I felt like sharing this......

The Iraq War..............Why did America invade Iraq in the first (The public reason)?

kaliom — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 18:48:23 GMT

There were 2 main reasons given to the American public:- 1. Iraq has weapons of mass destruction and therefore is dangerous 2. He is supporting Al Qaida and therefore America's the war on terror has to be extended to Iraq as well. Watch the video clips in this link:- http://60minutes.yahoo.com/segment/151/iraq_war_saddams_view Both reasons have been proven false in the extensive interrogation of Saddam after his capture. Hey, so now that its clear that both the reasons were false, lets exit from Iraq tomorrow and withdraw all troops and come back to square one. Is it possible? I don't think so. America is going to have to live with this legacy for the next god-knows-how-many years. This really makes me angry. The unfairness of it all. -Thousands and thousands of people have died, been massacred, women raped, children orphaned. -Iraq is not likely to reach a state of stability and security anytime soon. -Billions of USD have been spent in a war whereas the money could have been better utilised to fund research in renewable energy sources to remove the dependency on the goddamn-fossil-fuel-economy, building orphanages, reducing health care cost etc etc etc. The list can go on. All this war for what??? What responsibility does a country like US have while making a decision to invade another country? Especially going against the world opinion? Is the American public so gullible that they voted for Bush the second time around? That they could not see that the reasons that were given in the first place for the war were FALSE?? The real reason was - control over oil and OPEC and presence in the middle-East? Isn't this country supposed to have a fantastic literacy rate and high education levels, communications systems all set-up? After all its a 1st world developed country, yeah? I guess one cant keep crying over split milk. I am wondering what are the options? What ideas do you have for the US to exit this campaign gracefully and fair? Any suggestions???? Or is this a mess that we all will have to live through in some or the other for the next god-knows-how-many-years?? How can public opinion be engaged in the future, when such dramatic decisions need to be made? Or does public opinion not matter at all? Or does it mean that once we have elected our reps in the government, they have full authority to run an authoritarian regime while throwing wool in the eyes of the public? (Why is this different then the Nazi regime?) Shouldn't the workings of a democratic govt be transparent to the people? Why dont we have an secure internet polling site where the entire population can register and vote whether they want the country to go to war or not, after having done their own research? And the govt be bound to the popular opinion of its citizens. Why not have a participatory democracy and governance? I invite your thoughts.

Here's a chance to act locally - Participate in the STOP AERIAL PESTCICIDE SPRAYING IN MARIN action.

kaliom — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 11:34:05 GMT

Thanks Gigi. I would like to pass this on to my tribe friends. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- STOP AERIAL PESTICIDE SPRAYING IN MARIN www.youtube.com/watch www.youtube.com/watch The California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) in an effort to eradicate the Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM), will start aerial spraying of a carcinogenic pesticide over Marin County on August 1, 2008, -- this is not just one time -- it will continue for several years. There have been no independent studies to determine either the short or long term health or environmental effects of the pesticide, CheckMate, (made of course by our good friends at Monsanto) on any species. Last fall citizens of the Monterey Bay communities were assured there would be no adverse health impacts and yet at least 643 people in Santa Cruz and Monterey reported illnesses. Hundreds of shore birds were found dead. GOAL: STOP THE SPRAY until the CDFA publishes a full list of all ingredients and conducts independent safety tests on human health and the necessary environmental impact studies and publishes the results. The public needs to be categorically assured there will be no harm to people or the environment and that the spraying is necessary. ACTION: Call Governor Schwarzenegger and ask for an Executive Order to stop the spraying! Call our legislators and request support to withhold funding for LBAM aerial spraying. GET INVOLVED: Sign up now ( stopthespraymarin.org ) Contact our elected officials : Governor Schwarzenegger (916) 445-2841 CDFA Secretary Kawamura akawamura@cdfa.ca.gov Senator Carole Migden (415) 479-6612 Assemblymember Jared Huffman (415) 479-4920 RECENT PRESS COVERAGE: Marin I-J: www.marinij.com/ci_8268623 SF Chronicle/AP: www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi Support our efforts: To make a donation, log onto stopthespraymarin.org

My father has passed on.

kaliom — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 10:36:56 GMT

My father has left his body and starting on his journey through the bardos of death. The fatal call came early today morning.

Eating vegetarian is taking global warming personally

kaliom — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 10:32:18 GMT

Hiya Tribers, I saw this internet article posted by one of my triber friends and felt like spreading this message around. Though I have been a vegetarian since I was born, I have never advocated it to anyone else so far. But this is the first time I see an article that it is linked with global warming and thats good enuf motivation to spread this message around. So here is the link and then the rest if upto you to decide. http://www.alternet.org/environment/69275/

The year is coming to an end if you want to donate your tax dollars somewhere...........

kaliom — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 19:42:46 GMT

Here is a brilliant project in South Africa that I have personally visited and can vouch for with my heart and soul. The Bulungula Lodge started when Dave - an ex-IT South African guy from Cape Town, decided that IT was not doing it for him and embarked on a 2 year journey to start this eco-tourism combined with community development project. All using his personal funds, skills and time. What emerged is described more beautifully at www.bulungula.com The idea was to generate funds from the lodge to be utilised in community development projects for the village of nqlini and it did resulting in various projects in the village that are mentioned in the web-site. Recently, Dave created a not-for-profit organisation to take bulungula to the next step and beyond what the lodge was already achieving. To that effect, he has started a very official Bulungula Incubator and looking at various resources for funding. As his email said, this was the first time that they were asking to raise funds from a place outside of their own pockets, and felt a bit strange about this doing this :-)) The first thing that they are looking to do is build the village school back so the kids can start going to school regularly. More details on this are speltout at : www.bulungulaincubator.org under the 'Crisis School Rehabilitation' link. Now, why am I writing all this on my tribe blog? Well, firstly, because I cannot stop feeling passionately for Bulungula since I visited it and hit home. It is unique. It is real. It is awe inspiring. It is truly truly ecological and they are not just using the word eco-tourism as a catch word like many others are. It truly includes community participation and development. Most important, Dave is a hard working, extremely committed to making this a successful development venture, sincere and honest to the core, fully trustable - qualities that are hard to find in this work. I can vouch for all this as I have stayed there and volunteered there in the nursery project that you see on the Incubator web-site. Then I come to the second point that if - by any freaking chance - if any of you are looking to donate some money to an NGO/etc, then I would like to encourage you to have a look at the Bulungula Incubator as a possible candidate for some of your tax dollars. They will be well used. And with that I will shut up, with heartfelt appreciation.

Osho continues to amaze me :-)

