Greed / Beyond Greed

-------- Excerpt from the book 'Osho Transformation' -------

GREED

Whenever people become very greedy, they become very hurried, and go on finding more ways to gain more speed. They are continuously on the run because they think that life is running out. These are people who say, “Time is money.” Time is money? Money is very limited, time is unlimited. Time is not money, time is eternity – it has always been there and will always be there. And you have always been here and you will always be here.

So drop greed, and don’t be bothered about the result. Sometimes it happens that because of your impatience, you miss many things.

BEYOND GREED

Man is full if he in tune with the universe. If he is not in tune with the universe then he is empty, utterly empty. And out of that emptiness comes greed. Greed is to fill it – with money, with furniture, with friends, with lovers, with anything – because one cannot live in emptiness. It is horrifying, it is a ghost life. If you are empty and there is nothing inside you, it is impossible to live.

To have this feeling that you have much inside you, there are only two ways: either you get in tune with the universe…… Then you are filled with the whole, with all the flowers and with all the stars. They are within you just as they are without you. That is real fulfillment. But if you don’t do that – and millions of people are not doing that – then the easier way is to fill it with any junk.

Greed simply means you are feeling a deep emptiness and you want to fill it with anything possible, it doesn’t matter what it is. And once you understand it, then you have nothing to do with greed. You have something to do with coming into communion with the whole, so the inner emptiness disappears. And with it, all greed disappears.

But there are mad people all over the world, and they are collecting things to fill their emptiness. Somebody is collecting money although he never uses it. People are eating; they are not feeling hungry and still they go on swallowing. They know that this is going to create suffering, they will be sick, but they cannot prevent themselves. This eating is also a filling-up process. So there can be many ways to fill emptiness, although it is never full - it remains empty, and you remain miserable because it is never enough. More is needed, and the more and the demand for more is unending.

You have to understand the emptiness that you are trying to fill, and ask the question, “Why am I empty? The whole existence is so full, why am I empty? Perhaps I have lost track – I am no longer moving in the same direction, I am no longer existential. That is the cause of my emptiness.”

So be existential.

Let go, and move closer to existence in silence and peace, in meditation.

And one day you will see you are so full – overfull, overflowing – of joy, of blissfulness, of benediction. You have so much of it that you can give it to the whole world and yet it will not be exhausted.

That day, for the first time you will not feel any greed – for money, for food, for things, for anything. You will live naturally, and whatever is needed you will find it.

Dilemma

The decision hovers over us like a knife,
waiting for a move, waiting to strike,
while I search the empty silence for clues.

A sign, a call, a whisper in the night,
a stray, murmuring beam of moonlight,
to show the way, to shed some light.

The heart trembling, hides its face,
the mind deadlocked, lost, confused,
the spirit sublime, looks on amused.

"Tarry", tinkles the wind-chime in the breeze,
"Don't go", say the wildly nodding trees,
"Stay awhile, stay awhile", the owl calls.

Riverside retreat

It is Sunday and Mathew is still in Auckland, but the day is warm and bright and tempts me to bask in the sunshine. So I get into the car and take off in the general direction of Kaitoke which I have seen on the map but never visited. On the way, the river gleams in the sunshine and picnikers are splashing about in the knee-deep water or simply lolling about on the grass by the river. I reach Kaitoke in about half an hour and look for a secluded spot not frequented by the river-splashers. There is a little gap in the trees by the river and I get the plastic sheet out of the car together with my lunch and books and settle down under the trees. There are clumps of yellow-orange flowers everywhere as if the sunlight fell on the grass and deciding to stay transformed itself into flowers. It is moist and cool in the shade and the river bounding over rocks and pebbles is beautifully melodious. Slowly the cares of everyday life fall away and reading Osho’s Transformation book transports me into the world of the spirit, where all is peaceful and tranquil. And I come away feeling rejuvenated and refreshed having spent the day in the company of nature whose pace is unhurried and whose source is the Spirit.

