth away from underneath your feet. He was giving you such a shock that you had to think over the whole situation: are you going to remain a cabbage? He was creating a situation around you in which you would have to seek and search for the soul, because who wants to die? And the idea that the soul is immortal has helped people to console themselves that they are not going to die, that death is just an appearance, just a long sleep, a restful sleep, and you will be born again. Gurdjieff says, “All nonsense. This is all nonsense! Dead, you are dead forever – unless you have created the soul….” Now see the difference: you have been told you are already a soul, and Gurdjieff changes it totally. He says, “You are not already a soul, but only an opportunity. You can use it, you can miss it.” And I would like to tell you that Gurdjieff was just using a device. It is not true. Everybody is born with a soul. But what to do with people who have been using truths as consolations? A great master sometimes has to lie – and only a great master has the right to lie – just to pull you out of your sleep. Osho, The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol. 2, Talk #2

@Sukhpaal Sympathy has been looked upon as a very valuable attribute. It means you become unhappy and show your sorrow on seeing some one else unhappy. It also means ‘to experience’, that is to experience along with another. But the person who experiences unhappiness when the other is unhappy does never experience happiness when the other is happy. You show your feelings of sorrow and unhappiness if anybody’s house catches fire, but you do not show happiness if some one else builds a big building. It is very important to understand this matter. What does this mean? This means sympathy is a kind of deception. That sympathy is genuine when you experience unhappiness in the miseries of others and experience joy and happiness in the happiness of others. But we are able to experience or show unhappiness in another’s unhappiness, though many a time we are unable to experience happiness in another’s happiness. That is why, it will not be correct to say we are able to show sorrow when another is unhappy’. If we are able to be happy in the happiness of others, then and then only, would it be proper to show our sorrow in their unhappiness. On the contrary, we derive some pleasure in the unhappiness of others. We take some pleasure in another’s difficulties. We become fully delighted in others’ miseries. So when you go to show your sorrow in others’ miseries, try to examine within you whether you derive some pleasure or not at that time. In such a situation. one interesting thing is that you feel you are the person showing sympathy and the other is in a position to receive it. When that another person comes into the position of receiving sympathy he becomes a beggar and you become the donor effortlessly. When That person comes into the state of receiving your sympathy, you come into a patronising position and he becomes an humble or low person. And if you check up within your heart, you will find the presence of a kind of pleasure in showing your sorrow for his condition. You are sure to get it. And if you don’t get it, you will be the person who can be completely happy in another’s happiness. We become jealous of another’s happiness, we are resentful. So, the other aspect of this matter tells us that we are unable to be unhappy in another’s unhappiness, but we have been naming it ‘sympathy’. I have been talking of this Kind of feeling which is generally known as sympathy. So I thought it proper to select another word empathy. ‘Sympathy’ is a false thing, it is deception And if we understand fully that if the sympathy of someone is genuine, that is, he experiences unhappiness in another’s unhappiness and experiences happiness in another’s happiness, even then it remains as violence, it cannot be nonviolence because as long as there is another, it cannot fulfil the conditions of nonviolence. Nonviolence is an experience of non-duality. It is the experience that apart from the other there is also I. It will certainly be violence if your experience of feeling unhappy on seeing another unhappy is false. And even if the feeling be true, I remain I and the other remains the other. The bridge between the two is not broken and there is no possibility of nonviolence. To know the other as the other is also violence. Why? Because I am living in ignorance as long as I consider the other as the other. In fact the other is not the other. Empathy does not mean knowing that the other is becoming unhappy but it means I myself have become miserable. It is not knowing that the other has become happy, but it means I myself have become happy. It is not like this, that the moon is shining in the sky; but it is I too have been shining. It is not that the sun is rising but that I have risen. It is not that flowers have blossomed but it is I who have blossomed. Empathy means nonduality. Empathy means oneness. Nonviolence is oneness. So, there are three states: one is false sympathy, which is violence, pure and simple; two, genuine sympathy which is a very subtle form of violence, and three, empathy which is nonviolence. It may be violence or a subtle form of violence; it may be genuine sympathy or false sympathy — all these are happenings at the mental level. Empathy is a spiritual happening. Source: Osho Book “The Perennial Path: The Art of Living”

