Prabhaker

@STC Up to now disciplehood has been tethered to a master who initiates someone into it. But disciplehood is not something which anyone can give you as a gift; it has to be received directly from the divine. Who else but God can initiate you into disciplehood? A disciple tied to the master is bound to become sectarian. It cannot liberate you; instead it will put you in bondage. Truth has to be awakened within you. Buddha's last message to his disciples was "App Deepo Bhava", meaning "be a light unto yourself". Do you know who was the master of Gautam Buddha when he was enlightened?

Journey towards meditation needs great patience and commitment on any path, even modern yoga demands a disciplined life. Modern yoga will certainty help your growth towards meditation, if you are not in a hurry.

Modern yoga is enough for it, real yoga needs a disciple which is very difficult for a modern man to follow. Link provided by you refers to B.K.S. Iyengar, he is a reputed yoga teacher. In India Baba Ramdev is most popular.

What are your goals ? What results do you expect from right kind of practice ?

Suffering is there. It is part of life and part of growth; nothing is bad in it. Suffering becomes evil only when it is simply destructive and not creative at all; suffering becomes bad only when you suffer and nothing is gained out of it. But divine can be gained through suffering; then it becomes creative. Darkness is beautiful if the dawn is coming out of it soon; darkness is dangerous if it is endless, leads to no dawn, simply continues and continues and you go on moving in a rut, in a vicious circle. This is what is happening to you. Just to escape from one suffering you create another; then to escape from another, another. And this goes on and on and all those sufferings which you have not lived are waiting for you. You have escaped but you escape from one suffering to another, because a mind which was creating a suffering will create another. So you can escape from this suffering to that, but suffering will be there because your mind is the creative force.Accept the suffering and pass through it; don’t escape. This is a totally different dimension to work in. Suffering is there: encounter it, go through it. Fear will be there, accept it. You will tremble, so tremble. Why create a facade that you don’t tremble, that you are not afraid? If you are a coward, accept it. Use every opportunity in life for raising your intelligence, your consciousness. Ordinarily what we are doing is using every opportunity to create a hell for ourselves. Only you suffer, and because of your suffering, you make others suffer.

If you are sitting at your table and eating, and if you eat only half-heartedly and your hunger remains, then you will continue to think about food the whole day. You can try fasting and you will see: you will continuously think about food. But if you have eaten well – and when I say eaten well, I don’t mean only that you have stuffed your stomach. Then it is not necessarily so that you have eaten well. You could have stuffed yourself. But eating well is an art. It is not just stuffing. It is great art: to taste the food, to smell the food, to touch the food, to chew the food, to digest the food, and to digest it as divine. It is divine; it is a gift from the divine. Hindus say – food is divine. So with deep respect you eat, and while eating you forget everything, because it is a prayer. It is an existential prayer. You are eating the divine and the divine is going to give you nourishment. It is a gift to be accepted with deep love and gratitude. And you don’t stuff the body, because stuffing the body is being anti-body. It is the other pole. There are people who are obsessed with fasting, and there are people who are obsessed with stuffing themselves. Both are wrong because in both the ways the body loses balance. A real lover of the body eats only to the point where body feels perfectly quiet, balanced, tranquil; where body feels to be neither leaning to the left nor to the right, but just in the middle. It is an art to understand the language of the body, to understand the language of your stomach, to understand what is needed, to give only that which is needed, and to give that in an artistic way, in an aesthetic way. Animals eat, man eats. Then what is the difference? Man makes a great aesthetic experience out of eating. What is the point of having a beautiful dining table? What is the point of having candles burning there? What is the point of incense? What is the point of asking friends to come and participate? It is to make it an art, not just stuffing. But these are outward signs of the art; the inward signs are to understand the language of your body, to listen to it, to be sensitive to its needs. And then you eat, and then the whole day you will not remember food at all. Only when the body is hungry again will the remembrance come. Then it is natural.

@username Read my posts in this thread.