Unburdening on the beach

It is Saturday and Mathew is in Auckland so I decide to gift myself the day. I take off for Raumati to meet Joan. Raumati is around 60K from Wellington up the Kapiti coast and there is some breathtaking scenery along the way. As I round the corner of the hill, the sea stretches out before me, languid, in deep shades of aquamarine, the morning sun glinting off the breakers as they curl around the rocks. The traffic is sparse for a Saturday and I reach Joan's at around midday. Joan's standing at the end of her driveway with open arms and a million watt smile. Just seeing her happy to see me is treat by itself. What follows thereafter is a day spent in the company of the sea, wind and sunshine and a special person sharing heartaches and insights and wisdom and understanding. We drive up to Paraparaumu which is a further 10K up the coast and settle down to a long, leisurely lunch sitting outside a café, soaking in the sun, and unburdening ourselves. Life, memories, lessons, challenges, guidance, awakening, the road taken and the road-yet-to-be-taken, all feature in our conversation and sometimes tears threaten to break out from behind the sunglasses.

After lunch we stroll along the beach made more beautiful with driftwood. Then we head back to Joan's place again and after a cup of tea, change into our swimsuits and head for the beach. As I step into the water it feels chilly but as I walk further and further into the waves, the water gets warmer and warmer as my body gets accustomed to the water. The sun shining directly overhead scatters a swathe of dancing, twinkling diamonds on the water and it feels as if the sun is saying to me 'Take all that life has to offer, be alive, be free". And so I get into the flow of the waves. It is a bit windy so the sea is a bit rough, and wave after wave comes crashing over me. And as I lie there I feel the ebb and flow of the tide and the pull of the moon and the expanse of the universe above me and feel so connected with everything. There are only 6 people on the beach and three of us are in the water. Joan's sitting and chatting on the shore with a couple of guys with paddle boats.

Swim over, we go back to Joan's house and I take a shower. By the time I come out some of Joan's friends have arrived with their children and we just sit out on the deck and chill out. It is so good to be in the sun and warmth with the wind tossing the manes of the trees and causing the wind-chimes to tinkle pleasantly. Around six I head back home, my heart glowing with memories of fun and warmth and friendship, of feeling one with the ocean, of browsing through a crystal shop buying crystals, a wind-chime and a Osho Tranformation book.

Thank you God ,for Raumati and its beach, for a laid-back day in the sun and for beautiful friends like Joan.

Trust

I did not die

Do not stand

at my grave and weep.

I am not there.

I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.

I am the diamond glints of snow.

I am the sunlight on ripened grain.

I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awaken

in the morning hush.

I am the swift uplifting rush

of quiet birds in circled flight.

I am the soft stars

that shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry

I am not there;

I did not die.

-Anonymous

I believe

I believe that the realm of possibility is infinite and boundless,
therefore I dream……

I believe that faith has infinite organising power,
therefore I trust that my dreams will come true………

I believe that the Universe provides with whatever you ask
if the motivation behind the asking is Love,
therefore my dreams become manifest.

God speaking

Just had a flash of insight which I thought I must share............

All minds are great. God speaks through all of us, it's just that he is trying to say different things. So the next time you are tempted to label something as stupid, inane, outrageous or even evil, just tell yourself that it is God speaking.

This wisdom was brought home to me one weekend when I was watching a late-night movie, a horror movie, a genre I have never enjoyed. . I don’t know what force pinned me to the sofa through all those senseless murders. But after all the killing and blood and gore, the movie spoke to me. I found a message that was somehow very pertinent to me at that stage of my life.

So now I pay special attention to what people say even though sometimes it sounds flippant or prejudiced. And I watch all kinds of movies, even though I still haven't managed to muster the courage to watch a Govinda movie. Must go and find out what God's saying to me through Govinda.

Desolation

A scream raged within me,
but couldn’t find a voice,
it stormed through my heart,
and held it in a gripping vice.

My heart now is a wasteland city,
a shrine devoid of its deity,
a song shorn of melody,
a festival of all its gaiety.

Among the shambles, the shattered ruins,
I search for a foothold, a light,
this spirit with which to spark,
before the scream brings in the night.

Soul song

Silence,
soft and blessed,
plucks at my heart-strings
with love-tipped fingers,
a rain-scented song arises
like a koel’s call
in the deep silence of the forest.