Our mind is just a small window opening towards the vast universe, but when you look always from the window, the frame of the window frames the sky outside -- although there is no frame on the sky, it is frameless. But to your perception the frame of the window becomes the frame of existence. It is something like... once in a while it happens to people who use glasses that they have their glasses on their nose and they are looking for them. And they have even forgotten that they cannot see without the glasses, so if they are looking and seeing, it is an absolute certainty that the glasses are in place. But if you have been using glasses for years, slowly, slowly they become part of you, they become your eyes. You don't think of them as separate from you. But each pair of glasses can give its own color to the things it sees. You are the seer behind -- the glasses cannot see themselves. Things outside don't have the color that the glass is imposing upon them, but you have become so identified with the glasses. I used to live with a man -- he was a very nice man -- who had glasses from his very childhood, and now they had become thicker and thicker. He was so accustomed to them that he would go to sleep with his glasses on. When one day I saw him sleeping with the glasses on, I woke him and said, "This is too much! Do you need these glasses for dreams? You can see dreams without glasses." He became aware that he had completely forgotten that those glasses were separate from him. For fifty years continuously they have been there, and he cannot see without them, so even to go to his bed he has to use them, and slowly, slowly, he started sleeping with his glasses on. His whole world depends on his glasses: if they are green, everything will look green; if they are blue, everything will look blue; and he will believe that what he is seeing cannot be wrong. Man's mind also is only an instrument. The glasses are outside the skull -- the mind is inside the skull, so you cannot turn it off every day. And you are so close to it within, that the very closeness has become the identification, so that whatever the mind sees is thought to be the reality. But mind cannot see the reality; mind can see only its own prejudices. It can see its own projections displayed on the screen of the world. You don't see the world as it is. You see it as your mind forces you to see it. And this you can see all over the world -- different people are conditioned in different ways, and the mind is nothing but conditioning. They see things according to their conditioning -- and that conditioning is a certain color. We make distinctions: We make somebody superior, somebody inferior; man is more powerful, woman is less powerful; somebody is more intelligent, somebody is less. Races have been claiming they are the chosen people of God. Every religion is claiming that their book is written by God himself. All these things, layer upon layer, make your mind; and unless you are able to put the whole mind aside and see the world directly, immediately, with your consciousness, you will never be able to see the truth. Mind is polluted by every society for its own interests, given ideas which have no correspondence with reality, but help a certain society to feel egoistic, superior. And you cling to the mind because that mind gives superiority to you too. In this world the greatest courage is to put the mind aside. The bravest man is one who can see the world without the barrier of the mind, just as it is. It is tremendously different, utterly beautiful. There is nobody who is inferior and there is nobody who is superior; there are no distinctions. The finding of the real will release you from many stupidities, many superstitions. It will clean your heart of all kinds of rubbish that generations have poured into you. Diseases go on from generation to generation; you inherit the whole past with all its stupid ideas. Otherwise, there would be no distinction, there is no comparison. And once you are free from making comparisons and distinctions, you are light, your whole existence is light. You lose all heaviness. You become so light that you can open your wings and fly. Osho ~ The Transmission of the Lamp

Why is it so difficult? Because the more you possess, the less you can love. And love is the door. Or, the less you can love, the more you start possessing things. Things become a substitute. People who can't love will always become misers: possessive, accumulators of things. People who accumulate things can't love, and those who can't love - how can they enter into the kingdom of God? Not that Jesus is condemning riches. He is condemning possessiveness. The question is not of riches; the question is of possessiveness. Riches are not blocking the way. Possessiveness is blocking the way. Everybody is a little rich, more or less. Everybody has something, everybody has accumulated something. Nobody is so poor that he has nothing. And nobody is so rich that he has everything. Even the poorest has his own clinging, and the richest yet has his own ambitions. Even a beggar is rich because he has something which he clings to. It may be just a begging-bowl, but it doesn't matter whether it's a kingdom or a begging bowl. The question is not of the objects you possess; the question is whether you are possessive. You can have a kingdom non-possessively, and you can be a beggar and very possessive. So when Jesus says that a rich man cannot enter into the kingdom of God, he's talking about the man who is possessive, who is miserly, the man who is closed and cannot share, the man who cannot participate in life - who remains afraid and becomes an island unto himself, who separates himself from the whole and becomes a closed thing, who remains in a cocoon. This man is what Jesus means by a rich man. Osho ~ Come Follow To You, Vol 2