Remember, to translate Brahmacharya as "celibacy" is not right. The word Brahmacharya simply means living like a god, living with the experience of the 'Brahma', the absolute, living meditatively. If I am to translate Brahmacharya I Will translate it as "the life of meditation". Meditation brings a kind of celibacy, but not vice versa. Repressing your desires and destroying your desires is not the way of celibacy, because if you repress your desires you will remain hung-up with them. Whatsoever is repressed, you have to repress it again and again and again, and whatsoever is repressed, you have to sit on it continuously; otherwise there is fear — if you move somewhere else, it may bubble up again. Repression can never bring freedom. Repression makes you a slave. Repress anything, and that will become your master.

Yes, If you cannot find a Buddha or a Jesus, you will still follow someone great because you don't know where to go. If @Sage_Elias wants to become sage , he can remain celibate by living a meditative life. Sex is absence of meditation.

Truth is that sex makes man a fool, gives him the idea that he is the master of it, while he is only a slave, hence, the condemnation of sex by all the religions. You are being used by some unknown force of which you have no idea. The man living on the instinctive level only has an hallucination of love. That hallucination is created by nature, by biology, chemistry. You have in your body drugs which are released when you are making love, and you start moving into euphoria. I don't call sex a sin, I simply call it stupid. I am not saying that you will suffer hell — what more hell do you need to suffer? You are already suffering in it. And what does it go on giving to you? It just keeps you engaged — engaged in the other so that you can avoid yourself. That is its basic stupidity: it keeps you ignorant because it keeps you ignoring yourself. I am not condemning it, I am simply stating a fact. It is your bondage. It keeps you unconscious. It does not allow you to see what you are doing. You are possessed by it. That's why I call it stupid: it keeps you unconscious, it keeps you in a kind of possession. It is hormonal, it is chemical. It is not you; it is just your biology that goes on forcing you to do certain things. If you watch, you will be surprised: What are you doing? And why are you doing? What are you gaining out of it? What have you gained up to now? And in your saner moments you know perfectly well what I am saying, you understand it; but those saner moments are very superficial — they come and go — and soon you are back in the same trap again. The mechanism of sex is a momentary phenomenon. It only functions momentarily; if you do not cooperate at the right moment, it stops. At the right moment your cooperation is needed, otherwise it cannot work. It is only a momentary mechanism, and if you do not cooperate with it, it will stop by itself. Sex is not so forceful as we feel it to be. It is forceful only momentarily: it is not a twenty-four-hour affair, it is a momentary challenge. Real awareness always leads you beyond sex, and celibacy happens on its own accord. Meditation brings a kind of celibacy, but not vice versa. A celibacy without meditation is nothing but sexual repression. Celibacy should be brought very slowly. All that brings you again and again to sexuality has to be dropped slowly, in steps.

Celibacy is not a discipline, it is a consequence. You put your total energy so you don’t have any energy... and it happens in ordinary life also. You can see a great painter: he forgets women completely. When he is painting there is no sex in his mind,because the whole energy is moving. You don’t have any extra energy. A great poet, a great singer, a dancer who is moving totally in his commitment, automatically becomes celibate. He has no discipline for it. Sex is superfluous energy; sex is a safety valve. When you have too much in you and you cannot do anything with it, the nature has made a safety valve; you can throw it out. You can release it, otherwise you will go mad or burst – explode. And if you try to suppress it, then too you will go mad, because suppressing it won’t help. It needs a transformation, and that transformation comes from total commitment. A warrior, if he is really a warrior – an impeccable warrior, will be beyond sex. His whole energy is moving.

Exercise on alternate days or never exercise same muscle group daily, try to get rid of weight training gradually, not suddenly. Start light aerobic exercise instead , meditation mentioned in the video is complete package for body and mind.

Listen to http://osho.radio.net/ while completely relaxing. It will calm your mind. Osho said that “I don't speak to teach something; I speak to create something. These are not lectures; these are simply a device for you to become silent, because if you are told to become silent without making any effort you will find great difficulty.” " My words keep you awake, and just between the words I give you gaps. And those are the real, essential things. Waiting for another word, you have to listen to silence.

I think bodybuilding/ weight training is not good for mental health, brains and brawn can't go together, OSHO Active Meditations are designed to first release the accumulated stresses of body and mind, you can expect quick results in comparison of traditional meditation techniques.

