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Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Dancing moonbeams

The night is awash
in the aftermath of rain.
Fragrant breezes,
glistening leaves,
the earth that sighs a benediction.
The moon rises full,
and moonbeams dance playful
on shimmering waters.

A lone bird calls,
calls again
and stops,
as if to listen to the silence.
Fireflies float by
gliding on the fragrant air.
As moonbeams skip and slide
on sparkling waters.

The valley is still,
the fields asleep,
the earth lies rain-soaked
and fragrant.
Waters tumble down hillsides,
gather in streams,
and moonbeams ride laughing
on warbling waters.

In the ethereal silence
all dissolves,
earth, sky and space.
Even I.
And the soul exults,
ebullient, ecstatic
with the dancing moonbeams
on silvery waters.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Teachers all

No man is your enemy, no man is your friend, every man is your teacher.

- old saying

Saturday, April 24, 2010

The great dance of suchness

The Upanishads are the purest teaching possible; they do not make any compromise. They do not make any compromise for you. They are rigorous, very hard and they try to remain totally pure. So what do the Upanishads call Brahman? They simply call him TAT -- that. They do not give him a name. 'That' is not a name; 'that' is an indication. And there is a great difference. When you do not have a name, then you indicate and say "That." It is a finger pointing toward the unknown. 'That' is a finger pointing toward the unknown, so the Upanishads call him Tat.

You may have heard one of the most famous sentences of the Upanishads: TAT-VAM-ASI -- That art thou. You are also the Brahman, but the Upanishads go on calling him 'that'. Even to say calling him is not good because the moment we use he, him, the ultimate becomes a person. The Upanishads do not say that he is a person; he is just a force, energy, life, but not a person. So they insist on calling him Tat -- that. That is the only name given by the Upanishads to the ultimate.

Many things are implied, of course. One: if there is no name, or if Tat, that, is the only name, prayer becomes impossible. You can meditate on that but you cannot pray. The Upanishads really do not believe in prayer; they believe in meditation. Prayer is something addressed to a person. Meditation is simply sinking, drowning, within yourself. The person is somewhere outside you but that, the Brahman, the ultimate force, is within you. You need not relate to it as the other; you can simply drown yourself inwardly. You can simply sink within yourself and you will find that -- because "That art thou."

To take Brahman as the other is false for the Upanishads. Not that the other is not Brahman: everything is Brahman; the other also, the outer also, is Brahman. But the Upanishads say that if you cannot feel him within, it is impossible for you to feel him without -- because the nearest source is within; the without is far away. And if the nearest has not been known, how can you know the faraway, the distant? If you cannot feel him in yourself, how can you feel him in others? It is impossible.

The first step must be taken within. From there the Brahman, that, is nearest. You are that. To say nearest is false; there is not even that much distance -- because even when someone is near there is distance. Nearness shows a certain distance; nearness is a sort of distance. He is not even near you -- because you ARE that. So why go wandering without? He is in the home. You are looking for the guest and he is the host. You are waiting for the guest to come and he is already the host. He is you.

So the first implication is: for the Upanishads there is no prayer; there is meditation. Prayer is a relationship between two, just like love. Meditation is not a relationship between two. It is just like surrender. Meditation is going withinwards, surrendering yourself unto yourself -- not clinging to the periphery but sinking deep to the center. And when you are at your center you are in that -- Tat, Brahman.

The second implication: when the Upanishads call him that, it means he is not the creator; rather, he is the creation -- because the moment we say, "God is the creator," we have made him a person. And not only have we made him a person: we have divided existence into two -- the creator and the created. The duality has entered. The Upanishads say that he is the creation. Or, to be more accurate, he is the creativity -- the very force of creation.

I always like to illustrate this point by the phenomenon of dance. A painter paints but the moment he has painted his picture, the painter is separate from the picture. Now the painter can die and the picture will remain. Or you can destroy the picture but by doing that the painter will not be destroyed -- they are separate. Now the picture can exist for centuries without the painter. The painter is not needed. Once painted, it is finished; the relationship is broken.

