Prabhaker

If he doesn't likes to read , audio books are available for free download. For example : Come follow to you Volume1 http://www.oshoworld.com/discourses/audio_eng.asp?album_id=30

Download and tell him to read following books. (Osho talks on Jesus) Come Follow To You http://www.oshorajneesh.com/download/osho-books/western_mystics/Come_Follow_To_You_Volume1.pdf http://www.oshorajneesh.com/download/osho-books/western_mystics/Come_Follow_To_You_Volume2.pdf http://www.oshorajneesh.com/download/osho-books/western_mystics/Come_Follow_To_You_Volume3.pdf http://www.oshorajneesh.com/download/osho-books/western_mystics/Come_Follow_To_You_Volume4.pdf I Say Unto You http://www.oshorajneesh.com/download/osho-books/western_mystics/I_Say_Unto_You_Volume1.pdf http://www.oshorajneesh.com/download/osho-books/western_mystics/I_Say_Unto_You_Volume2.pdf The Mustard Seed http://www.oshorajneesh.com/download/osho-books/western_mystics/The_Mustard_Seed_My_Most_Loved_Gospel_on_Jesus.pdf

You have to move on unknown path, path is not predetermined. You can move only by accepting and doing mistakes, being deceived. You will learn by doing mistakes, but remember don't repeat same mistake again and again. You can inquire only by experimenting and experiencing, if you will inquire intellectually , you will not know.

You sense a trap with spirituality and mysticism. On this path, trust is needed. Trust is a quality in you. A man of trust. it does not mean in what he trusts, but he trusts; that is his innocence. Even if he is cheated because of his trust, that does not matter, because trust is more valuable than any small thing that he has been cheated of. You can take everything from him, but you cannot take his trust. From their very childhood they have been told, ‘Don’t trust, because if you trust you will be cheated. The world is full of cunning people, so remain alert, don’t trust. Trust only when you have found someone, checked all the possibilities of the person and found that yes, he is trustworthy. Then trust.’ But to trust a trustworthy person has no meaning at all. It is not your quality it is his trustworthiness. But to trust a person who is not trustworthy, you know perfectly well that he is not trustworthy, still you trust, because trust in itself is such a great value that it cannot be lost because of this person’s unworthiness. The man of trust simply lives out of his trust; whatever happens does not matter. If he is being deceived continuously, then too, it does not matter. Nothing happens to his trust. His trust is something invincible, and that gives integrity. So there is no question of accepting anything or not. The question is of growing trust as a quality of your being. This path is not for a businessman, this path is for gamblers.

Those who are open minded are not wrong, but great courage and patience is needed. Lot of people are attracted towards spirituality, but few succeed. Still I will say from my experience, it is better to fail in spiritual journey, you will gain something, rather than succeeding in mundane life, where you will gain nothing even after you succeed.

Meditation is not for losers , suffering types, but people are attracted in the search of something miraculous, they do want to work hard, they are trying to reach ultimate without risking anything, instantly. Truth is not cheap, to get something higher, courage to lose lower is necessary. For me , meditation is ultimate luxury, if you are already in a valley , journey will be long and arduous.

I was a student of science , raised in an educated atheistic family, fortunately I met few mystics, my suspicions were eradicated.

No, everything is perfect. Life repeats itself mindlessly – unless you become mindful, it will go on repeating like a wheel. That’s why Buddhists call it wheel of time.

Existence is not a business, it is a play. And a play has no purpose really, it is nonpurposeful. Or you can say play is its own purpose, to play is enough. It is not evolving towards some ultimate; this very moment, here and now, it is ultimate. Life as it is, is accepted in the East. It is not moving towards some end, because if there is some end who will decide the end and why? If God decides it, then you can ask the same question about God: ”What is the purpose of creating a world with purpose?” or, ”Why should he create a purposive world?” or even more deeply, ”What is the purpose of God’s existence?” Maybe life has a purpose and God decides the purpose, but then God’s existence has to be questioned – why he exists – and that way the question is simply pushed one step ahead. In India we have always depicted God as a dancer, not as a creator -- God as 'Nataraj', the Master Dancer. Why? There is something immensely meaningful in that concept. God is not the painter, because when the painter does a painting, the painting becomes separate from the painter. When the painter has finished with the painting, the painting has its own existence. The painter may die, the painting can live. And when the painter has finished the painting, it may be a beautiful painting, but it is dead because the painter cannot put his breath into it. That is not possible. He cannot pour his vitality into it, his life into it. The painting may be beautiful but a painting is a painting -- it is dead. God is not a painter, God is not a potter; God is a dancer. What is the meaning of it? In dance, the dancer and the dance are one, they can never be separated. That is the beauty of the dancer. The poet is separate from the poetry, the potter is separate from his pottery, the painter is separate from his painting, the sculptor is different, separate from his creation, and so on and so forth. Only the dancer is not separate. The dancer is the dance.