It depends. There are as many loves as there are people. Love is a hierarchy, from the lowest rung to the highest, from sex to super-consciousness. There are many, many layers, many planes of love. It all depends on you. If you are existing on the lowest rung, you will have a totally different idea of love than the person who is existing on the highest rung. Adolf Hitler will have one idea of love, Gautam Buddha another; and they will be diametrically opposite, because they are at two extremes. At the lowest, love is a kind of politics, power politics. Wherever love is contaminated by the idea of domination, it is politics. Whether you call it politics or not is not the question, it is political. And millions of people never know anything about love except this politics – the politics that exists between husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends. It is politics, the whole thing is political: you want to dominate the other, you enjoy domination. And love is nothing but politics sugar-coated, a bitter pill sugar-coated. You talk about love but the deep desire is to exploit the other. And I am not saying that you are doing it deliberately or consciously – you are not that conscious yet. You cannot do it deliberately; it is an unconscious mechanism. Hence so much possessiveness and so much jealousy become a part, an intrinsic part, of your love. That’s why love creates more misery than joy. Ninety-nine percent of it is bitter; there is only that one percent of sugar that you have coated on top of it. And sooner or later that sugar disappears. When you are in the beginning of a love affair, those honeymoon days, you taste something sweet. Soon that sugar wears off, and the realities start appearing in stark nakedness and the whole thing becomes ugly. Millions of people have decided not to love human beings any more. It is better to love a dog, a cat, a parrot; it is better to love a car – because you can dominate them well, and the other never tires to dominate you. It is simple; it is not as complex as it is going to be with human beings. People are falling in love with horses, dogs, animals, machines, things. Why? Because to be in love with human beings has become an utter hell, a continuous conflict – nagging, always at each other’s throats. This is the lowest form of love. Nothing is wrong with it if you can use it as a stepping-stone, if you can use it as a meditation. If you can watch it, if you try to understand it, in that very understanding you will reach another rung, you will start moving upwards. Only at the highest peak, when love is not a relationship any more, when love becomes a state of your being, the lotus opens totally and great perfume is released – but only at the highest peak. At the lowest, love is just a political relationship. At the highest, love is a religious state of consciousness. I love you too. Buddha loves, Jesus loves, but their love demands nothing in return. Their love is given for the sheer joy of giving it; it is not a bargain. Hence the radiant beauty of it, hence the transcendental beauty of it. It surpasses all the joys that you have known. When I talk about love, I am talking about love as a state. It is unaddressed: you don’t love this person or that person, you simply love. You are love. Rather than saying that you love somebody, it will be better to say you are love. So whosoever is capable of partaking, can partake. For whosoever is capable of drinking out of your infinite sources of being, you are available – you are available unconditionally. That is possible only if love becomes more and more meditative. Medicine and meditation come from the same root. Love as you know it is a kind of disease: it needs the medicine of meditation. If it passes through meditation, it is purified. And the more purified it is, the more ecstatic. Osho, Unio Mystica, Vol. 2, Talk #4

@Joseph Maynor It will appear very paradoxical, but this is true – before you can lose your ego, you must attain it. Only a ripe fruit falls to the ground. Ripeness is all. An unripe ego cannot be thrown, cannot be destroyed. And if you struggle with an unripe ego to destroy and dissolve it, the whole effort is going to be a failure. Rather than destroying it, you will find it more strengthened, in new and subtle ways. This is something basic to be understood – the ego must come to a peak, it must be strong, it must have attained an integrity – only then can you dissolve it. A weak ego cannot be dissolved. And this becomes a problem. In the East all the religions preach egolessness. So in the East everybody is against the ego from the very beginning. Because of this anti attitude, ego never becomes strong, never comes to a point of integration from where it can be thrown. It is never ripe. So in the East it is very difficult to dissolve the ego, almost impossible. In the West the whole Western tradition of religion and psychology propounds, preaches, persuades people to have strong egos – because unless you have a strong ego, how can you survive? Life is a struggle; if you are egoless you will be destroyed. Then who will resist? Who will fight? Who will compete? And life is a continuous competition. Western psychology says: Attain to the ego, be strong in it. But in the West it is very easy to dissolve the ego. So whenever a Western seeker reaches an understanding that ego is the problem he can easily dissolve it, more easily than any Eastern seeker. This is the paradox – in the West ego is taught, in the East egolessness is taught. But in the West it is easy to dissolve the ego, in the East it is very difficult. This is going to be a hard task for you, first to attain and then to lose – because you can lose only something which you possess. If you don’t possess it, how can you lose it? Osho, My Way: The Way of the White Clouds, Talk #8