Look at the dancer! He dances but the dance is not separate; it cannot be separated. If the dancer is dead, then the dance is dead. Dance is not separate from the dancer; the dance cannot exist without the dancer. And the dancer cannot exist without the dance either because the moment there is no dance, the person may be there but he is not a dancer.

God's relation to the world, for the Upanishads, is that of dance and the dancer. Hence, we have pictured Shiva as Nataraj, the dancer. A very deep meaning is there -- that this world is not something secondary that God has created, then forgotten about and become separate from. The world is not of a secondary order. It is as much of the first order as the divine himself because this world is just a dance, a LEELA, a play. It cannot be separated.

Calling Brahman That says all that is is Brahman, all that is, is he -- the manifested and the unmanifested, the creation and the creator. He is BOTH.

The word that -- Tat -- also has a very subtle meaning. Buddha has used that meaning very much and Buddhists have a separate school of teaching just based on this word. Buddha has called that suchness, he has called it TATHATA; hence Buddha's name, Tathagata -- the man who has achieved suchness, who has achieved That.

This word suchness is very beautiful. What does it mean? If you are born, Buddha will say, "Such is the case that you are born." No other comment. If you die he will say, "Such is the case -- you die!" No other comment, no reaction to it; things are such. Then everything becomes acceptable. If you say, "Things are such that now I have become old, ill; things are such that I am defeated; things are such that I am victorious; things are such..." then you don't claim anything, and you don't feel frustrated because you don't expect anything. Such is the nature of things. Then one who is born will die, one who is healthy will become ill, one who is young will become old, one who is beautiful will become ugly. Such is the nature of things.

Unnecessarily you get worried about it; this suchness is not going to change because of your worry. Unnecessarily you get involved in it; your involvement is not going to change anything. Things will go on moving in their own way. The suchness, the river of suchness, will go on moving in spite of you. Whatsoever you do makes no difference; whatsoever you think makes no difference. You cannot make any difference in the nature of things.

Once this feeling settles within your heart, then life has no frustration for you. Then life cannot frustrate you, then life cannot disappoint you. And with this feeling of suchness a subtle joy arises in your being. Then you can enjoy everything -- YOU are no more, really. With the feeling that "Such is the nature, such is existence, such is the course of things," your ego disappears.

How can your ego exist? It exists only when you think that you can make certain changes in the nature of things. It exists only when you think that you are a creator -- you can change the course, you can manipulate nature. This very moment, when you think that you can manipulate nature, ego enters, you become egoistic. You start functioning and thinking as if you are separate.

--- excerpt from 'The Supreme Doctrine, discourses on the Kena Upanishad' by Osho ---

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

The new man will be earthly

The new man will be earthly. And by 'earthly' I don't mean materialistic. The new man will be a realist. He will love this earth. Because we have not loved this earth and our so-called religions have been teaching us to hate this earth, we have destroyed it. It is a beautiful planet, one of the most beautiful, because one of the most alive. This planet has to be loved, this planet has to be rejoiced in. It is a gift. This body has so many mysteries in it that even a Buddha is possible only because of this body. This body becomes the temple of the greatest possibility: Buddhahood, nirvana. This body has to be loved. This earth has to be loved.

The new man will find his religion in nature -- not in dead stone statues, but in living dancing trees in the wind. He will find his religion surfing on the sea, climbing on the virgin mountain. He will find his prayer with the snow, with the moon, with the stars. He will be in dialogue with existence as it is. He will not live with abstract ideas, he will live with realities. His commitment will be to nature, and through that commitment he will come to know super-nature. God is hidden here in this earth, in this very body. This very body, the Buddha. This very earth, the paradise.