In this blessed silence,
I hear your footfalls
on the dew-strewn pathways of my heart,
longing gives way to love,
joy breaks free
in the gentle rain of tears.

In this blessed silence
we meet and become one,
there is no You nor I
nor the universe,
just the lightness of nothingness.

The Lord's call

I

Cast aside the dark cloak of the night,
and open your eyes to the blinding light.
Wake up, my child, to the luminous dawn,
come, together let's straddle the sun.
Through the laughing, singing skies let's sail,
infinite, limitless, with glorious trail.

II

Know that you are in Me, and I in you,
in every pain that wounds your heart,
and makes you bleed into the long, dark night.
Tender-hearted, may that pain make you.

In your friend's betrayal, your child's sparkling laughter,
in every joy that makes your spirit sing,
like lark ascending on light-tipped wing.
May gratefulness fill your heart, thereafter.

Saturday stories

Gull politics

It is Saturday and hubby and I are engaged in shopping. We take a break at lunchtime and are sitting on a bench on Petone beach eating hot chips. Soon we are joined by a lone seagull, orange beak, orange feet and orange lined eyes. Hubby throws bits of chips at him and the gull merrily gorges on junk food. We wonder about the fact that he does not even utter a quack to signal to his gull mates that there is food available. But soon another seagull joins us and then the fun begins.

Gull-1 undergoes a transformation. He starts squawking hoarsely and runs after Gull-2, pointed beak open, trying to run him off the place. Now Gull-2 is a smart fellow, he strategically retreats behind the bench where he is content with the bits that hubby throws backwards occasionally. But Gull-1’s squawks have attracted others of his kind and soon we have  a happy crowd of about 10-12 gulls, some of these, we notice, have black feet, beak and kohl-lined eyes. Owing to the fact that these black-eyed beauties are hovering on the fringes, and are smaller in size than the more flamboyant orange eyed-lined fellas, we conclude that the former must be the females.

Gull-1 is now really busy because more gulls are arriving by the minute and he is spending so much time squawking after them and chasing them that he has ceased to notice that bits of food are still being given. In the midst of his squawking and frantic chasing, the newcomers manage to snatch up the food which he has ignored probably with the mistaken belief that he can run all the others off the beach and be the only partaker of the food. Gull-2 at the back has also established his territory and is valiantly defending his turf.

I cannot help think that this is precisely how humans behave too. We are so busy fighting over land and territory that the basic needs of our people get forgotten. There are some countries that probably spend more of their GDP in defence expenditure than in providing food and basic amenities to its people. Even though we know that there are enough resources to feed the whole world, some of us are intent on cornering most of it in a concerted attempt to have more of more totally disregarding the fact that in the process others are getting less of less. When the US went to war in Iraq, they increased their defence budget and guess where the money came from. Some of it came from social welfare, elderly care and basic medical care. They actually cut back spending on these areas.

Sad to think that we are not so highly evolved after all.

~~~

Daane daane par likha hai khane wale ka naam


It is evening and in order to fulfill a greatly felt need for caffeine we stop at a coffee place. We placidly sipping our lattes when Mathew notices that the person at the counter has just thrown a muffin from the tray into the rubbish bin. “Maybe it was damaged, and they didn’t want to sell it”. A short while later we observe that another batch of muffins is being discarded. And then we watch aghast as tray after tray of unsold muffins vanish into the rubbish bin. It is then that we realize that it is closing time and they are throwing away all the unsold food. Our Indian mentality kicks in and we think, what a waste, surely this could have been given to the poor. But where are the poor? The charitable organizations are state-funded and probably wouldn’t need left-over food. What about poor families, new migrants, refugees? We try to work out the logistics involved in taking the food from eateries and carting it to these people. For the amount of labour and time involved we find that for the business owner it is not viable. The amount of food that restaurants, cafés, takeaways discard everyday must be colossal and yet all around the world people go to sleep hungry, die of starvation everyday. 

Kahi daanon par kissi khana wale ka naam nahi hote,
Kissi khane walon ke kismat mein chand daane nahi hote.