kaliom — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 21:09:53 GMT

Why has there never been a society in which the inner and the outer sciences, live in harmony? Why has there never been a society in which the inner and the outer sciences, the science of gentleness and love and the science of aggression and death, live in harmony? _______________________________________________________________________________________________________ "The very effort to reconcile the polar opposites is wrong -- you will never succeed in it. It is like trying to reconcile day and night, it is like trying to reconcile life and death. You need not reconcile them, you have only to see that they are reconciled. Day and night are moving perfectly in rhythm; life and death are like two wings of existence. Once you see that the polar opposites can't exist separately, once you have seen that reconciliation is not needed at all, that they are already reconciled, that awareness will help you to move from one pole to another without any problem. They are totally different phenomena -- polar opposites, but all polar opposites are also complementaries. Science is concentration: it is mind, it is effort. Meditation or religion is a totally different world: it is relaxation, it is let-go -- it is not concentration at all. It is not one-pointedness, it is no-pointedness. So how can you reconcile them? How do you reconcile work and rest? But you work hard in the day, and at night the rest comes of its own accord. You have earned it; your hard work brings rest. Philosophically reconciliation is not possible: work cannot be rest, rest cannot be work. If you try to create a synthesis you will destroy both, the beauty of both. Work is work, rest is rest. But work done well brings rest, and if you have rested well in the night; in the morning you will feel so vital, so alive, so full of energy, that work is needed. Rest brings work, work brings rest -- it is a circle. Reconciliation is already there: day brings night, night brings day; life brings death, death brings life. They are half-circles; with both together the circle is perfect and complete. But please don't try to reconcile them in theory, in philosophy. In existence watch, and see how polar opposites are functioning together, hand in hand, as complementaries. That has not been done yet; in fact, humanity was not mature enough to do it up to now. Everything needs a particular time, a particular maturity, in which to be done. The East has lived religiously -- that is one pole -- and because IT has lived religiously it has not been able to produce science. The West has lived scientifically, and because of its science it has lost track of religion. Now for the first time, the East is no more East and the West is no more West. The earth is becoming one: the earth is becoming one. global village. This is the time when the reconciliation can be seen, can be understood. Man is entering into a new phase; a new consciousness is to dawn. For at least ten thousand years, as far as consciousness is concerned, nothing new has happened. There have been Buddhas and there have been Albert Einsteins, but we are still waiting for a Buddha who is also an Albert Einstein or an Albert Einstein who is also a Buddha. The day is coming closer and closer. Albert Einstein in his last days was very much interested in meditation, in religion. His last days were full of wonder. He said in his old age, "I used to think when I was young that sooner or later all the mysteries of existence would be solved, and I worked hard. But now I can say that the more we know, the more existence turns out to be mysterious. The more we know, the less we know and the more we become aware of the vastness...." Science has not been able to demystify existence. Now this is recognized not by ordinary technicians but by geniuses, because they are the pioneers; they can see the dawn very close by, they are the prophets. Albert Einstein says that science has failed in de-mystifying existence, that on the contrary it has mystified things even more. For example, it was so easy in the old days, just a hundred years ago, for the scientist to say that all is matter. Now matter has disappeared; in neo-physics there is no entity called matter. The deeper the physicist went into the world of matter, the more matter was not to be found at all: it is pure energy. How to define energy now? Is it material? Energy cannot be material; energy is something totally different from matter. Matter is static, energy is dynamic; matter is a noun, energy is a verb. Matter is measurable. That is exactly the meaning of the word "matter": it comes from "measure," the root means "measurable." Matter can be measured, that's why it is called matter. Energy is immeasurable, it cannot be called matter. And as the physicist has entered into the world of energy, he has become more and more puzzled; never before has he been so puzzled. Mystics have always been in awe before existence. The physicist is for the first time in awe, because he has for the first time touched something very vital otherwise he was just looking from the outside. A stone is just a stone from the outside. The physicist now knows that the stone is not just a stone: it contains universes. A single small pebble that you can hold in your hand contains so much atomic energy that the whole universe can grow out of it, contains so much atomic energy that the whole universe can be destroyed by it. It is not just a pebble any more and it is not solid any more. You are holding it in your hand and you know it is solid, but your knowing is no longer scientific. It only appears solid; it is liquid. And it looks so available, manipulatable; you can do things with it. But you don't know its mysteries which are not manipulatable, and the mysteries are really immense -- almost as immense as the mystery of God itself. The modern physicist is using the language of the mystics for the first time. Eddington said, "The universe no longer looks like a thing but like a thought." This, from the mouth of a scientist, a Nobel prize-winner -- the universe looks like a thought and not like a thing? That means the universe is more consciousness than matter. And matter has been analyzed, our penetration has become deeper; we have come across atoms, electrons, neutrons -- and we are utterly mystified, at a loss even to express what we have come across. We don't have the language, the right language for it, because we have never known it. Now the right language has to be found in the words of the mystics: a Buddha will be helpful, a Lao Tzu will be helpful And scientists are looking into the words of the Buddhas to find the right language, because these are the people who have been talking about paradox, mystery. And now science is coming across paradoxes. The greatest paradox is that the electron behaves in such a mysterious way that the scientist has no language to express it. It behaves simultaneously as a particle and as a wave. This is impossible, inconceivable for the mind. Either something is a particle or it is a wave; the same thing cannot be both at the same time. You know Euclidean geometry: either something is a point or something is a line; one thing cannot be a point and a line together at the same time. A line means many points following each other in sequence; a single point cannot function like a line. But that's now electrons are functioning -- simultaneously as a point and as a line, as a particle and as a wave. What to make of it? How to say it? The scientist is dumb. Now he knows that the mystics, who have always been talking in paradoxes, who have been saying God is far away and very close by, must be saying something through their experience. The mystics who used to say that life and death are one, not two, for the first time are becoming relevant to the scientist's mind. A new science is arising which says it is a science of uncertainty. No more certainty! Certainty seems to be too gross. Mahavira, twenty-five centuries ago, used to make each of his statements with a "perhaps." If you asked him, "Is there a God?" he would say, "Perhaps." In those days it was not understood at all -- because how can you say, "Perhaps"? Either God is or is not. It seems so simple and so logical: "If God is, God is; if he is not, he is not. What do you mean by 'perhaps'?" Now it can be understood. Mahavira was using the same language in religion that is being used by Albert Einstein in physics. Albert Einstein calls it the theory of relativity. Mahavira has called his philosophy exactly the same: Sapekshawad -- the theory of relativity. Nothing is certain, everything is flexible, fluid. The moment you have said something, it is no longer the same. Things don't exist, Mahavira says, but only events. That's what modern science is saying, that there are no things in the world, but only events. And we cannot say anything absolutely, we cannot say, "This is so." Whenever somebody says absolutely, "This is so," he is behaving foolishly. In the past he was thought to be a man of knowledge; the more certain he was, the more it was thought that he knew. The uncertain person, the hesitating person, was thought to be ignorant. That's why Mahavira could not influence the world very much; he came too early, he arrived before his time. Now is the time for him -- now he will be understood by the scientist, by the highest intelligence in the world. But he was talking to people, the ordinary masses, who could not understand his Syadawad -- his perhaps-ism. People wanted certain knowledge: "Is there a God?" And Mahavira would say, "Perhaps. Yes -- in one way it can be said yes, and in another it can be said no. And both are right together, simultaneously." Now the time has come. Ananda Prabhu, don't try to reconcile things -- that will be a false phenomenon. Just watch, just look deep into things as they are. They are already reconciled; there is no conflict in existence. All contraries are complementaries. You say: science and meditativeness are difficult to reconcile. If you try to reconcile them it is not only difficult but impossible. It cannot be done. You will go mad -- the very effort to reconcile them will drive you crazy. Avoid such an effort. Rather, on the contrary, simply watch. Life is paradoxical. It is already a synthesis of paradoxes; the opposites are already meeting in it. All that we need is a pure mirror-like consciousness, so that whatsoever life is it is reflected. And you will see in that reflection the meeting of the opposites: the meeting of East and West, the meeting of religion and science. You say: yet painting a picture, writing a poem, and solving a scientific problem all bring the same joy. The same joy! Yes, they can -- because art is just in the middle between both, equidistant from religion and science. Art has the qualities of both. One aspect of art is scientific, the technological aspect. Hence the scientist can paint and enjoy painting, and will have the same joy; and the mystic can also paint and will have the same joy as in prayer, as in meditation -- although both are doing the same thing, the mystic's painting will be totally different from the scientist's painting. You can look: modern painting in the West is too much under the influence of technology. It has lost beauty; it is no longer helpful in bringing you to the divine presence that permeates existence. On the contrary, it simply reflects the insane mind of man. Looking at Western painting you will feel dizzy, nauseous, ill. Zen Masters have also painted, but their painting is totally different. Watching a Zen painting you will feel uplifted; a feeling of subtle joy will arise in you. You would like to dance or sing or play on your flute. Zen painting comes from the other side, the mystic's side. Picasso, Dali, and others come from the side of science. Now, there is no similarity between a Picasso painting and the painting of a Zen Master, no similarity. They are two totally different worlds, and the reason is that the painters are different. Yes, Ananda Prabhu, you may be feeling the same joy in painting, writing a poem, and solving a scientific problem. It is all mind. Solving a scientific problem is mind; your poem