Philosophy leads you nowhere, Moses, Jesus, Buddha and every enlightened master had a realization, they were not philosophizing. The most important thing about India is that it has no philosophy in the same way that other countries have philosophies. The word 'philosophy' means love of knowledge. In India we have never praised love of knowledge; we have praised love of experience. Knowledge can be borrowed, experience cannot be borrowed. That is why we have called our way darshan, not philosophy. To call darshan Indian philosophy is basically wrong. Philosophy is a mind thing - you think about it. Darshan is a realization, a thing of your innermost being; you realize it. Philosophy needs logic; darshan needs silence - no thoughts, everything in absolute nothingness. Only then you will come to know yourself. Philosophy means to think, and darshan means to see. Both are basically different; not only different, but diametrically opposite. Because when you are thinking you cannot see. You are so filled with thoughts that perception is blurred, perception is clouded. When thinking ceases, you become capable of seeing. Then your eyes are opened, they become unclouded. Perception happens only when thinking ceases. So Buddha is not a philosopher; neither is Jesus. They have seen the truth; they have not thought about it.

@Mert At the time of death the gross body dies. The body which is made of earth and water, the body which consists of flesh, bones and marrow, drops, dies. Subsequently, the body comprised of subtle thoughts, subtle feelings, subtle vibrations, subtle filaments, remains. This body, formed of all these subtle things, along with the soul, once again proceeds on a journey, and again enters a gross body for a new birth. When a new soul enters the mother's womb, it means this subtle body enters. In the event of death only the gross body disintegrates, not the subtle body. But with the occurrence of the ultimate death, what we call moksha, the subtle body disintegrates along with the gross body as well. Then there is no more birth for the soul. Then the soul becomes one with the whole. This happens only once. It is like a drop merging into the ocean. Three things have to be understood. First, there is the element of the soul. When the two types of bodies -- the gross and the subtle -- come in contact with this element of the soul, both become active. We are familiar with the gross, the physical body; a yogi is familiar with the subtle body, and those who go beyond yoga are familiar with the soul. Ordinary eyes are able to see the gross body. The yogic eye is able to see the subtle body. But that which is beyond yoga, that which exists beyond the subtle body, is experienced only in samadhi. One who goes beyond meditation attains samadhi, and it is in the state of samadhi that one experiences the divine. The ordinary man has the experience of the physical body, the ordinary yogi has the experience of the subtle body, the enlightened yogi has the experience of the divine. God is one, but there are countless subtle bodies and there are countless gross bodies. The subtle body is the causal body; it is this body that takes on the new physical body. You see many light bulbs around here. The electricity is one, that energy is one, but it is manifesting through different bulbs. The bulbs have different bodies, but their soul is one. Similarly, the consciousness manifesting through us is one, but in the manifestation of this consciousness, two vehicles are applied. One is the subtle vehicle, the subtle body; the other is the gross vehicle, the gross body. Our experience is limited to the gross, to the physical body. This restricted experience is the cause of all human misery and ignorance. But there are people who, even after going beyond the physical body, may stop at the subtle body. They will say, "There are an infinite number of souls." But those who go beyond even the subtle body will say, "God is one, the soul is one, Brahman is one." When I referred to the entering of the soul, I meant that soul which is still associated with the subtle body. It means the subtle body the soul is enveloped in has not disintegrated yet. That's why we say that the soul which attains to the ultimate freedom steps out of the cycle of birth and death. There is indeed no birth and death for the soul -- it was never born, nor will it ever die. The cycle of birth and death stops with the end of the subtle body, because it is the subtle body that causes a new birth. The subtle body is an integrated seed consisting of our thoughts, desires, lusts, longings, experiences, knowledge. This body is instrumental in taking us on our continuing journey. However, one whose thoughts are all annihilated, whose passions have all vanished, whose desires have all disappeared, who has no desire left within him, there is no place for him to go, there is no reason left for him to go anywhere. Then there is no reason for him to take birth again. Osho~And Now, And Here

@Arkandeus You can't transform others if they are not willing, not even a Buddha can transform anybody against his will. At the most you can transform yourself, that too will be a miracle, it is greatest contribution you can do for this existence. Then your presence will be a catalyst for many others.