~~~

Lambton landscape

Walking down Lambton Quay one bright, warm, sunny afternoon, my senses are flooded with impressions.

People streaming down the sidewalk, dappled sunshine, warm in the sunlight, cool in the shade.

The aroma of coffee, freshly baked cookies, deep-fried fish and chips, curry, canapes, fresh bread, Indian food tinged with banana leaf (olfactory hallucination? Deep-seated desire?)

Baby blue eyes, black sparkling eyes, slanting eyes, sad eyes, sunglassed eyes.

Mothers pushing strollers with babies, mothers pushing strollers with babies in the fathers’ arms, lunchtime family interlude.

'Abra-kebab-ra' selling kebabs, 'Suzette' selling French crepes, 'Chow Mein' selling chow-mein, 'Tastebuds' tempting the tastebuds.

Drooping mouth, kissing-goodbye mouths, cherry-red mouth, sensuously laughing full mouth.

People with pamphlets – ‘Save the children’, ‘Save the forests’, ‘Save the world’.

Flowery skirts, mini skirts, layered skirts, tightly-clinging skirts over swaying legs.

Shop windows beckoning, Christmas trees twinkling, traffic lights turning amber-red-green, steel-glass structures next to elegantly rising churches.

Sautering walk, hurried walk, lazy hip-swinging sexy walk.

Crying children, happily-skipping children, tantrum-throwing children, toddlers gazing fascinated out of mothers’ arms.

Office-goers picnicing on patches of grass, construction workers on scaffolding hammering, lovers walking hand-in-hand.

People waiting at bustops. Waiting for love, waiting for heartbreak. Waiting at the crossing, ‘Don’t walk’, ‘Go’, just like life.

Stockinged feet, tired feet, sandaled feet, spring-in-the-step feet.

Silvery notes of laughter, broken bits of conversation, music pouring from the CD shop, tenor voices raised in carols, meloncholy rising from a one-stringed violin.

A medley of images, smells, sounds impinge on my senses and I come back feeling like I have just visited a painting.

Silence in Haiku

The sound
of hearts breaking
are echoed in silence.

Footfalls of silence
follow
broken dreams.

And yet,
silence also holds
the hint of hope.

Like shards of moonlight,
through black clouds
on the darkest night.

Saviour

Until yesterday I was a girl,
running with the other girls,
braids flying, skirts billowing,
to the river to fetch water,
helping Ma make rotis.

Then the crops failed,
we had nothing left to eat,
Baba looked sad and dejected.
A man came from the city to save us,
gave Baba lots of rupees.

Now I am a woman living in the city.
Men do strange things to my body,
it causes me a lot of pain.
It hurts them too I think,
for they moan and groan.

I wish Ma would come
and massage my limbs,
hold me to her bosom.
I wish I could go into the fields
and shriek into the night.

When I left home Ma was sad
but greatly relieved too.
She said I had saved the family,
saved Baba from certain death.
But who will come and save me?
Inspired, nay provoked by an article I read about a young girl sold into prostitution by her farmer father perhaps to escape starvation. Can't point any fingers here. Sabhi haalaat se majboor hai. Maybe the money brought them some respite, maybe they even prospered, but the girl has a dim chance of escaping her fate. She was sold at 14, became a mother at 16, one more mouth to feed, further entrenchment. Makes one wonder of what use is progress if the poor cannot be empowered.

A Reminding

A long time ago I read a story which for some reason I haven't forgotten yet because the Universe has got into the habit of reminding me about it whenever I tend to forget.

Some time ago (maybe 19th century) when the African jungles were still largely unexplored, an English explorer went to Africa for study and exploration work. He hired some locals to do the navigation and carry his gear and together they set out into the jungles. They would stay in tents during the nights and get up at dawn, cut through the bush, clear a path, do exploration, tent down for the night, next day clear some more bush, go forward etc. This went on for a few days until one morning the Englishman discovered that all his guides had gone on strike and had decided not to move from there for a few days. When he asked them the reason, they said "We have been working and moving and rushing on so fast that we feel that we have left our spirits behind. We need to stay in one place and get back into the rhythm of things so that our spirits can catch up with us".