The new man will read the scripture of nature. This will be his Veda, his Koran, his Bible. Here he will find sermons in the stones. He will try to decipher the mysteries of life, he will not try to demystify life. He will try to love those mysteries, to enter in those mysteries. He will be a poet, he will not be a philosopher. He will be an artist, he will not be a theologian. His science will also have a different tone. His science will be that of Tao, not an effort to conquer nature, because that effort is just foolish. How can you conquer nature? -- you are part of nature. His science will be of understanding nature, not of conquering nature. He will not rape nature, he will love and persuade nature to reveal its secrets.

The new man will not be ambitious, will not be political.
Politics has no future; politics has existed because of the neurosis of humankind. Once the neurosis disappears, politics will disappear. Ambition simply means you are missing something and you are consoling yourself that you will get it in the future. Ambition is a consolation. Today it is all misery, tomorrow there will be joy. Looking at tomorrow you become capable of tolerating today and its misery: today is always hell, tomorrow is heaven. You keep on looking at heaven, you keep on hoping.

But that hope is not going to be fulfilled ever because tomorrow never comes. Ambition means you are incapable of transforming your today into a beatitude; you are impotent. Only impotent people are ambitious: they seek money, they seek power. Only impotent people seek power and money. The potential person lives. If money comes his way, he lives the money too, but he does not seek it, he is not after it. He is not afraid of it either.

The old man was either after money or afraid of money, either after power or afraid of power; but in both ways his whole focus was on power and money. He was ambitious. The old man is pitiable. He was ambitious because he was unable to live, unable to love. The new man will be able to live and able to love. And his herenow is going to be so beautiful, why should he be worried about tomorrow? His concern will not be with having more, his concern will be with BEING more -- another very important distinction to be remembered. His concern will be with being more, not having more. Having more is just a substitute for being more. You have more money, so you think you are more. You have more power, so you think you are more. Deep down you remain the same beggar.
Alexander dies as empty-handed as any beggar.

Being more is a totally different dimension. Being more means getting in touch with your reality, getting in tune with your being, and helping yourself to fall in harmony with the universe. To be in harmony with the universe you become more. The more you are in tune with existence, the more you are. If the harmony is total, you are a god. That's why we call Buddha a god, Mahavira a god -- utter total harmony with existence, no conflict at all. They have dissolved themselves into the whole, they have become the whole -- just as a dewdrop disappears into the ocean and becomes the ocean. They have died in their egos, now they live as existence itself.

The new man will have no use for sham, facade or pretense, he will be true, because only through truth is there liberation. All lies create bondages.

OSHO
The Secret of Secrets….Vol-1…# 14

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Light up the Fire

I gaze into the heart, lowly it may be,
Thought the words be higher still.
For the heart is all the substance,
The speech an accident.
How many phrases will you speak,
Too many for me.
How much burning, burning will you feel,
Be friendly with the fire, enough for me.
Light up the fire of love inside,
And blaze the thoughts away.

- Rumi

From The Love Poems of Rumi by Philip Dunn

The Temple of Love

The temple of love is not love itself;
True love is the treasure,
Not the walls about it.
Do not admire the decoration,
But involve yourself in the essence,
The perfume that invades and touches you-
The beginning and the end.
Discovered, this replace all else,
The apparent and the unknowable.
Time and space are slaves to this presence.

- Rumi


From The Love Poems of Rumi by Philip Dunn

Defeated by Love

The sky was lit
by the splendor of the moon
So powerful
I fell to the ground
Your love
has made me sure
I am ready to forsake
this worldly life
and surrender
to the magnificence
of your Being.
- Rumi
from 'Love Poems of Rumi' by Deepak Chopra
Translated by: Fereydoun Kia

Love poems from God

LOVE IS THE CURE

Love is the cure,

for your pain will keep giving birth to more pain
until your eyes constantly exhale love
as effortlessly as your body yields its scent.


WITH PASSION

With
passion pray. With
passion work. With passion make love.
With passion eat and drink and dance and play.
Why look like a dead fish
in this ocean
of
God?

From 'Love poems from God' by Rumi
translated by Daniel Ladinsky

O Love

O Love, O pure deep Love, be here, be now,
Be all – worlds dissolve into your
stainless endless radiance,
Frail living leaves burn with your brighter
than cold stares –
Make me your servant, your breath, your core.