Rather than finding explanations , always look at the naked truth. It is sad, it hurts, it is painful: see it, that it is so, but don't try to somehow whitewash it. All explanations and all philosophies are nothing but efforts to whitewash things which are not white, which are very dark and mysterious. When such moments come, they are of tremendous significance because in these moments, awakening is possible. When a child dies, it is such a shock; you can awaken in such a shock. Life and death are both parts of the mystery which knows no answer. The question mark is ultimate. So all that can be done in such situations is that one should awaken, because these shocks can become a breakthrough. Thinking stops, the shock is such that the mind goes in a blur. Nothing seems to be meaningful, all seems to be lost. One feels an utter stranger, outsider, uprooted. These are tremendously significant moments; these are the moments when you enter into a new dimension. And death is one of the greatest doors that open into the divine. So just see that life is a dream, that everything will disappear sooner or later, dust into dust. Nothing abides here. We cannot make our home here. It is a caravanserai, an overnight's stay and in the morning, we go. But there is one thing which is constantly there and permanently there - that is your watching, your witnessing. Everything else disappears, everything else comes and goes, only witnessing remains. Just be a witness, a silent watcher and that watching is the only key which opens the doors of mysteries.

In these situations there is nothing more to run after, and suddenly we are encountering ourselves. Now, you cannot run from yourself. We will find emptiness, anguish, insanity inside. I will try to relax all my muscles, and watch my belly rising and falling, breath going in and out, negative thoughts will attack me, I will try to watch them without judging them. I will take easily digestible food, and do fasting whenever needed. I will talk less and live in isolation. I have faced similar situations many times. I was listening to Osho's audio/ video discourses all the time. I was watching the gaps/ silence between the words. It takes time to adjust in these circumstances but if you gather courage and maintain your sanity, you will know that is beyond words and logic.

@jse Western psychology has never looked upwards. It has never worked with meditators. Western psychology has been avoiding facing the reality of the higher states of mind. Jesus was not part of the old conditioned mind. At that time deprogrammer psychologists had not arrived; otherwise Jesus would have been saved from crucifixion. Just deprogramming would have been enough. He had just to be constantly hammered: ’’You are not the only son of God. Drop this nonsense. If you are the messiah for whom the whole Judaic tradition is waiting, let them recognize you. Why do you go on shouting that you are the awaited messiah?” It would have been very easy to deprogram that poor carpenter, but the psychologists were not around there.

The experience of empathy is very rare. Sympathy and apathy are opposed to each other. Empathy is beyond both. Man has forgotten about empathy completely, but he knows about sympathy. Sympathy is not something great. When somebody is in misery you sympathize; but if you look inside you will find you are feeling great because you are not in misery, somebody else is. At least in this situation you are superior. You can sympathize - you can afford it. Apathy is your everyday experience. You pass people as if they don't exist. The servant comes in your room - you don't wave at him, you don't smile at him. You don't even take any note that somebody has come in the room. You remain exactly the same as you were before - no recognition of the other's existence. This is your everyday experience. Sympathy once in a while - when somebody goes bankrupt, when somebody's house is burned, the whole neighborhood is sympathetic. And these are the same people who were jealous of his beautiful house. How can it be? The same people who were jealous of his beautiful house suddenly have become so sympathetic because his house is burned. It is a mask; underneath they are feeling great joy, this was the day they were waiting for. His beautiful house was continuously a torture for their heart. Now, sympathizing with the man, they are in a higher position. They are really feeling good. So remember perfectly well, whenever you sympathize with somebody - watch the inner workings of your mind; it is not friendly. It is not out of your goodness, out of your compassion, but just the opposite. It is your hate, your jealousy, your violence - but now there is no need to show it, the man is finished on his own. Now you can have this beautiful experience and a good night's sleep by sympathizing with him. Sympathy is not a great quality. It is phony. Empathy has almost disappeared from human beings. It is certainly the only quality that joins you with the life current within other human beings, animals, trees - with the whole existence. It is pure religiousness. But no religion teaches empathy. All religions teach is sympathy, and sympathy is not the real thing. Empathy is relating to people through the heart. But this is possible only if the mind is silent, if there are no thoughts in the mind and it gives way, opens the door to the heart. But ordinarily you are so full of thoughts there is no way to be sensitive.