will also be more or less mathematical, logical. It will have only the form of poetry but its spirit will be prose. That's why in the West poetry is dying, painting has become ugly, sculpture is no longer representative of nature. Something is immensely missing: the spirit, the very spirit of art is missing. Looking at a Zen painting you will be overwhelmed; something from the beyond Will start showering on you. Have you watched a Zen painting closely? There are a few things you will be surprised to see. Human figures are very small, so small that if you don't look minutely you will miss them. Trees are big, mountains are big, the sun and moon, rivers and waterfalls are big, but human beings are very small. In Western painting the human being is very big; he covers the whole canvas. Now this is not right, this is not proportionate, this is not true. The human being covering the whole canvas is very egoistic -- but the painter is egoistic. The Zen Master is right: man is only a tiny part in this great universe. The mountains are big and the waterfalls are big and the trees are big and the stars and the moon and the sun -- and where is man? Just the other day I was looking at a Zen painting. The men were so small, two small figures crossing a bridge, that I would have missed them because tall mountains and trees were covering the whole painting. But there was a note underneath the painting saying, "Please don't miss: there are two human figures on the bridge." I had to look very closely -- yes, they were there, two human figures, very small, walking hand in hand, passing over the bridge. This is the right proportion; this is a non-egoistic painting. In Western paintings you will find the whole canvas covered. In Zen painting only a small part of the canvas is covered, and the remaining part is empty. It looks like a wastage: if you are going to make such a small painting, why not use a small canvas? Why use such a big canvas which covers the whole wall, and just in the corner make a small painting? But the Zen people say that's how things are: "Emptiness is so much all around. The whole sky is empty -- how can we leave out the sky? If we leave out the sky the painting will be untrue." Now no Western painting has that vision, that we are surrounded by emptiness: the earth is very small, humanity a very small part of the earth, and infinite emptiness all around.... To be true, to be existentially true, the emptiness cannot be left outside; it has to be there. This is a different vision, from a different side. Zen painting is not done in the Western way. In Western painting you will find that the painter goes on improving: over one coat of paint there will be another coat of paint and still another coat of paint, and he goes on improving and touching up and doing things. Zen painters cannot do that; that is impossible. They use a certain kind of paper, rice-paper, on which you can make only one stroke. You cannot correct it; you have to leave it as it is. The paper is so thin that if you try to correct it the whole thing will be lost. Why is rice-paper being used? So that the mind has nothing to do -- the mind is constantly trying to improve, to make things better. It has to be from the heart, a single stroke. If your heart is full of it, it will come right. But you cannot correct it; correction comes from the mind. Zen painting is never corrected; if you correct it your correction will always show that you are not a Master. It has to come out of your meditativeness, your silence. Your feeling of the moment is spread on the rice-paper. Art is just in the middle, equidistant from science and religion. It can be both. It can be scientific art, as it is in the West -- that's what you mean, Ananda Prabhu. It can be religious art: you don't know anything about that yet, because before you can know anything about it you will have to know what meditation is. Meditation is not a state of concentration; it is not a state of mind at all. It is a state of total mindlessness -- and not a state of sleep either. No mind, no sleep; no mind, but total awareness. Out of that awareness you bring a different quality to music, to painting, to poetry. And out of that meditativeness you can bring a totally different quality to science too. But before that can happen we will need large numbers of meditative people around the earth. That's what my work is. That's what I am trying to do here: to create meditators. That is the first requirement. If we want to bring a new world vision where science and religion can meet, we will have to create the foundation first; only then can the temple be raised on it. Meditation has to be the foundation. And don't try to reconcile things: just become more meditative. In your meditation is reconciliation, because in your meditation you become able to see that the contradictions are only apparent, that the contraries are only enemies on the surface but deep down they are friends. It is like two friends playing chess: on the surface they are enemies, but deep down they are friends. That's why they are playing chess -- they are friends; but because they are playing chess they are pretending to be enemies. This is the leela of existence, the play of existence. God has divided himself into two, because that is the only way to play hide-and-seek. Seek is a very beautiful play if you understand it as play. Don't take it too seriously because then you will not be able to see the playfulness of it. You ask me: Why is so difficult to be meditative and a scientist? It is not. To be meditative is difficult for everybody; it is not only a question of the scientist. Ananda Prabhu is a scientist. But it is the same difficulty as a businessman will feel, it is the same difficulty as the carpenter will feel. It is not just something new to the scientist. Maybe quantitatively it is a little more difficult, because his whole mind knows only one way of functioning, that of concentration. He knows only one way to use the mind: to focus it on a certain object. And meditation means remaining unfocussed, just remaining open, open for everything. While listening to me you can listen in two ways. The scientific way is to concentrate -- what I am saying, concentrate on it. That means close your mind to everything else: the airplane passes by, and the train makes a noise, and the traffic on the road and the birds singing in the trees...close your mind to everything. Just let there be only a small keyhole available to me; listen only to me. That's how the scientist listens; he looks through a keyhole into existence. The mystic comes out of the room, stands under the sky, utterly open to everything. That is the other way of listening, the way a meditator listens. Then you go on listening to me, and the chirping of the birds goes on as a background to it. And what I am saying the chirping of the birds cannot disturb -- no, not at all. It enhances its beauty; it gives it color, it gives it music And not only the chirping of the birds but the airplane passing by and sudden noise create more silence in contrast. When the airplane has passed by, you are suddenly listening to me on a deeper level. And while the airplane is passing and the noise is there, you listen to both. You don't become disturbed. You don't say inside, "This stupid airplane is disturbing me." The airplane cannot disturb you. But if you say inside, "This stupid plane is disturbing me," your saying it will be a disturbance; when you are saying it you will lose track of me. The airplane cannot disturb you, but your reaction to it is bound to. Listening meditatively means all that is is accepted, welcomed. In all its multiplicity the universe is received. You are simply open from all sides to all that is happening. And you will be surprised It brings such a great silence, such exquisite silence, such profound silence. Concentration tires you, meditation never tires you. But it is difficult for everybody, not only for the scientist -- because we have become accustomed to a certain pattern of looking at things. You will have to melt your pattern; you will have to become a little more liquid, fluid, and meditation will come to you. Don't be worried about it being difficult for the scientist; that idea can create difficulty. Once you have accepted the idea that it is difficult then it will be difficult. Don't bring that idea; that will become auto-hypnotic, it will become a suggestion. It is not difficult: meditation is the simplest and the easiest thing in the world. We have just become accustomed to concentration. We have been told since childhood to concentrate: from the primary school to the university we have been trained for concentration. This is a kind of habituation; it takes a little time to drop the old habit and to learn something which is not a habit but your very nature. You say: Why has there never been a society in which the inner and the outer sciences, the science of gentleness and love and the science of aggression and death, live in harmony? Now the time has come. Everything can happen only at a particular time. Religion has come to its ultimate peak in the Buddhas; now science is also coming to an ultimate peak. And only when two things have grown is a meeting possible. A seed cannot meet a tree; the seed will have to become a tree. Only then, high in the winds, in the clouds, can they whisper to each other, can they fall in love with each other, can they embrace each other, hug each other -- can they have a dialogue. But a seed cannot have a dialogue with a grown-up tree; it is impossible. The seed will not know the language, the tree will not understand the language of the seed. Religion has been in a mature state for almost five thousand years. Science is still growing, coming to maturity. Hence I say this time is one of the most precious times. You are fortunate to be alive today, because something immensely great is going to happen -- and that is the meeting of science and religion, the meeting of West and East, the meeting of the extrovert mind and the introvert mind. It will create the new man who will be able to move easily to the outside or into the inside, who will be able to move easily into the extrovert world of science and into the introvert world of religion -- just as you move outside your house into the garden and back into the house. It is not a problem; you don't need any reconciliation. You need not make a great effort each time you come out of your house onto the lawn -- you simply come out! It is feeling cold inside, and the sun is beautiful and warm outside: you come onto the lawn, you sit on the lawn. Later on when it becomes too hot you simply move in because there is coolness inside. Just as easily as you come out of your house and go in, a total man will be able to move into science and religion; the inner and outer will both be his. Carl Gustav Jung has divided human beings into two: the extroverts and the introverts. His categorization is relevant for the past but will be utterly useless for the future, because the future man will be both together. In the past, we have always been categorizing in this way, but the future man will not be a man and will not be a woman. I am not saying biologically -- biologically the woman will be a woman, and the man will be a man -- but spiritually the future man will have as many feminine qualities as the woman, and the woman will have as many masculine qualities as the man. Spiritually they will never be labeled as man or woman any more. And that will be the real liberation -- not only the liberation of women, but the liberation of men too: liberation from straitjackets, liberation from imprisoning categories, liberation from all labels. Man is not going to be Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian; man is not going to be Indian, German, English; man is not going to be white or black. Not that colors will disappear -- the white man will be white and the black will be black -- but these will become irrelevant, trivial, meaningless; they will not be decisive. The new man will have a universal consciousness, and the foundation will be laid by the meeting of science and religion." .................................Osho, excerpted from: Be Still and Know