You will not find answers of most of your questions on the internet. No theoretical knowledge is helpful. When you have some theoretical knowledge, you begin to impose it on yourself. You begin to visualize things to be the way you have been taught. In fact, knowledge has been very destructive as far as the inner world is concerned. The more knowledge gained, the less the possibility of feeling the real, the authentic, things. All that is within is not necessarily real or true, because imagination is also within, dreams are also within. The mind has a faculty – a very powerful faculty – to dream, to create illusions, to project. Do not imagine, do not think about it, do not make any intellectual effort to understand beforehand. No pre-notion is needed; not only is it not needed, it is positively harmful.

Just sit silently and allow your fingers to have their own movement. Feel the movement from the inside. Don’t try to see it from the outside, so keep your eyes closed. Let the energy flow more and more into the hands. Don’t force any pattern, whatsoever is the need of the energy it will take that form. Just sitting silently, play, allow the hands. If your fingers can be allowed total freedom of expression many many tensions accumulated are released.

This is a model that facilitates spiritual growth but this a deep metaphysical truth too. From the smallest blade of grass to the biggest star, everybody is needed, equally needed. There is no hierarchy in existence. You are not accidental. Existence needs you. One cannot avoid action. Action will certainly be there as long as we live. But you can live your life without getting affected by karma. Remember, actions can be of two kinds: one in which there is a doer, and the other in which there is an actor. If the actor replaces the doer, the action will continue on the surface, but there will be total transformation within. Acting does not bind you to the action, it does not affect you. It remains entirely outside, it does not enter within.

One of the objectives of martial arts is to develop the mind and body to a point where the path of life can be walked fearlessly and courageously. All of us bear the potential to live the way of the warrior – martial arts provides us with the opportunity and tools for recognizing and unfolding this potential. Martial arts, which have been developed to destroy man, to murder, to commit suicide, but they can be used because the situation of death facing you in any form makes you alert, aware. Martial arts enhances flexibility, strength and stamina as well as coordination, presence and calmness – all at the same time. This purifies the energetic system of the body, removes blockages and frees energy. That's why in Japan particularly, many martial arts were developed by meditators. Practicing tai chi , aikido... slowly slowly you become more and more silent, more and more peaceful. The question of war and destruction disappears. Understand meditation in such a way, that you can use it not only while you are meditating but while you are doing anything. Just do it more consciously, more gracefully, more lovingly and you have changed the very quality of the action. And once you know to change the qualities of your actions, your whole life becomes the life of a meditator. I believe that tai chi is the best for spirituality.

If God himself creates the Devil, then he is responsible. And if the Devil is something independent, not related to God, then he himself becomes a God, a supreme power. And that other force must be stronger than God. The Devil can provoke and seduce and God cannot protect. The Devil seems to be a stronger God.

Any path of devotion is Bhakti Yoga, Christianity, Islam follow the path of emotions, BHAKTI yoga. From the heart they enter. If you are a devotional man, then Bhakti will be easy for you. Bhakti is not a promise that you will attain everything without doing anything. Bhakti demands your totality. You have to surrender yourself totally. Anything you like. Prayer is a state of being, not something that you do. It has nothing to do with words. Prayer is not a complaint or demand. Prayer is a surrender. Prayer is pure love - no desire attached to it, no conditions. It is sheer gratefulness. There is no higher spirituality than this -- to live in God in utter surrender. Prayer can only mean: "I am here, surrendered to you, do whatsoever you like.

There are other ways too. There are two types of religions in the world: prayer-oriented religions and meditation-oriented religions. On the path of prayer, one has to give up the ego at the outset, at the initial stage. Ego is a state of no-prayer: egolessness is a state of prayer. Prayer arises out of helplessness. And that helplessness will help your ego to drop. Prayer is a cry, a deep cry, of helplessness. People who pray become silent. Just praying, a certain kind of attitude arises in them; they put aside their ego, they put aside everything else. They become pointedly concentrated on the idea of God. If you really know what prayer is, prayer itself is its own reward. There is nobody else to reward you. The reward is not there in the future, not in the afterlife. But praying itself is such a beautiful phenomenon that who cares about the future and who bothers about the reward? That is greed, the idea of reward. Prayer in itself is such a celebration, it brings such great joy and ecstasy, that one prays for the prayer’s sake. One does not pray out of fear and one does not pray out of greed. One prays because one enjoys it. Prayer means surrender. Prayer means bowing down to existence. Prayer means gratitude. Prayer means thankfulness. Prayer means silence. Prayer means, “I am happy that I am.” Prayer simply means, “This tremendous gift of life is so much for such an unworthy man like me.” Seeing it, gratitude arises. Once you have learned to pray, prayer itself is enough, more than enough.