Husky Dog Sings with iPAD - Better than Bieber!

Man, I am drunk! I was drunk with Osho. Now , I grow my own marijuana within me. That creates my wobbly walking.

A person who has overcome his schizophrenia on the path of meditation, or a spiritual teacher who has treated others from schizophrenia can always give his insights. For a Buddha all of us are schizophrenic , schizophrenia is normal state of humanity, some unfortunates who cross the limit are declared as patients. Don't think we are absolutely sane, only a Buddha has absolute sanity, spirituality is way to achieve it.

No, a person who has grown into a mediator can focus whenever needed, while he is concentrating , he is not in a state of meditation, but he will be relaxed, not in a tense state like us. Like small children, when the play they forget other things, they are focused but not tense.

@DawnOfReality Concentrate is a frozen state of mind, a very narrow state of mind. Useful, of course, useful — for others. Useful in scientific inquiry, useful in business, useful in the market, useful in politics — but absolutely useless for yourself. If you become too attuned with concentration you will become very, very tense. Concentration is a tense state of mind; you will never be relaxed. Concentration is like a torch, focused, and meditation is like a lamp, unfocused. If you meditate. first concentration will disappear and you will be feeling a little at a loss. But if you go on, by and by you will attain to an unfocused state of light — that’s what meditation is. Once meditation is attained. concentration is child’s play — whenever you need to, you can concentrate. There will be no problem about it and it will be easy and without any tension. Meditation will allow you to concentrate whenever the need arises, but if there is no need you will remain relaxed.

Every medical college should teach the doctors a special course – that there are people who are not really insane: don’t treat them, otherwise you will disturb them for their whole life. Your medicines, your electric shocks, your tranquilizers, your injections, are dangerous if the person is suffering from spiritual-madness. Spiritual basically drives you mad so that you can go beyond madness. Once you have passed that barrier you will never be mad; once you have passed that barrier you are a totally different kind of man. A new man is born. A great grace descends, and joy and peace and equilibrium. It is madness, but it is higher than what you call sanity. There are two kinds of madness. Madness simply means out of the mind. You can be out of the mind, falling below the mind – that’s where insanity starts. But you can also be out of the mind going beyond the mind – that’s where meditation starts. In one sense they are similar in that both are out of the mind. Hence one can feel, living in the beauty of the present moment, as if it is madness, because madness and meditation have a similarity but only on one point: both happen outside the mind. In every other sense they are different. To go below the mind means to become unconscious. To go beyond the mind means to become superconscious. And the superconscious and unconscious are as distinct as two things can be, as far away from each other as there is possibility. They have nothing in common except that one point. Hence in the beginning every meditator feels that it is something like madness. But it is saner than your sanity. You have to wait a little, to become acquainted with the new territory of the world of meditation. Others may also think that you are mad, because sometimes you will be doing things like a madman. But the basic difference is that no madman ever acknowledges, ever accepts that he is mad. He refuses it vehemently. You can go to any madhouse, not a single madman will accept that he is mad.

Traditional methods have an appeal because they are so ancient and so many people have achieved through them in the past. They may have become irrelevant to us, but they were not irrelevant to Buddha, Mahavira, Patanjali or Krishna. They were meaningful, helpful. The old methods may be meaningless now, but because Buddha achieved through them they have an appeal. The traditionalist feels: “If Buddha achieved through these methods, why can’t I?” But we are in an altogether different situation now. The whole atmosphere, the whole thought-sphere, has changed. Chaotic methods will help the modern mind because the modern mind is, itself, chaotic. This chaos, this rebelliousness in modern man is, in fact, a rebellion of other things: of the body against the mind and against its suppressions. If we talk about it in yogic terms we can say that it is the rebellion of the heart center and the navel center against the brain. These centers are against the brain because the brain has monopolized the whole territory of the human soul. This cannot be tolerated any further. That is why universities have become centers of rebellion. It is not accidental. If the whole society is thought of as an organic body, then the university is the head, the brain. Because of the rebelliousness of the modern mind, it is bound to be lenient toward loose and chaotic methods. Dynamic Meditation will help to move the center of consciousness away from the brain. Then the person using it will never be rebellious, because the cause of rebellion becomes fulfilled. He will be at ease.