Back to Osho.....

kaliom — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 13:29:46 GMT

:-) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: Why do I feel so much pain in letting go of the things that are causing me misery? A: "The things that are causing you misery must be giving you some pleasure too; otherwise the question does not arise. If they were pure misery you would have dropped them. But in life, nothing is pure; everything is mixed with its opposite. Everything carries its opposite in its womb. What you call misery, analyze it, penetrate into it, and you will see that it has something which you would like to have. Maybe it is not yet real, maybe it is only a hope, maybe it is only a promise for tomorrow, but you will cling to the misery, you will cling to the pain, in the hope that tomorrow something that you have always desired and longed for is going to happen. You suffer misery in the hope of pleasure. If it is pure misery it is impossible to cling to it. Just watch, be more alert about your misery. For example, you are feeling jealous. It creates misery. But look around -- there must be something positive in it. It also gives you some ego, some sense of your being separate from others, some sense of superiority. Your jealousy at least pretends to be love. If you don't feel jealous you will think maybe you don't love anymore. And you are clinging to jealousy because you would like to cling to your love -- at least your idea of love. If your woman or your man goes with somebody else and you don't feel jealous at all, you will immediately become conscious that you no longer love. Otherwise, for centuries you have been told that lovers are jealous. Jealousy has become an intrinsic part of your love: without jealousy your love dies; only with jealousy can your so-called love live. If you want your love you will have to accept your jealousy and the misery that is created by it. And your mind is very cunning and very clever in finding rationalizations. It will say, "It is natural to feel jealous." And it appears natural because everybody else is doing the same. Your mind will say, "It is natural to feel hurt when your lover leaves you. Because you have loved so much, how can you avoid the hurt, the wound, when your lover leaves you?" In fact, you are enjoying your wound too, in a very subtle and unconscious way. Your wound is giving you an idea that you are a great lover, that you loved so much, that you loved so deeply, that your love was so profound, that you are shattered because your lover has left you. Even if you are not shattered you will pretend to be shattered -- you will believe in your own lie. You will behave as if you are in great misery, you will cry and weep, and your tears may not be true at all, but just to console yourself that you are a great lover, you have to cry and weep. Just watch every kind of misery: either it has some pleasure in it which you are not ready to lose, or it has some hope in it which goes on dangling in front of you like a carrot. And it looks so close, just by the corner, and you have travelled so long and now the goal is so close, why drop it? You will find some rationalization in it, some hypocrisy in it. Just a few days ago a sannyasin wrote to me that her man has left her and she is not feeling miserable -- what is wrong with her? "Why am I not feeling miserable? Am I too hard, rocklike? I don't feel any misery," she wrote to me. And she is miserable because she is not feeling misery! She was expecting to be shattered. "On the contrary," she wrote, "I can confess that I am feeling happy -- and that makes me very sad. What kind of love is this? I am feeling happy, unburdened; a great load has disappeared from my being." She asked me, "Beloved Master, is it normal? Am I alright or is something basically wrong with me?" Nothing is wrong with her, she is absolutely right. In fact, when lovers, after a long long togetherness and all the misery that is bound to happen when you are together, leave each other, it is a relief. But it is against the ego to confess it, that it is a relief. For a few days at least you will move with a long face, with tears flowing from your eyes -- phony, but this is the idea that has prevailed in the world. If somebody dies and you don't feel sad you will start feeling that something is certainly wrong with you. How can you avoid sadness when somebody has died? -- because we have been told it is natural, it is normal, and everybody wants to be natural and normal. It is not normal, it is only average. It is not natural, it is only a long long cultivated habit; otherwise there is nothing to weep and cry about. Death destroys nothing. The body is dust and falls into dust, and the consciousness has two possibilities: if it still has desires then it will move into another womb, or if all the desires have disappeared then it will move into the womb of God, into eternity. Nothing is destroyed. The body again becomes part of the earth, goes into rest, and the soul moves into the universal consciousness or moves into another body. But you cry and weep and you carry your sadness for many days. It is just a formality, or if it is not a formality then there is every possibility that you never loved the man who has died and now you are feeling repentant; you never loved the man totally and now there is no more time. Now the man has disappeared, now he will never be available. Maybe you had quarreled with your husband and he died in the night in his sleep. Now you will say that you are crying because he has died, but really you are crying because you have not even been able to ask his forgiveness, you have not even been able to say a goodbye. The quarrel will hang over you like a cloud forever. If a man lives moment to moment in totality, then there is never any repentance, no guilt. If you have loved totally, there is no question. One day if the lover leaves that simply means, "Now our ways are parting. We can say goodbye, we can be thankful to each other. We shared so much, we loved so much, we have enriched each other's lives so much -- what is there to cry and weep about and why be miserable?" But people are so entangled in their rationality that they can't see beyond their rationalizations. And they always rationalize everything; even things which are obviously simple become very complicated. "I am in love with my horse," said Andrew to the psychiatrist. "That's nothing," replied the shrink. "A lot of people love animals. My wife and I have a dog that we love very much." "Ah, but doctor, it is a physical attraction that I feel towards my horse!" "Hmm!" said the analyst. "What kind of horse is it? Male or female?" "Female, of course!" said Andrew. "What do you think I am -- queer?" You ask me, Akal, "Why do I feel so much pain in letting go of the things that are causing me misery?" You are not yet convinced that they are causing you misery. I am saying that they are causing you misery, you are not yet convinced. And it is not a question of MY saying it. The basic thing is: YOU will have to understand, "These are the things which are causing me misery," and you will have to see that there are investments in your misery. If you want those investments you will have to learn to live with the misery; if you want to drop the misery, you will have to drop those investments too. Have you watched it, observed it? -- if you talk about your misery to people, they give great sympathy to you. Everybody is sympathetic to the miserable man. Now, if you love getting sympathy from people you cannot drop your misery; that is your investment. The miserable husband comes home, the wife is loving, sympathetic. The more miserable he is, the more his children are considerate of him; the more miserable he is, the more his friends are friendly towards him. Everybody takes care of him. The moment he starts becoming happy they withdraw their sympathy, of course -- a happy person needs no sympathy. The more happy he is, the more he finds that nobody cares about him. It is as if everybody becomes suddenly hard, frozen. Now, how can you drop your misery? You will have to drop this desire for attention, this desire for getting sympathy from people. In fact, it is very ugly to desire sympathy from people -- it makes you a beggar. And remember, sympathy is not love; they are obliging you, they are fulfilling a kind of duty -- it is not love. They may not like you, but still they will sympathize with you. This is etiquette, culture, civilization, formality -- but you are living on false things. Your misery is real and what you are getting in the bargain is false. Of course, if you become happy, if you drop your miseries, it will be a radical change in your life-style; things may start changing. Once a woman came to me, the woman of one of the richest men in India, and she told me, "I want to meditate, but my husband is against it." I asked her, "Why is your husband against meditation?" She said, "He says, 'The way you are, I love you. I don't know what will happen after meditation. If you start meditating you are bound to change; then I don't know whether I will be able to love you or not, because you will be another person." I said to the woman, "Your husband has a point there -- certainly things will be different. You will be more free, more independent. You will be more joyous, and your husband will have to learn to live with a new woman. He may not like you that way, he may start feeling inferior. Right now he is superior to you." That's why down the ages man has not allowed women to meditate, to participate in deep religious experiences. Man has not allowed women to read the Vedas, the Upanishads, the great scriptures of the world. In many religions the women are not allowed to enter into the mosque or the synagogue. In Jainism it is said that you cannot be liberated from the body of a woman; first you will have to be born as a man, then only can you be liberated. From the body of a woman there is no way to God. Why? Why this fear? The reason is very psychological: man has always been afraid of women becoming happier than him, more peaceful than him, more attuned, more integrated than him -- because once they are more integrated, more attuned to their beings and to the being of the whole, more in harmony with existence, more in accord.... And women can attain to harmony more easily than men, remember. For certain biological reasons, a woman is more capable of going into meditation than a man is. The male energy is aggressive, violent, outgoing, extrovert, and the female energy is introvert, passive, ingoing. Hence what Jainism says is absolutely wrong -- not only absolutely wrong: just the opposite may be the truth. It is easier to enter into God through the body of a woman than through the body of a man. The woman's body is more harmonious, the man's body is not so harmonious. The woman's body is more balanced, more rounded; that's why she looks so beautiful. Her body is less tense, more relaxed. Mothers become aware after a few months' pregnancy whether it is a male child or a female child in their womb, because the male child starts parading and doing things inside the womb, kicking... he cannot be at rest. You can watch small girls -- they are perfectly happy sitting in a corner with their dolls. And the boys? -- they can't sit. Just a few days ago a little boy took sannyas. I had to ask him, "Can you be silent for one minute so I can explain your name to your mother?" But he was not even able to be silent for one minute. Small girls come for sannyas; when I say to them, "Close your eyes and sit silently," they sit so beautifully; they can sit for hours. When small boys come and I say to them, "Close your eyes," they have to clench their eyes! They are afraid that if they don't do too much they will open. They are so curious about what is happening, what is going on outside. When small girls take sannyas they look at me. And the boys? -- they look at Krishna Bharti and his camera! They are all over the place! I am putting a mala on them and they are looking at people to see what the response is. "Are people laughing, enjoying, watching?" They are great performers! And a great curiosity keeps them constantly tense. While on their honeymoon, Kit and Netty bought a talkative parrot and took it back to their hotel room. As they made love the bird kept up a running commentary. Finally Kit flung a bath towel over the cage and said, "If you don't shut up I am sending you to the zoo!" Getting ready to leave the following morning, they could not close a bulging suitcase and decided one of them would stand on it while the other attempted to fasten it. "Darling," said Kit, "you get on top and I will try." That didn't work. So he said, "Now I will get on top and you try." That didn't work either. "Look," said Kit, "let us both get on top and try." The parrot yanked away the towel and said, "Zoo or no zoo, this I've gotta see!" The parrot must have been a male! I told the woman, "Your husband is right: before you enter on the path of meditation you have to consider it, because there are dangers ahead." She didn't listen to me; she started meditating. Now she is divorced. She came to see me after a few years and said, "You were right. The more silent I became, the more my husband became furious at me. He was never so violent -- something strange started happening," she told me. "The more silent and quiet I was becoming, the more aggressive he was becoming." His whole male chauvinist mind was at stake. He wanted to destroy the peace and the silence that was happening to the woman so he could still remain superior. And because it could not happen the way he wanted, he divorced the woman. It is a very strange world! If you become peaceful your relationship with people will change, because you are a different person. If your relationship was because of your misery it may disappear. I used to have a friend. He was a professor in the same university where I was a professor; he was a great social worker. In India, what to do with the widows is still a problem. Nobody wants to marry them, and widows are not in favor of marrying either; that seems like a sin. And this professor was determined to marry a widow. He was not concerned whether he was in love with the woman or not -- that was secondary, irrelevant -- his only interest was that she should be a widow. And he persuaded her slowly slowly, and she was ready. I told the man, "Before you take the plunge, consider it for at least three days -- go into isolation. Are you in love with the woman, or is it just a great social service that you are doing?" Marrying a widow in India is thought to be something very revolutionary, something radical. "Are you just trying to prove that you are a revolutionary? If you are trying to prove that you are a revolutionary, then you are bound for trouble -- because the moment you are married she will no longer be a widow and your whole interest will be gone." He didn't listen to me. He got married... and after six months he told me, "You were right." He cried. He said, "I could not see the point: I was in love with her widowhood, not with her for herself, and now certainly she is no longer a widow." So I said, "You do one thing -- commit suicide! Make her a widow again and give somebody else a chance to be a revolutionary! What else can you do?" Man's mind is so stupid, so unconscious. Buddha says it is in deep sleep, slumber, snoring. Akal, you cannot let go of things that are causing you misery because you have not yet seen the investments, you have not yet looked deeply into them. You have not seen that there is some pleasure you are deriving out of your misery. You will have to drop both -- and then there is no problem. In fact, misery and pleasure can only be dropped together. And then arises bliss. Bliss is not pleasure, bliss is not even happiness. Happiness is always bound together with unhappiness and pleasure is always bound together with pain. Dropping both.... You want to drop misery so that you can be happy -- that is an absolutely wrong approach. You will have to drop both. Seeing that they are together, one drops them; you cannot choose one part. In life, everything has an organic unity. Pain and pleasure are not two things. Really, if we make a more scientific language, we will drop these words: pain and pleasure. We will make one word: painpleasure, happinessunhappiness, daynight, lifedeath. These are one word because they are NEVER separable. And you want to choose one part: you want to have only the roses and not the thorns, you want only the day and not the night, you want only love and not hate. This is not going to happen -- this is not the way things are. You will have to drop both, and then arises a totally different world: the world of bliss. Bliss is absolute peace, undisturbedness, neither disturbed by pain nor disturbed by pleasure. To celebrate their fortieth anniversary, Seymour and Rose went back to the same second-floor hotel room where they had spent their honeymoon. "Now," said Seymour, "just like that first night, let us undress, get in opposite corners of the room, turn off the lights, then run to each other and embrace." They undressed, went to opposite corners, switched off the lights and ran towards each other. But their sense of direction was dulled by forty years, so Seymour missed Rose and he went right through the window. He landed on the lawn in a daze. Seymour tapped on the lobby window to get the clerk's attention. "I fell down from upstairs," he said. "I am naked and I gotta get back to my room." "It's okay," said the clerk. "Nobody will see you." "Are you crazy? I gotta walk through the lobby and I am all naked!" "Nobody can see you," repeated the clerk. "Everybody is upstairs trying to get some old lady off a doorknob!" People are so foolish! Not only the younger ones -- the older you get, the more foolish you become. The more experienced you are, it seems the more stupidity you accumulate through life. It really rarely happens that a person starts watching, observing his own life and his own life patterns. See what your misery is, what desires are causing it, and why you are clinging to those desires. And it is not for the first time that you are clinging to those desires; this has been the pattern of your whole life and you have not arrived anywhere. You go on in circles, you never come to any real growth. You remain childish, stupid. And you are born with the intelligence that can make you a buddha, but it is lost in unnecessary things. A farmer who had only two impotent old bulls bought a new, young, vigorous bull. Immediately the stud began mounting one cow after another in the pasture. After watching this for an hour, one of the ancient bulls started pawing the ground and snorting. "What's the matter?" asked the other. "You getting young ideas?" "No," said the first bull, "but I don't want that young fellow to think I am one of the cows." So even in their old age people go on carrying their egos. They have to pretend, they have to pose, and their whole life is nothing but a long long story of misery. Still they defend it. Rather than being ready to change it, they are very defensive. Akal, drop all defensiveness, drop all armors. Start watching how you live your day-to-day life, moment to moment. And whatsoever you are doing, go into its details. You need not go to a psychoanalyst, you can analyze each pattern of your life yourself -- it is such a simple process! Just watch and you will be able to see what is happening, what has been happening. You have been choosing -- and that has been the problem -- you have been choosing one part against the other, and they are both together. Buddha says: Attain to choiceless awareness -- don't choose at all. Just watch and be aware without choosing, and you will attain to bliss, you will attain to the lotus paradise." Osho, excerpted from: Dhampadda - The way of the Buddha, Vol 5, Chapter 2

marriages to dissolve in 7 yrs automatically...............!!