@Toby I think on the path of Islam one can be both more aggressive and self-actualized.

@Loreena Weight training if done in a proper way can improve your concentration.

Consciousness work is a non doing, it is simply watching. When you can relax there is no hell. Hell is created only when you can't relax, you can sit, you can lie down but you can't relax then a hell is created. If you have trust, existence takes care, it take care of your needs, not desires. Buddha was not doing any work before enlightenment. Infants don't do any work but they get food, if you become as innocent as a child , existence takes care. Jesus says , Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, then all else will follow.

Indian Saint Maluk das has said : "Ajgar kare na chakri, panchi kare na kam, das maulak keh gaye, sabke data ram." A python doesn't serve any master and a bird doesn't go looking for work. Maluk das says that God provides for everyone. Why one should find a life purpose if he can relax without doing anything ?

I do not have any Life Purpose, I only eat , relax and sometimes post on this forum. I know there are millions of people in India, who only play cards, gossip at tea stalls, or pray to god.

He was testing his celibacy, he succeeded while he was awake, but when he was asleep, he had nocturnal emission at the age of 70. He was a honest person, so he wrote about it. He was capable of doing long fasting to maintain his celibacy, but we can't expect from a common person that he can transform all his sexual energy into creativity.

Do you think two persons can love each other forever in a fixed relationship ?

I know people in India, who are so greedy that they loose all interest in romantic relationships, they too are financially successful.

Everybody can't know about everything.

Mahatma Gandhi was a honest person, after age of 33 , he tried to transform all his sexual energy into creativity, in spite of all his efforts he was having nocturnal emission at the age of 70.

Einstein was married twice !

Can these 'experts' transmutate all their sexual energy into creativity ?

Modern man don't like this type of teachings. Om. There once lived Svetaketu the grandson of Aruna. To him his father said: "Svetaketu, lead the life of a brahmacharin; for there is none belonging to our family, my dear, who, not having studied the Vedas, is a brahmin only by birth. They like new age teachers who can give them some consolation like ; you are already enlightened ; you can become enlightened right now ; there is nothing mysterious in enlightenment, it is just change of perspective etc.

All questions stop, all seeking ends but after a long journey. Right now we can't sit silently and wait.

@Joseph Maynor Enlightenment is the dewdrop slipping from the lotus leaf into the vast, infinite ocean. Once the dewdrop has fallen into the ocean, now there is no way even to find it. The question of turning back does not arise. Enlightenment, hence, is the ultimate truth. What begins as flowering moves on the path of awakening, reaches to self-realization. Then one quantum leap more—disappearing into the eternal, into the infinite. You are no more, only existence is. I have told you about Kabir, India’s greatest mystic. When he was young, he became self-realized and he wrote a small couplet: "Herat, herat he sakhi Rahya, Kabir, herai" “Searching and searching and searching, oh my friend, the searcher is lost. Seeking and seeking and seeking, the seeker is lost.” "Bund samani samund mein Sokat herijai" “The dewdrop has slipped into the ocean; now there is no way to get it back.” But it was too early to say that. The dewdrop was still there, slipping towards the ocean, but it had not yet fallen into the ocean. When Kabir was dying, he became enlightened. He called his son Kamaal and told him, “I have written something wrong. At that moment, that was my feeling—that I had come to the ultimate. Before I die, you write this down, and change it.” The change is very small in words, but in experience it is tremendous. He has used again the same words: "Herat, herat he sakhi" “Oh beloved, seeking and searching, the seeker is lost.” "Samund samund bund mein Sokat herijai" “And the ocean has fallen into the dewdrop; now it is impossible to find it.” Just a little difference in the words… “The dewdrop has fallen into the ocean” – something of the self has remained in it. But “the ocean has fallen into the dewdrop”… that is the tremendous experience and explosion of enlightenment. The first statement was about self-realization; the second statement is about enlightenment. From enlightenment, falling is simply impossible. You are gone—and gone forever; not even a shadow or a trace of you is left behind.