From: Perfume of the Desert - Andrew Harvey – Inspirations from Sufi Wisdom

The Meaning of Love by Rumi

Both light and shadow
are the dance of Love.
Love has no cause;
it is the astrolabe of God’s secrets.
Lover and Loving are inseparable
and timeless.
Although I may try to describe Love
when I experience it I am speechless.
Although I may try to write about Love
I am rendered helpless;
my pen breaks and the paper slips away
at the ineffable place
where Lover, Loving and Loved are one.
Every moment is made glorious
by the light of Love.

- Rumi

from 'Love Poems of Rumi' by Deepak Chopra
Translated by: Fereydoun Kia

Saturday, April 10, 2010

A song sung in silence

In the fragrant spaces of my soul,
is that you who stirs, Oh Silent One.
In the vast immensity of my soul,
is that your footfall I hear, Oh Silent One.
Is that your hand that strums my soul-strings
and sets them aquiver.
Is that your whisper that transforms my soul
into one unending melody.

The lamp that you lit with your love
is now a conflagration.
The note that you whispered in my soul
is now a symphony.
And so it flows from life to life
until it finally meets the mighty sea.
Therein it shall lose itself,
therein it shall forever be.

Wednesday, April 07, 2010

Love

Love is nothing but oneness. All barriers, boundaries, differences, separateness are created by the ego-mind. No such thing exists. When all barriers come down, when boundaries disappear, differences melt, and when one no longer feels separate from the loved one, but one, that is love. The body doesn’t figure in this, neither the mind, nor the emotions. It is not an emotional state but the state of pure being. There is no ‘you’ or ‘I’ or ‘us’. Even one’s identity disappears, not that it merges with the other’s. The identity itself which is a mind-creation disappears and we see ourselves revealed in our true state. There is surrender, bliss, union. This is love.

However, it is extremely difficult to remain in this state of oneness and freedom all the time. Interacting in the world puts us in the state of fear, instantly creating barriers between ‘us’ and ‘them’, and instantly cutting off our awareness of our inner self, our source of love. During such moments it helps to step back from the mind and remain in awareness of what is going on. To see the fear for what it is, a mere mind-construction, a trick of the ego, to see how it is creating separateness and division. And how it disconnects us from our own self.

But most of us have in our lives have experienced rare moments of total trusting surrender whether it be in relation to a close loved one or in relation with what we call God. The Sufi mystic Rumi found his beloved in his friend Shams of whom he wrote after Shams’ death

Why should I seek? I am the same as
He. His essence speaks through me.
I have been looking for myself!

The symbolic union of Radha with Lord Krishna epitomises the merging with God. The bliss that she feels upon her union is as fervent as the pining for that state when she is not in the presence of the Lord. Truly, once we have experienced that oneness with the beloved then it is always our fervent desire to return to that state of love. In such moments we are able to let go of our fear, transcend the mind and come home to our own loving self. When we become one with the beloved, we become one with the whole universe. We stand revealed as divine, yes, truly, we stand revealed as God.

Thursday, April 01, 2010

An ode to trees

- a beautiful poem by Mara Freeman

A ninefold blessing of the sacred grove
Now be upon all forests of Earth:
For willow of the streams,
Hazel of the rocks,
Alder of the marshes,
Birch of the waterfalls,
Ash of the shade,
Yew of resilience,
Elm of the brae,
Oak of the sun,
And all trees that grow and live and breathe
On hill and brake and glen:

No axe, no saw, no fire shall harm you,
No mind of ownership shall seize you,
No hand of greed or profit claim you.
But grace of the stepping deer among you,
Strength of the rooting boar beneath you,
Power of the gliding hawk above you.

Deep peace of the running stream through your roots,
Deep peace of the flowing air in your boughs,
Deep peace of the shining stars on your leaves,

That the harp of the woods be heard once more
Throughout the green and living Earth.