kaliom — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 17:10:12 GMT

ha!ha!ha!......what do u think? http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070921/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_germany_politics_marriage

Can technology create a barrier to spiritual progress? - from OshoTimes

kaliom — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 11:21:58 GMT

Can technology create a great barrier to our spiritual growth? Osho continues to surprise me on the range of topics he has talked about. In this case I am surprised that that Osho had talked about ecological crisis so early on. As I read more and more of Osho, I find more and more resonance with him but at the same time I felt this discourse is one sided. As in science and technology has certainly contributed a lot to human mortality, health not to forget that modernism, even though criticised often (as I do myself) has indeed made an attempt towards egalitarianism which he himself agrees did not exist in the previous societal structures. So there are some good things, as is always the case with all things, however, I resonate with him on the approach in science and tech world and the application of it which is often detrimental. What also makes me afraid is his reference to a life-style which is also the crux of the book "A brave new world" by Aldous Huxley - the room that it opens up for total human manipulation - a completely detrimental application of science and tech. What do you think on this question and his answer? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Many people in the west are engaged in the creation of a science or technology of enlightenment. The need is certainly there. Is it irresponsible to engage in its creation without having reached the state of enlightenment? Is the Aria method a valid approach? The first and most fundamental thing to be remembered is that enlightenment can never have a technology. By its very nature it is impossible. But the west is obsessed with technology, so whatsoever comes into the hands of the west, it starts reducing it into a technology. Technology is an obsession. For the outside world, science is a valid approach, but partial, not total; not the only approach, but only one of the approaches. Poetry is as valid as science. Science is knowledge without love, and that is the danger in it. Because it is knowledge without love, it is always in the service of death and never in the service of life. Hence, the whole progress of science is leading man towards a global suicide. One day when man has committed suicide -- the Third World War -- cockroaches will think, `We are the most fit to survive.' Some Darwin, some cockroach-Darwin, will prove, `We are the fittest because we have survived; the survival of the fittest.' Man has committed suicide; he has destroyed himself. Knowledge without love is dangerous, because in its very root is poison. Love keeps balance, never allows knowledge to go too far, so it never becomes destructive. Science is knowledge without love; that is its danger. But it is one of the valid approaches: the object, the material, can be known without love -- there is no need. But life is not only matter. Life is suffused with something tremendously transcendental. That transcendental is missed. And then science, by and by, automatically turns into a technology. It becomes mechanical. More and more it becomes a means to exploit nature, to manipulate nature. The very beginning of science has been with that idea: how to conquer nature. That's a foolish idea. We are not separate from nature; how can we conquer it? We are nature, so who is going to conquer whom? It is absurd. With that absurdity, science has destroyed much: the whole nature is destroyed, the climate is poisoned, the air, the water, the seas, everything polluted. The whole harmony is dying, the ecology is being continuously destroyed. Please remember -- this is enough, more than enough. Don't turn science inwards. If the application of scientific methodology has been so devastating for outer nature, it is going to be more devastating to the inner nature -- because you are moving towards the more subtle. Even for the outside nature, a different kind of knowledge is needed which is rooted in love; but for the innermost core of your being, the subtlest, the transcendental, knowledge is not needed at all. Innocence is needed. Innocence with love -- then you will know the inside, then you will know the interior of your being, the subjectivity. But the west is obsessed with technology. It seems technology has succeeded in nature: we have become more powerful. We have not become more powerful! The whole idea is just fallacious; we have not become more powerful. We are becoming weaker every day because the natural resources are being exhausted. Sooner or later the earth will be empty, it will not grow anything. We are not becoming powerful, we are becoming weaker and weaker and weaker every day. We are on the deathbed. Humanity cannot survive, the way it has been behaving with nature, for more than fifty years, sixty years, or, at the most, one hundred years -- which is nothing. If the Third World War does not happen, then we will be committing a slow suicide. Within a hundred years, we will be gone. Not even a trace will be left. And man will not be the first to disappear. Many other animals, very strong animals, have disappeared from the earth. They used to roam the earth, they were the kings of the earth, bigger than the elephant. They are no longer anywhere. They were thinking they had become very powerful. They were very huge, with tremendous energy, but then the earth could not supply feed for them. They began to become bigger and bigger and bigger; then a moment came when the earth could not supply food for them. They had to die. The same is happening with man: man thinks he is becoming more and more powerful, he can reach to the moon; but he is destroying the earth. He is destroying the whole possibility of future life. Slowly, humanity is disappearing. Please, don't turn your technology towards the inner; you have done enough harm. Enlightenment cannot be reduced to a technology. So the first thing: the inner journey is of innocence, not of knowledge; certainly not of science, absolutely not of technology. It is more of love, innocence, silence. Meditation is not a technique really. Because you cannot understand anything other than technique, I have to talk in terms of technique. Otherwise, meditation is not a technique at all. Meditation is nothing that you do. Meditation is something that you fall into, just like love. Meditation is something in which you can be, but you cannot do it. Doing ceases. How can there be a technology for non-doing? Technology is relevant with doing; you have to do something. Meditation is not something that you do. It is only when your doer has gone and you are totally relaxed, not doing anything, in a deep let-go, rest... there is meditation, then meditation flowers. It is the flowering of your being. It has nothing to do with becoming. It is not an achievement, it is not an improvement; it is just being that which you already are. What technique is needed? People are foolish; that's why techniques have to be talked about. If you understand, nothing is needed. Just being silent and just being yourself, not moving in any direction, not moving at all, and you will see the benediction, the meditation. When this meditation has become such a spontaneous flow that you need not even sit for it in a certain posture, that you need not find a small corner in the house where nobody disturbs you, when in the marketplace also it is there -- talking, walking, doing, eating, it is there -- when it is always there, even when you are asleep it is there, you go on feeling it, it goes on like breathing, or the beating of the heart, that's what Kabir calls sahaj samadhi, spontaneous ecstasy. It needs no technique. It needs only spontaneity, it needs only naturalness, it needs only simplicity. So I say to you: Blessed are the ignorant, for theirs is the kingdom of God. Become innocent and become ignorant. Don't remain knowledgeable. But in the west it is happening. Now they are trying to manipulate the mind, they are trying to create mechanisms to manipulate the mind. This is going to be far more dangerous than science. This is going to be far more dangerous, because once you know how to manipulate the mind of man, you will reduce man also to automata: that's what's going to happen. Once you know that man and his mind can be manipulated, totally manipulated, then all freedom will be gone, all individuality will be gone. Then electrodes can be put into your head without your ever knowing, and you can be manipulated from Delhi, from Moscow, from Washington, the Capitol. Just by radio-waves you can be manipulated. The whole country can be ordered, and nobody will see the order coming from anywhere -- it will come from within you. An electrode is there; just on radio-waves you can be ordered, and you will follow it automatically. All freedom will be gone. You can be hypnotized at any moment. You can be put into any hallucination and you will believe in it; it will be so real -- and it will be coming from within you. Then from Delhi, from Moscow, from Washington, from London, from the capital places.... There is no need to keep police and no need to keep a magistrate: this is too costly and uneconomical. These are like bullock carts -- no need. Better technology will be available; no need to keep all these people to enforce, no need even for the priest to go on teaching morality and religion. Just from the capital place the orders can be given: that you are all happy -- and you will all feel happy; that you are all contented -- and you will feel contented. You may be on your deathbed, suffering, but if the order comes that you are happy and there is no death, you will believe you are happy and there is no death. And this will be coming from within you. That's what Delgado proposes to do someday, and he says: "Then man will be happy. Nobody will be unhappy." But this happiness will not be true happiness. Then there are mechanisms by which alpha-waves can be created in your mind, just by electrical stimulation. That is dangerous, because that will not allow you to know the reality. And those alpha-waves will be created from the outside; they will not be true, they will not be real. And God will disappear. Then there is no need for God. You are not unhappy, so why seek happiness? And you will believe in dogma -- whatsoever dogma happens to be there, followed by your politicians and your priests -- you will believe in the dogma, you will absolutely believe in the dogma, and there will be no doubt. Skepticism will disappear. This is a dangerous step. Meditation should not be reduced into technology, and enlightenment cannot be reduced. Enlightenment means awareness, witnessing. Enlightenment is neither of the body nor of the mind. It is of the beyond. The body can be manipulated by mechanisms, the mind can be manipulated by mechanisms, but your soul is beyond and cannot be manipulated by any mechanism whatsoever. You ask, Many people in the west are engaged in the creation of a science or technology of enlightenment. Those people are criminals. They are dangerous people; avoid them. Just these same people were engaged in creating technology two hundred years ago. They have destroyed nature, now they are turning towards consciousness. They will destroy that too. Now there is a movement all over the world to protect the ecology of nature, the naturalness of nature. But it is too late really. Now nothing can be done, nothing much can be done. And these people who propagate in favor of ecology appear to be eco-nuts, another species of Jehovah's witnesses -- fanatics, desperately fighting something which seems impossible. Before the plague of technology turns to human consciousness, stop it. Stop it in the seed. And you say, The need is certainly there. It is not, certainly not. There is no need. `But how do you see the possibility?' There is no possibility either. But man is dangerous: the more impossible a thing, the more he becomes attracted and challenged. That's what Edmund Hillary said when he reached to the top of Everest. Somebody asked him, `Why did you try it at all? What is the point? Why?' Edmund Hillary said, `I had to, because Everest is there. Because it is there, I had to. It stands like a challenge.' Anything unconquerable is a challenge to man's ego. There is no possibility; naturally, it will never happen -- but that very impossibility can become a challenge to these mad, obsessed people who want to reduce everything into technique. They cannot create a technology of enlightenment. That is not possible at all, in the very reality. But they can create a technology which can manipulate the mind, and even deceive people, and create an illusion of enlightenment. That's what is happening with drugs: drugs have become a technology of enlightenment. And the guru of drugs, Ginsberg, goes on talking as if all the mystics of the world were saying the same things, were trying to give you the same vision as LSD can give, or psilocybin, or marijuana. It is nonsense. No drug can lead you to enlightenment, but drugs can create an illusion of enlightenment. Is it irresponsible to engage in its creation without having reached the state of enlightenment? Only people who have not known enlightenment can try it. Those who have known cannot even think of the possibility. And it is irresponsible. Is the Aria method a valid approach? The Aria method is technology, techniques, knowledge without love -- and hence the danger is there. it will turn people into robots. Remember always, freedom is the goal; moksha, absolute freedom, is the goal. You can turn human beings into robots; they will be less miserable. In fact, if you become a perfect robot, how can you be miserable? A machine is never miserable; of course, never happy too, but never miserable. Aria methods, or any methods which exist without love, are dangerous. And in this again it is very difficult to make a distinction -- because the same method can be used with love, and then it is meaningful; and the same method can be used without love, and it becomes dangerous. And it is very difficult to see from the outside whether the method is being used with love or without love. The Aria methods have been chosen from different schools: Sufi, Gurdjieff, Tibetan, Indian, Japanese. It is eclectic. From all over the world, they have chosen techniques. In the first place, they are chosen from different schools; there is not a harmony in them, there is no center in them. It is just like a piled-up thing -- a crowd of people, a mob, not a family -- because the techniques come from different schools. A Sufi technique is bound to be different from a Zen technique. Both function, both work, but they work in their own system. They cannot work outside the system. It is as if you take one part of one car, and try to fix that part into another car of a different make. And it doesn't work, and you are puzzled: `why doesn't it work?' It used to work in the first car; there was a harmony, it was meant for that car. A Zen method works in a Zen philosophy; a Sufi method words in a Sufi philosophy; a Tibetan method works with Tibetan occult esoteric Buddhism; a Yoga method works with Patanjali's system. You cannot just choose those methods from anywhere, otherwise you can make a car with a few parts from the Rolls Royce, a few from Lincoln, a few from Cadillac, and a few from Fiat -- and you go on jumbling parts from everywhere. You can is dangerous.... It is not going anywhere in the first place, and you are fortunate if it doesn't move. It moves? -- then you are more unfortunate. Aria has chosen from different schools. Aria is very greedy, eclectic; but there exists no center. It is not an orchestra, it is a market noise. First thing: if you follow the Aria method too much, you will not arrive to your center. You will come to many experiences on the periphery, but you will never arrive to your center. And all your experiences will not be of a family, but fragmentary. And it is dangerous; you can fall into pieces. The second thing: there is no love, because there is no center -- and love arises only from the center. This collection of so many methods is soul-less, there is no soul in it. So you can become very, very efficient in the methods, and yet you will see that your heart is not flowering. You will become efficient, but you will not become blissful. You may become less miserable, you may be less tense, you may become more capable of controlling yourself, you may have a stronger ego, but you will not have a soul. The methods are all valid taken in their own context. But Aria has not yet any philosophy, it has no harmony. And this is not a way to create a harmony; the way is just opposite. In fact, Buddhism was born when Buddha became enlightened. The center came first and then he started creating a few methods to help those people who were not yet enlightened, to help them come to the center that he had already achieved. The center came first, then the periphery. So it is with Jalaluddin Rumi, he became enlightened first, and when he became enlightened he was dancing, he was whirling -- not to become enlightened; he had never known about it. He just liked whirling very much, and he felt very peaceful. It was a coincidence. While he was whirling he became enlightened. When he became enlightened, he started thinking of how to help people; the center came first. Then he started the Sufi methods. The same was the case the Patanjali. With Aria, it is totally different. There is no enlightened being at the center; of course, a very clever person who has collected many methods from many sources and many directions and many traditions -- but there is no center. It is only a periphery. So people who go into Aria will, sooner or later, feel stuck. It will take you to a certain extent, and then suddenly you will see: there is going to be no growth. And you will become dry, like a desert... because unless love flows, flowers never come up, trees don't grow, rivers don't flow. The ultimate blooming is always that of love. Osho, excerpted from Path of Love, chapter 2