Over the past few weeks I have been feeling the same. So I decided to slow down to let my spirit catch up. After a long time I listened to music, not the usual background music that I listen to while working at home or office. No, I put everything aside and sat down and actually listened to it with my eyes closed and my spirit reveling in it. Once again I felt my spirit being one with it and swaying and dancing to the music. I took time off from work and did nothing, I mean absolutely nothing, just listened to birdsong ringing out through the raag of the raindrops on the roof. I got back to reading and also came up with a great idea for my next pottery project.

Now the challenge is to see that I stay in this natural rhythm of things and not get carried away by the fast tempo of life. All that we desire for is already there within us, so why do we look for gratification outside ourselves. There is music, joy, laughter, compassion, peace, love. All of it Divine.

Chicken Soup for the Soul

Excerpted from "Chicken Soup for the Soul"

THE RULES FOR BEING HUMAN

1. You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for the entire period of this time around.

2. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called Life. Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant and stupid.

3. There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial and error. Experimentation. The “failed” experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiment that ultimately “works”.

4. A lesson is repeated until learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can then go on to the next lesson.

5. Learning lessons does not end. There is no part of life that does not contain its lessons. If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned.

6. “There” is no better than “here”. When your “there” has become a “here”, you will simply obtain another “there” that will again look better than “here”.

7. Others are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects something you love or hate about yourself.

8. What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.

9. Your answers lie inside you. The answers to Life’s questions lie inside you. All you need to do is look, listen and trust.

10. You will forget all this.

Courtesy - Chicken Soup for the Soul

A Chance Encounter

It is 8PM and I have just landed at Wellington Airport after a trip to Hamilton. I had asked for a taxi earlier and sure enough there is a man standing there holding a placard with my name on it. He introduces himself as Dean and even before we have reached his taxi he is already asking me where I work and what I do. He says he used to also work in the IT field for many years in the technical and sales side. He was part of the team taking care of www.stuff.co.nz NZ’s third site in terms of traffic and also was instrumental in getting customers for CityLink, Wellington’s high bandwidth network. I look at him in astonishment and almost involuntarily I ask him why he left all that and became a taxi driver. He said he found his previous job too stressful and he had done it too many years and was looking for a change and he was moonlighting anyway with a taxi so he decided to quit his job and buy a taxi and become self-employed. But his long-term goal is to have his own business maybe computer related. So I ask him what is stopping him and he says ‘plain laziness’.

So for the next half hour we talk about computers and life. I find out that he is divorced with two sons and has a girlfriend but no partner because “Marriage is a bad joke”. “Having boys is fun”. He tells me what courses and diplomas he has done and what jobs he has worked in. He asks me when I started with IT and I say “a long time ago I started with DOS”. It is his turn to look astonished, “I can’t believe that”, he says. And I reply “I am older than I look”. I ask him what sort of highs he gets from taxi-driving as compared to the almost daily highs you get in IT and he says “A high would be a drive from the airport to Paraparamu”. It turns out that he knows about Xplorer the GIS website that EGL creates and that he is acquainted with Ewan the guy at the Upper Hutt City Council that I used to liaise with and we both rediscover that it is a small world indeed.

And then there is a lull in the conversation and I am thinking about what he says about being an entrepreneur and suddenly I am almost thinking aloud about my desire to be an entrepreneur and now it is his turn to ask me in what is stopping me. After we have reached the house and I have paid him and we say our polite goodbyes and he adds, “It was a pleasure talking to you” and somehow for once it seems sincere and not a formality and I am about to say the same thing back but something stops me, maybe the feeling that I might not be able to match his sincerity. And he says "Who knows we might meet again", and I say "Yes, who knows, it is after all a small world". And later on I am thinking how we could talk so freely about things that mean so much to us to a perfect stranger like we were friends going on a drive and not a taxi-driver and his customer. Maybe it is God’s way of reminding me that I have a dream to fulfill and that He can came in any form to remind us of life's lessons.