A friend is more than a acquaintance, they listen to us, we like them as a human being, so we call them a 'friend'.

I agree, but topic was about 'Being Aware Of Your True Self'. Unless you are tremendously intelligent or tremendously rich, your journey towards being aware of your 'true self' will be very difficult at younger age.

@LRyan In ancient India the wise people decided that by the time one is fifty-one should start preparing for 'vanprashtha'. His face should be now towards the mountains, towards the forest -- that is the meaning of 'vanprashtha'. He is still in the world, but now his whole consciousness has turned and he is getting ready to move into the deep forest to be alone. The days of meditation have come. According to yoga and tantra, life can be divided into seven year fragments. A child enters the first change when he is seven. Then his childhood is over. A great change. When he is fourteen sex enters into life. Another great change. Now he will have a different outlook, different desires. At twenty-one ambition enters into life. He becomes more political, rebellious, protesting, fighting -- ready to fight with anybody. He becomes a revolutionary. At twenty-eight he starts settling, he becomes more interested in comfort, a bank balance, a good salary, a good home, a wife, a child, a TV, a car -- things like that. He starts becoming more square. After twenty-eight a man becomes a house-holder. By the age of thirty-five a man becomes almost established -- whatsoever has happened he becomes established. If he has succeeded he becomes established in his success; if he has failed he becomes established in his failure. Then he knows that now nothing can be done; whatsoever has happened has happened. Now he is not in any way ready to fight; he relaxes. By the age of forty-two he starts becoming a little bit aware.... What is he doing here, earning money, power, prestige? Death is coming. Death knocks at the door for the first time near about forty-two -- that is the age when you have heart attacks and blood pressure and cancer and things like that. That is the first knock. Beware of the age forty-two, it is the most dangerous age. Then you start feeling a little shaky, then you start feeling a little trembling inside, you are no longer as certain as you used to be. You lose confidence. You have lived, you have known money, you have known wife, children, you have known sex and love, you have seen this and that, you have traveled around the world -- but nothing has satisfied you, it feels like something is missing. This is the moment when religion enters into your life. Now it depends on you. If you are very anti-religious you will miss the opportunity of being a seeker when death knocks. But it happens to people at different times. To somebody it may happen at thirty-five, to somebody it may happen at fifty. If you are very intelligent it can happen early, if you are very stupid it will not happen even at forty-two -- it depends. Intelligent people start turning to religion from the very beginning. Yes, it is a question of intelligence, not a question of age. By the age of forty-two sex is no longer such an obsession. If you don't repress sex, sex loses meaning in its own time. Just as it becomes very, very meaningful at the age of fourteen, so it becomes very, very meaningless at the age of forty-two. At the age of forty-nine again a great change happens. A man is not only interested in something greater than sex, he becomes involved, committed. At the age of forty-two he starts thinking, brooding, contemplating; by the age of forty-nine he starts being committed. he can become a monk, or, even if he does not take any outward form, he may start changing in his inside world. He will become a meditator, he will start praying. And this will be a commitment. Now this will not be a feeling, just a feeling, he will devote his whole life to it. Devotion arises at the age of forty-nine, commitment arises at the age of forty-nine. And if things go right, and you are not distracted by foolish people all around, by the age of fifty-six your meditation will start flowering -- the first satoris, the first glimpses of God will happen. And at the age of sixty-three you will be established in samadhi, you would have become enlightened -- if things go rightly.

Sex is just an opportunity for a higher transformation of life energy. As far as it goes it is alright, but when sex becomes the whole, when it becomes the sole outlet for life energy, then it becomes destructive. It can only be the means, not the end. And means are meaningful only when the ends are achieved. The moment sex becomes the end, the spiritual dimension is lost. If your energies are needed somewhere else, somewhere more blissful, sex will disappear. It is not that the energy is sublimated; it is not that you have done something to it. Rather, a new way toward greater bliss has opened for you and automatically, spontaneously, the energy begins to flow toward the new door. This is so automatic, so spontaneous, that no positive action against sex is needed. Whenever you are doing anything against any energy it is negative. The real, positive action is not even connected with sex but is concerned with meditation. You will not even know that sex has gone. It has simply been absorbed by the new. The reason why sex is so important to religious seekers is because it is so nonvoluntary, so compelling, so natural. It has become a criterion to know whether the life energy in a particular person has reached the divine. We cannot know directly that someone has encountered the divine. We can know directly that someone has transcended sex because we are acquainted with sex. Sex is so compulsive, so nonvoluntary, it is so great a force, that it cannot be transcended until someone has achieved the divine. You will encounter something so blissful that sex will become irrelevant and it will subside by itself. Now your energy will no longer flow in that direction. Energy always flows towards bliss. Because bliss appears in sex, energy flows toward it, but if you seek more bliss — a bliss that transcends sex, that goes beyond sex, a bliss that is more fulfilling, deeper, greater — then, by itself, energy will stop flowing towards sex. Go beyond, because still greater bliss awaits you. The journey must continue. This does not mean that by dropping sex one will achieve the divine. The reverse is a fallacy. Anything done negatively with sex will not transform the energy. On the contrary, it will create a conflict within you that will be destructive.