Osho, why is love so painful?

kaliom — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 14:56:24 GMT

Love is painful because it creates the way for bliss. Love is painful because it transforms; love is mutation. Each transformation is going to be painful because the old has to be left for the new. The old is familiar, secure, safe, the new is absolutely unknown. You will be moving in an uncharted ocean. You cannot use your mind with the new; with the old, the mind is skillful. The mind can function only with the old; with the new, the mind is utterly useless. Hence, fear arises, and leaving the old, comfortable, safe world, the world of convenience, pain arises. It is the same pain that the child feels when he comes out of the womb of the mother. It is the same pain that the bird feels when he comes out of the egg. It is the same pain that the bird will feel when he will try for the first time to be on the wing. The fear of the unknown, and the security of the known, the insecurity of the unknown, theunpredictability of the unknown, makes one very much frightened. And because the transformation is going to be from the self towards a state of no-self, agony is verydeep. But you Cannot have ecstasy without going through agony. If the gold wants to be purified, ithas to pass through fire. Love is fire. It is because of the pain of love, millions of people live a loveless life. They too suffer, and theirsuffering is futile. To suffer in love is not to suffer in vain. To suffer in love is creative; it takes you tohigher levels of consciousness. To suffer without love is utterly a waste; it leads you nowhere, it keeps you moving in the same vicious circle. The man who is without love is narcissistic, he is closed. He knows only himself. And how much canhe know himself if he has not known the other, because only the other can function as a mirror? You will never know yourself without knowing the other. Love is very fundamental for self-knowledge too. The person who has not known the other in deep love, in intense passion, in utter ecstasy, will not be able to know who he is, because he will not have the mirror to see his own reflection. Relationship is a mirror, and the purer the love is, the higher the love is, the better the mirror, the cleaner the mirror. But the higher love needs that you should be open. The higher love needs you to be vulnerable. You have to drop your armor; that is painful. You have not to be constantly on guard.You have to drop the calculating mind. You have to risk. You have to live dangerously. The other an hurt you; that is the fear in being vulnerable. The other can reject you; that is the fear in being in love.The reflection that you will find in the other of your own self may be ugly; that is the anxiety. Avoid the mirror. But by avoiding the mirror you are not going to become beautiful. By avoiding the situation you are not going to grow either. The challenge has to be taken. One has to go into love. That is the first step towards God, and it cannot be bypassed. Those who try to bypass the step of love will never reach God. That is absolutely necessary because you become aware of your totality only when you are provoked by the presence of the other, when your presence is enhanced by the presence of the other, when you are brought out of your narcissistic, closed world under the open sky. Love is an open sky. To be in love is to be on the wing. But certainly, the unbounded sky creates fear. And to drop the ego is very painful because we have been taught to cultivate the ego. We think the ego is our only treasure. We have been protecting it, we have been decorating it, we have been continuously polishing it, and when love knocks on the door, all that is needed to fall in love is to put aside the ego; certainly it is painful. It is your whole life's work, it is all that you have created -- this ugly ego, this idea that "I am separate from existence. " This idea is ugly because it is untrue. This idea is illusory, but our society exists, is based on this idea that each person is a person, not a presence. The truth is that there is no person at all in the world; there is only presence. You are not -- not as an ego, separate from the whole. You are part of the whole. The whole penetrates you, the whole breathes in you, pulsates in you, the whole is your life. Love gives you the first experience of being in tune with something that is not your ego. Love gives you the first lesson that you can fall into harmony with someone who has never been part of your ego. If you can be in harmony with a woman, if you can be in harmony with a friend, with a man, if you can be in harmony with your child or with your mother, why can't you be in harmony with all human beings? And if to be in harmony with a single person gives such joy, what will be the outcome if you are in harmony with all human beings? And if you can be in harmony with all human beings, why can't you be in harmony with animals and birds and trees? Then one step leads to another. Love is a ladder. It starts with one person, it ends with the totality. Love is the beginning, God is the end. To be afraid of love, to be afraid of the growing pains of love, is to remain enclosed in a dark cell. Modern man is living in a dark cell; it is narcissistic. Narcissism is the greatest obsession of the modern mind. And then there are problems, problems which are meaningless. There are problems which are creative because they lead you to higher awareness. There are problems which lead you nowhere; they simply keep you tethered, they simply keep you in your old mess. Love creates problems. You can avoid those problems by avoiding love. But those are very essential problems! They have to be faced, encountered; they have to be lived and gone through and gone beyond. And to go beyond, the way is through. Love is the only real thing worth doing. All else is secondary. If it helps love, it is good. All else is just a means, love is the end. So whatsoever the pain, go into love. If you don't go into love, as many people have decided, then you are stuck with yourself. Then your life is not a pilgrimage, then your life is not a river going to the ocean; your life is a stagnant pool, dirty, and soon there will be nothing but dirt and mud. To keep clean, one needs to keep flowing. A river remains clean because it goes on flowing. Flow is the process of remaining continuously virgin. A lover remains a virgin. All lovers are virgin. The people who don't love cannot remain virgin; they become dormant, stagnant; they start stinking sooner or later -- and sooner than later -- because they have nowhere to go. Their life is dead. That's where modern man finds himself, and because of this, all kinds of neuroses, all kinds of madnesses, have become rampant. Psychological illness has taken epidemic proportions. It is no more that a few individuals are psychologically ill; the reality is the whole earth has become a madhouse. The whole of humanity is suffering from a kind of neurosis. And that neurosis is coming from your narcissistic stagnancy. Everyone is stuck with one's own illusion of having a separate self; then people go mad. And this madness is meaningless,unproductive, uncreative. Or people start committing suicide. Those suicides are also unproductive,uncreative. You may not commit suicide by taking poison or jumping from a cliff or by shooting yourself, but you can commit a suicide which is a very slow process, and that's what happens. Very few people commit suicide suddenly. Others have decided for a slow suicide; gradually, slowly, slowly they die.But almost, the tendency to be suicidal has become universal. This is no way to live, and the reason, the fundamental reason, is we have forgotten the language of love. We are no more courageous enough to go into that adventure called love. Hence people are interested in sex, because sex is not risky. It is momentary, you don't get involved. Love is involvement; it is commitment. It is not momentary. Once it takes roots, it can be forever. It can be a lifelong involvement. Love needs intimacy, and only when you are intimate does the other become a mirror. When you meet sexually with a woman or a man, you have not met at all; in fact,you avoided the soul of the other person. You just used the body and escaped, and the other used your body and escaped. You never became intimate enough to reveal each other's original faces. Love is the greatest Zen koan. It is painful, but don't avoid it. If you avoid it you have avoided the greatest opportunity to grow. Go into it, suffer love, because through the suffering comes great ecstasy. Yes, there is agony, but out of the agony, ecstasy is born. Yes, you will have to die as an ego, but if you can die as an ego, you will be born as God, as a Buddha. And love will give you the first tongue-tip-taste of Tao, of Sufism, of Zen. Love will give you the first proof that God is, that life is not meaningless. The people who say life is meaningless are the people who have not known love. All that they are saying is that their life has missed love. Let there be pain, let there be suffering. Go through the dark night, and you will reach to a beautiful sunrise. It is only in the womb of the dark night that the sun evolves. It is only through the dark night that the morning comes. My whole approach here is that of love. I teach only love and only love and nothing else. You canforget about God; that is just an empty word. You can forget about prayers because they are only rituals imposed by others on you. Love is the natural prayer, not imposed by anybody. You are born with it. Love is the true God -- not the God of theologians, but the God of Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, the God of the Sufis. Love is a tariqa, a method, to kill you as a separate individual and to help you become the infinite. Disappear as a dewdrop and become the ocean, but you will have to pass through the door of love. And certainly when one starts disappearing like a dewdrop, and one has lived long as a dewdrop, it hurts, because one has been thinking, "I am this, and now this is going. I am dying. " You are not dying, but only an illusion is dying. You have become identified with the illusion, true, but the illusion is still an illusion. And only when the illusion is gone will you be able to see who you are. And that revelation brings you to the ultimate peak of joy, bliss, celebration.