Mosaic

The aircraft taking us from Hamilton to Wellington is a small one, a 33-seater (I counted) and I exchange seats with my boss to get the window seat. We take off at 7 PM and the sun is still high on the horizon. The plane is flying low so the landscape is still visible. What I see below me is simply breathtaking. A mosaic of green fields which stretch on and on into the horizon, interspersed with pools of water, undulating lines of trees, mounds of little hillocks and scattered all over black and white specks of cows and creams dots of sheep. The clouds have cast a dark shadow which moves as the clouds glide by and then the plane hits a cloud bank. We plough through tufts of soft, cottony, innocent looking clouds, but the plane thinks otherwise because it starts an instant fight and shakes in consternation. But soon the fight is over and we sail clear of the clouds. The landscape below is now bathed in evening sunlight and the grass glows emerald green in the light, trees casting long dark shadows, and the sunlight gleaming off red roofs in tiny hamlets and glinting off windows and lighting up the bodies of little rivulets and ponds.

Then the pilot decided it is time to climb even higher and very soon we are flying over this bank of cumulus, calm and steady and I can’t help thinking that this is how Jonathan Livingston Seagull must have felt when he flew high over the clouds, breaking free of the limits he had hindered himself with, breaking free of accepted convention, daring to live his life and more importantly daring to live his dream. And from up there the cares and troubles of my life seem so insignificant, so puny so as to be totally wiped out. And I realize that if I remain aloft and apart from the drama of my life whose script I have myself written, I can always be in this space of calm and serenity.

And soon we are flying over the Tararuas which is still snow-capped and the windmills over the Manawatu range, until I see the graceful arc of a long river which I discover with joy is our very own Hutt River flowing through Upper Hutt. And there is Stokes Valley right below nestling placidly among hills darkening in the gathering dusk. The road to Wainuomata snaking over the Eastern Hills and the surf gently caressing the sands of the Eastbourne bays. And as the plane turns towards the airport the sun is low over the horizon, almost sinking into the sea, blazing this shimmering, golden path on the water, almost beckoning me to take it. And the land’s end at Happy Valley and the runway comes up to meet us.

Waikato and thereabouts

Day 1 :

My trip to the Waikato University was fascinating. Great campus, spread out among rolling lawns, little lakes, hostel units. This is the only univ here with a Centre for the Performing Arts. We went inside and had a look at the theatres and green rooms. There is one outdoor performance area which is a circular area just by the side of the lake with long steps where the audience can sit. Great setting. If I was close enough I would have come for performances. We had breakfast at an old train station that got converted into a café and lunch at another nice place.

We drove to the Springhill Prison in the afternoon which is still under construction and is also quite big. All very flash. This one is going to have Plasma TV in the recreation areas for the inmates and under-floor heating, because the inmates are vandalising the heaters and it is more cost-effective to have under floor heating. The taxpayers are not too happy. The drive to the hotel was good. It rained for some time, but it was a strange experience. It would rain heavily to near zero-visibility, then taper off, then clear dry roads and sunshine and blue sky, then rain again, then sun again. It seemed like the rain clouds were chasing the car. Finally the rain clouds settled over us and we had rain for the rest of the evening. It was very enjoyable.

Day 2 :

It is beautiful in Waikeria. The Waikeria prison is spread over an area of 500 acres (I think) and the buildings are all spread out with barbed wire fences for each. The rest of the land is pasture with cows and sheep (around 3000 heads of cattle). Some of the inmates work on the farms. We passed by vans with inmates in them going to work. A lot of maize is being grown on farms which is then fed to the cows. There is also a water treatment plant which treats water from the local river for drinking. And the sewer treatment plant treats waste before it is released into the waste water system. There used to be vegetable farms and fruit orchards and nurseries which has now been closed down. But the National govt decided to close them since they were not profit making units. There is a minimum security unit with no barbed wire fence, but with a library and classrooms for inmates wanting to learn. I was driven around the grounds and buildings but did not get into the actual buildings.

It is a beautiful day and the office looks out to green grass and trees and a vast expanse of blue sky. It feels more like I am on holiday than at work. I try to focus on the screen but the landscape keeps calling out to me. We finish at four and take the car back to Hamilton to catch the flight back. It is a beautiful drive, sunny and calm and the pastures laid out on both sides.