Sex is just an opportunity for a higher transformation of life energy. As far as it goes it is alright, but when sex becomes the whole, when it becomes the sole outlet for life energy, then it becomes destructive. If your energies are needed somewhere else, somewhere more blissful, sex will disappear. It is not that the energy is sublimated; it is not that you have done something to it. Rather, a new way toward greater bliss has opened for you and automatically, spontaneously, the energy begins to flow toward the new door. This is so automatic, so spontaneous, that no positive action against sex is needed. Whenever you are doing anything against any energy it is negative. The real, positive action is not even connected with sex but is concerned with meditation. You will not even know that sex has gone. It has simply been absorbed by the new. The reason why sex is so important to religious seekers is because it is so nonvoluntary, so compelling, so natural. It has become a criterion to know whether the life energy in a particular person has reached the divine. You will encounter something so blissful that sex will become irrelevant and it will subside by itself. Now your energy will no longer flow in that direction. Energy always flows towards bliss. Because bliss appears in sex, energy flows toward it, but if you seek more bliss — a bliss that transcends sex, that goes beyond sex, a bliss that is more fulfilling, deeper, greater — then, by itself, energy will stop flowing towards sex.

I am not saying that they always play knowingly, there is subconscious desire to enjoy power. Yes, she will become powerless, men will lose interest, his interest is in hunting. Women too is interested in winning other, her ways are passive. When she goes out for a party , she tries too look more attractive, than at her home, before her husband. If man and woman truly love each other, the ugly games of hunting will not happen. But we are so unconscious that we don't know love, we only know power politics and hunting.

She can say ,'we are just friends'. These are ways, how to manipulate, how to starve, the other, how to make him more and more hungry. The women go on pretending that they are not interested in sex, ugly sex. They are as much interested as you are interested, but the problem is: they cannot show their interest, otherwise you immediately reduce them to powerlessness, you start using them. So they are interested in everything else, in being very attractive to you and then denying you. That is the joy of power. Pulling you -- and you are pulled almost as if pulled by strings -- and then saying no to you. Reducing you to absolute powerlessness. And you are wagging your tail like a dog -- then the woman enjoys.

No. You cannot love your enemy! How can you love your enemy? It is a friendship in reverse order. Both give, both enrich your life. Opposites are not really opposites. Deep down, they have a great harmony. They are parts of one whole. They appear two because we have not looked deep down. It is because of our shallow eyes, non-penetrating minds, superficial consciousnesses -- that's why they look like opposites, otherwise they are not. That's why simple logic is always fallacious. Apparently it looks so right: if there is no enemy, the whole world will be your friend. You are wrong. If there is no enemy, there will be no possibility of friendship. There will be no possibility, because the very ground has been destroyed. If you are conscious, distinctions between friend and enemy should disappear !

Yoga is discipline. It is an effort on your part to change yourself. Many other things have to be understood. Yoga is not a therapy. In the West many psychological therapies are prevalent now, and many western psychologists think that yoga is also a therapy. It is not! It is a discipline. And what is the difference? This is the difference: a therapy is needed if you are ill, a therapy is needed if you are diseased, a therapy is needed if you are pathological. A discipline is needed even when you are healthy. Really, when you are healthy only a discipline can help then. It is not for pathological cases. Yoga is for those who are completely healthy as far as medical science is concerned, normal. They are not schizophrenic; they are not mad they are not neurotic. They are normal people, healthy people with no particular pathology. Still, they become aware that whatsoever is called normality is futile, whatsoever is called health is of no use. Something more is needed, something greater is needed, something holier and whole is needed. Therapies are for ill people. Therapies can help you to come to yoga, but yoga is not a therapy. Yoga is for a higher order of health, a different order of health – a different type of being and wholeness. Therapy can, at the most, make you adjusted. Freud says we cannot do more. We can make you an adjusted, normal member of the society – but if the society itself is pathological, then? And it is! The society itself is ill. A therapy can make you normal in the sense that you are adjusted to the society, but the society itself is ill! Yoga is not therapy; yoga is not trying in any way to make you adjusted to the society. If you want to define yoga in terms of adjustment, then it is not adjustment with the society, but it is adjustment with existence itself. It is adjustment with the divine! If your mind has come to realize that whatsoever you have been doing up to now was just senseless, it was a nightmare at the worst or a beautiful dream at the best then the path of discipline opens before you. Patanjali takes it for granted that you are interested in yoga, not as a hope, but as a discipline, as a transformation right here and now.