Why do people judge? - from OshoTimes

kaliom — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 15:46:02 GMT

Why do people judge, why are people so interested in gossiping about others, in finding fault with others, in looking into others' loopholes and defects? The mind tends to discuss the defects of others. It helps the ego to feel good. Everybody is such a sinner; when everybody is such a sinner, comparatively one feels like a saint. When everybody is doing wrong, it feels good that "At least I am not doing that much wrong." Hence people talk about others' defects; not only do they talk about them, they go on magnifying them. That's why there is so much joy in gossiping. When the gossip passes from one hand to another hand, it becomes richer. And when it passes back again, something will be added to it. By the evening, if you come to know the gossip that you started in the morning, you will be surprised. In the morning it was just a molehill, now it is a mountain. People are very creative, really creative and inventive. Why are people so interested in gossiping about others, in finding fault with others, in looking into others' loopholes and defects? Why are people continuously trying to look through others' keyholes? The reason is, this helps to give them a better feeling about themselves. They become Peeping Toms, just to have a good feeling, "I am far better." There is a motivation. It is not just to help others--it is not, whatsoever they say, notwithstanding what they say. The basic reason is, "If others are very ugly, then I am beautiful." They are following Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. Atisha says: Don't ponder over others' defects, it is none of your business. Don't interfere in others' lives, it is none of your business. But there are great moralists whose whole work is to see who is doing wrong. Their whole life is wasted; they are like police dogs sniffing here and there. Their whole life's work is to know who is doing wrong. Atisha says: That is an ugly trait and a sheer wastage of time and energy. Not only is it a wastage but it strengthens and gratifies the ego. And an ego more gratified becomes more of a barrier. And remember, it is not only a question of not discussing others' defects. Don't even be too much concerned about your own defects. Take note, be aware, and let the matter be settled then and there. There are a few other people who brag about their own defects.... .....xxxx..... Don't discuss others' defects, don't discuss your own defects. Take note, and that is that. Atisha says awareness is enough, nothing else is needed. If you are fully aware of anything, the fire of awareness burns it. There is no need for any other remedy. Don't think about anything that concerns others And that's what you go on thinking. Ninety-nine percent of the things that you think about concern others. Drop them--drop them immediately! Your life is short, and your life is slipping out of your fingers. Each moment you are less, each day you are less, and each day you are less alive and more dead! Each birthday is a death day; one more year is gone from your hands. Be a little more intelligent. Do not think about anything that concerns others. Train first against the defilement that is greatest. Gurdjieff used to say to his disciples--the first thing, the very very first thing, "Find out what your greatest characteristic is, your greatest undoing, your central characteristic of unconsciousness." Each one's is different. Somebody is sex-obsessed. In a country like India, where for centuries sex has been repressed, that has become almost a universal characteristic; everybody is obsessed with sex. Somebody is obsessed with anger, and somebody else is obsessed with greed. You have to watch which is your basic obsession. So first find the main characteristic upon which your whole ego edifice rests. And then be constantly aware of it, because it can exist only if you are unaware. It is burnt in the fire of awareness automatically. And remember, remember always, that you are not to cultivate the opposite of it. Otherwise, what happens is a person becomes aware that "My obsession is anger, so what should I do? I should cultivate compassion." "My obsession is sex, so what should I do? I should practice brahmacharya, celibacy." People move from one thing to the opposite. That is not the way of transformation. It is the same pendulum, moving from left to right, from right to left. And that's how your life has been moving for centuries; it is the same pendulum. The pendulum has to be stopped in the middle. And that's the miracle of awareness. Just be aware that "This is my chief pitfall, this is the place where I stumble again and again, this is the root of my unconsciousness." Don't try to cultivate the opposite of it, but pour your whole awareness into it. Create a great bonfire of awareness, and it will be burned. And then the pendulum stops in the middle. And with the stopping of the pendulum, time stops. You suddenly enter into the world of timelessness, deathlessness, eternity. Excerpted from: The Book of Wisdom, Chapter 9

Feeling MIserable - Emotional Ecology from OshoTimes

kaliom — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 07:51:45 GMT

I found this article in the recent OshoTimes newsletter and resonated with the thoughts presented here, therefore felt like sharing. Just as he has mentioned regressions in the form of cigarettes, in the same way, isn't sex or new relationships also an escape mechanism rather than really touching yourself and healing from the core? Don't many people run away from a relationship as soon as it gets difficult or uncomfortable to handle, when buttons are getting trriggered? Rather then understanding the deeper healing potential there, don't many people rather break-up and find newer, sweeter energy elsewhere and drown themselves in the bliss of a "new encounter"? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- When we feel emotionally wounded, memories can pop up that most of us automatically want to throw in the basement of our unconscious. We think that time will take care of them, but they keep coming back. Here’s a much more effective way to heal your emotional wounds: "If you are feeling miserable, let it become a meditation. Sit silently, close the doors. First feel the misery with as much intensity as possible. Feel the hurt. Somebody has insulted you: now, the best way to avoid the hurt is to go and insult him, so that you become occupied with him. That is not meditation. If somebody has insulted you, feel thankful to him that he has given you an opportunity to feel a deep wound. He has opened a wound in you. The wound may be created by many many insults that you have suffered in your whole life; he may not be the cause of all the suffering, but he has triggered a process. Just close your room, sit silently, with no anger for the person but with total awareness of the feeling that is arising in you -- the hurt feeling that you have been rejected, that you have been insulted. And then you will be surprised that not only is this man there: all the men and all the women and all the people that have ever insulted you will start moving in your memory. You will start not only remembering them, you will start reliving them. You will be going into a kind of primal. Feel the hurt, feel the pain, don't avoid it. That's why in many therapies the patient is told not to take any drugs before the therapy begins, for the simple reason that drugs are a way to escape from your inner misery. They don't allow you to see your wounds, they repress them. They don't allow you to go into your suffering and unless you go into your suffering, you cannot be released from the imprisonment of it. It is perfectly scientific to drop all drugs before going into therapy -- if possible even drugs like coffee, tea, smoking, because these are all ways to escape. Have you watched? Whenever you feel nervous you immediately start smoking. It is a way to avoid nervousness; you become occupied with smoking. Really it is a regression. Smoking makes you again feel like a child -- unworried, non-responsible -- because smoking is nothing but a symbolic breast. The hot smoke going in simply takes you back to the days when you were feeding on the mother's breast and the warm milk was going in: the nipple has now become the cigarette. The cigarette is a symbolic nipple. Through regression you avoid the responsibilities and the pains of being adult. And that's what goes on through many many drugs. Modern man is drugged as never before, because Modern man is living in great suffering. Without drugs it will be impossible to live in so much suffering. Those drugs create a barrier; they keep you drugged they don't allow you enough sensitivity to know your pain. The first thing to do is close your doors and stop any kind of occupation -- looking at the TV, listening to the radio, reading a book. Stop all occupation, because that too is a subtle drug. Just be silent, utterly alone. Don't even pray, because that again is a drug, you are becoming occupied, you start talking to God, you start praying, you escape from yourself. Atisha is saying: Just be yourself. Whatsoever the pain of it and whatsoever the suffering of it, let it be so. First experience it in its total intensity. It will be difficult, it will be heart-rending: you may start crying like a child, you may start rolling on the ground in deep pain, your body may go through contortions. You may suddenly become aware that the pain is not only in the heart, it is all over the body -- that it is aching all over, that it is painful all over, that your whole body is nothing but pain. If you can experience it -- this is of tremendous importance -- then start absorbing it. Don't throw it away. It is such a valuable energy, don't throw it away. Absorb it, drink it, accept it, welcome it, feel grateful to it. And say to yourself "This time I'm not going to avoid it, this time I'm not going to reject it, this time I'm not going to throw it away. This time I will drink it and receive it like a guest. This time I will digest it." It may take a few days for you to be able to digest it, but the day it happens, you have stumbled upon a door which will take you really far far away. A new journey has started in your life, you are moving into a new kind of being -- because immediately, the moment you accept the pain with no rejection anywhere, its energy and its quality changes. It is no longer pain. In fact one is simply surprised, one cannot believe it, it is so incredible. One cannot believe that suffering can be transformed into ecstasy, that pain can become joy. Whenever anything is total it turns into its opposite. This is a great secret to be remembered. Whenever something is total it changes into its opposite, because there is no way to go any further; the cul-de-sac has arrived. Watch an old clock with a pendulum. It goes on and on: the pendulum goes to the left, to the extreme left, and then there is a point beyond which it cannot go, then it starts moving towards the right. Opposites are complementaries. If you can suffer your suffering in totality, in great intensity, you will be surprised...you will not be able to believe it when it happens for the first time, that your own suffering absorbed willingly, welcomingly, becomes a great blessing. The same energy that becomes hate becomes love, the same energy that becomes pain becomes pleasure, the same energy that becomes suffering becomes bliss." Osho, excerpted from The Book of Wisdom, Chapter 5

Today's inspiration to share about Sociopaths

kaliom — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 18:00:26 GMT

Strange twists, random conversations. Today's topic ended up at: Sociopaths And so I felt this utmost desire to share the definition of Sociopaths. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sociopathy: is chiefly characterized by something wrong with the person's conscience. They either don't have one, it's full of holes like Swiss cheese, or they are somehow able to completely neutralize or negate any sense of conscience or future time perspective. Sociopaths only care about fulfilling their own needs and desires - selfishness and egocentricity to the extreme. Everything and everybody else is mentally twisted around in their minds as objects to be used in fulfilling their own needs and desires. They often believe they are doing something good for society, or at least nothing that bad. The term "sociopath" is frequently used by psychologists and sociologists alike in referring to persons whose unsocialized character is due primarily to parental failures (usually fatherlessness) rather than an inherent feature of temperament. Lykken (1995), for example, clearly distinguishes between the sociopath (who is socialized into becoming a psychopath) and a "true" psychopath (who is born that way). However, this may only describe the "common sociopath", as there are at least four (4) different subtypes -- common, alienated, aggressive, and dyssocial. Commons are characterized mostly by their lack of conscience; the alienated by their inability to love or be loved; aggressives by a consistent sadistic streak; and dyssocials by an ability to abide by gang rules, as long as those rules are the wrong rules. As Stout (2005) indicates, it only takes three of the following to be defined as a sociopath, and some common sociopathic traits include: List of Common Sociopathic Traits Egocentricity; Callousness; Impulsivity; Conscience defect; Exaggerated sexuality; Excessive boasting; Risk taking; Inability to resist temptation; Antagonistic, deprecating attitude toward the opposite sex; Lack of interest in bonding with a mate Dah!

The Narcissus

kaliom — Thu, 23 Mar 2006 01:49:06 GMT

As I sit here at Harbin in my last few days, once again I came across the story of the narcissus - little different - in a book I am reading. The Narcissus, A youth knelt daily beside a lake to contemplate his own beauty. He was so fascinated by himself that, one morning, he fell into the lake and drowned. At the spot where he fell, a flower was born, which was called narcissus. But the auther decided to end the story in a different way. He said that when Narcissus dies, the goddesses of the forest appeared and found the lake, which had been fresh water, transformed into a lake of salty tears. Why do you weep? - the goddesses asked. I weep for narcissus - replied the lake. Ah, it is not a surprise that you weep for narcissus. For though we pursued him in the forest, you alone could contemplate his beauty close at hand. - the goddesses said. But....was narcissus beautiful? - the lake asked Who better then you to know that? - the goddesses said in wonder. After all it was by your banks that he knelt each day to contemplate himself! The lake was silent for some time. Finally it said: I weep for Narcissus, but I never noticed that Narcissus was beautiful. I weep because, each time he knelt besides my banks, I could see, in the depth of his eyes, my own beauty reflected.

What does love mean?

kaliom — Wed, 15 Feb 2006 07:31:09 GMT

A group of professional people asked a group of 4-8 year-olds "What does love mean?" See what you think of these answers from little cutie innocent ones....... 1. When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails any more. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love. Rebecca - age 8 2. When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth. Billy - age 4 3. Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other. Karl - age 5 4. Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs. Chrissy - age 6 5. Love is what makes you smile when you're tired. Terri - age 4 6. Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK. Danny - age 7 7. Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more. My Mommy and Daddy are like that. They look gross when they kiss Emily - age 8 8. Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen. Bobby - age 7 9. If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate, Nikka - age 6 10. Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday. Noelle - age 7 11. Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well. Tommy - age 6 12. During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling. He was the only one doing that. I wasn't scared anymore. Cindy - age 8 13. My mommy loves me more than anybody. You don't see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night. Clare - age 6 14. Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken. Elaine - age 5 15. Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redford. Chris - age 7 16. Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day. Mary Ann - age 4 17. I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones. Lauren - age 4 18. When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you. Karen - age 7 19. You really shouldn't say 'I love you' unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget. Jessica - age 8 19. And the final one: A four-year-old child whose next door neighbour was an elderly gentleman had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman's yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there. When his Mother asked what he had said to the neighbour, the little boy said "Nothing, I just helped him cry". When there is nothing left but love, that is when you find out that love is all you need.

Love Came....

kaliom — Fri, 10 Feb 2006 02:06:52 GMT

Love came, and became like blood in my body. It rushed through my veins and encircled my heart. Everywhere I looked, I saw one thing. The Beloved's name written on my limbs, on my left palm, on my forehead, on the back of my neck, on my right big toe… Oh, my friend, all that you see of me is just a shell, and the rest belongs to the Beloved. - Jalaluddin Rumi

Man and Nature

kaliom — Tue, 03 Jan 2006 22:01:50 GMT

"The wall of separation between humans and Nature is created mainly by the selfish attitude of humans. They think that Nature has been created only for them to use and exploit in order to fulfill their selfish desires. This attitude creates a wall, a separation and a distance" - Ammachi http://www.amritapuri.org/nature/man-nature.php

When will America wake-up to reality??

kaliom — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 02:53:11 GMT

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051215/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_57;_ylt=AoUBn_Wwd4tFLE1trLpgfM1qP0AC;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

Random Quotes

kaliom — Sat, 10 Dec 2005 19:35:51 GMT

The next Buddha will not take the form of an individual. The next Buddha may take the form of a community practicing understanding and loving kindness, a community practicing mindful living. This may be the most important thing we may do for the survival of the earth. - Thich Nhat Hahn To meet everything and everyone through stillness instead of mental noise is the greatest gift you can offer to the universe. I call it stillness but it is a jewel with many facets: that stillness is also joy and it is love. -Echarte Tolle The life of a hedonist is the best preparation for becoming a mystic. - Hermann Hesse

Corrected Link: Forests paying the price for bio-fuels

kaliom — Thu, 08 Dec 2005 22:47:57 GMT

Seems like another human condition. We are constantly trying to find the perfect solution. But alas, it is perfect only at a certain given period of time and we rejoice at our discovery. Soon to discover the repercussions of the same. Remember the Green Revolution? In the quest to decrease dependence on the Gulf oil, we found a brilliant solution - use bio-fuels. Well, once the capitalist market and commercialisation takes over, soon another repercussion comes in - now forests will be destroyed to grow more plants from which vegetable oil can be made. (Already it has started) What next? Another discovery to combat the repercussions of this one? And then yet another one? More solutions? And so it goes on.......:-)) Pehaps the focus should be directed back to locally available resources? Maybe this will force us humans to think about sustainibility rather then expanding all over to meet our needs leaving a trail of destruction? Perhaps Gaia will force us to learn this lesson by severely impairing mobility in the near future, thereby forcing us to live and be accountable for local resources? Oh, well! http://www.newscientist.com/channel/earth/mg18825265.400 - The pessimistic me, wanting to be optimistic

Thoughts of the day

kaliom — Mon, 05 Dec 2005 20:36:51 GMT

1. Women empowering each other and supporting each other is the only way to stop these fuckers from isolating us, hiding the truth, belittling us and controlling us in the name of "love" (often mistaken for sex) Alas, some women do not understand that. 2. YES, YES, YES, YES - to emotional outbursts. This is one of my weathers . If you don't know how to stay present with a woman in her moments of pain and feminine storm and still love her then - FUCK OFF YOU ASSHOLE.

Soulmates

kaliom — Thu, 24 Nov 2005 21:30:53 GMT

In your arms my journeys end. Journeys of lifetimes Over high mountains and deep seas across borders made by man breaking the boundaries of emotions traveling through a million stars and galaxies. I reach the end happy to conclude with peace. I surrender. Every pore on my body is awake For your look, for your smile, For your touch, for your smell, For your gentle caress, for your soft moans For your warm breath upon me. I feel destroyed as I lay naked With no meaning without you A waste. A corpse. There is no meaning Without your lips, without your voice Without your laugh, without your tremble Without your body, without your mind without your desire throbbing to invade. From the first moment till the last, I am held. My hand in yours and yours in mine, intertwined As we walk, as we float, as we fly, as we drift As lovers, as friends, as children - together Over high mountains and deep seas Across borders made by man Breaking the boundaries of emotion Traveling through a million stars and galaxies I have reached the end of one and beginning of another. The other within me and you As our souls unite, the stars explode creating a new galaxy, a new cosmos. -Dec 2003, Dallas Airport