Monthly Archives: July 2011

Lovable You

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Lovable You — Warts ’n All!

I feel caught up in deep shame feelings about my body. I have a hormonal imbalance which makes it quite hairy, and I don’t like my weight. Before, I was thin — I still didn’t like it.

Nothing is wrong in being hairy, mm? And nothing is wrong in being fat! They are just ideas that have been put in your mind by others.

In fact all human bodies are hairy; it is an unnatural state that they are not hairy. It is because of clothes that hairs have disappeared. Naturally, it is not an imbalance; you are more natural than other people!

It is just as animals have hair — that is their only protection from cold. When man was nude and in the caves, he had that as protection. The body is still the same. Just because of clothes, shelter, the need is not there, but sometimes a few people’s bodies function in a very natural way, so those hairs come.

I don’t take it that you are in some way abnormal — you are simply normal. In fact, it is how it should be. The body’s inner hormone system has not changed just because we have started using clothes. The body has not changed its hormonal system; it is still there.

And if people start remaining more and more nude — on the beaches, in the rivers.. and by and by in the future centuries when people will be more nude…. Because to be nude is so beautiful and so healthy, and such a joy, that next century is going to be of nude humanity — and again hairs will start coming.

So I don’t think that there is anything wrong, or that you have to worry about the hormones.

I don’t think that you are fat. There are ten times more fat women than you! — this is nothing. In fact in India, at least this much fat is thought to be beautiful. The West has a very different notion. Have you seen Indian film actresses’ pictures? They are all fat. You will not find a single woman who can win the world contest in the west— not a single film actress. In India, unless a woman is full of fat, nobody likes her! And my feeling is that they are right…natural.

When a woman is skinny and bony, and the fat is not there on the body, that simply shows that she is not yet able to become a mother, that’s all. A woman gathers more fat than a man. It is a natural thing because when the child is in the womb, the mother needs some reservoir of fat — the child takes too much fat out of the body. By and by, as the pregnancy grows, the mother will not be able to eat much. So it is a natural protection for nine months. So women gather more fat than men — they have to; that is simply natural.

In the West, women who are trying not to become fat, not to become weighty, and who are continuously on a diet, are doing very unnatural things. They are constantly torturing themselves; their dieting is a torture. They cannot eat what they want to eat, and they have to eat what they never want to eat. They have continuously to fight with their body. Again and again they relapse, and again they eat something. and again the weight grows. All nonsense! One should be simply natural. And I don’t think that you are overweight or anything.

Drop your ideas — these ideas are simply nonsense! Start enjoying yourself! And if you have these ideas, they are dangerous. If you feel that you are not beautiful and you are not this and you are not that, then even if somebody comes and falls in love with you, you will not trust him. You will say, “He must be deceiving; how can he love me?” Even you cannot love yourself, so this man must be a cheat! He must have some other design, some other trick — you are not going to be trapped! And you will try to prove that you are right. You will try to destroy the relationship in every way so your whole idea can be again protected — that “Yes, I am not beautiful. Look! That man has left me.” You will create such a situation that he has to leave you!

This is a very suicidal attitude. Drop all nonsense! Start loving yourself. If you love yourself, only then can somebody else love you; otherwise you won’t allow anybody to come close to you. If you are so afraid of your body, how can you tolerate somebody else adoring your body? You cannot tolerate! Either he will look a stupid man or like somebody who is trying to deceive you. Drop this!

It is a simple understanding. The world is so vast, and everybody has a different body…and they have to be different! You fall in love with your body! Mm? There is nothing wrong.

…But you drop this nonsense — it is simply just nonsense! It is nothing much to be made a fuss about. Don’t make it a big problem. It is nothing. Drop it…and once you have, you will suddenly see that doors have started opening, and some fool is going to fall in love with you! (chuckling)

Blessed Are the Ignorant

…and some jokes, to keep you light…

The concerned doctor is trying to convince the patient that he is overweight. “Now just step on the scales,” says the doctor. “There…you see? Now look at this chart and compare your weight with the average weight for your height. You are way overweight.”

“No, I am not,” says the patient. “I am just six inches too short.”

The Invitation

Big Olga, Kowalski’s overweight wife, is getting enormous. So she goes to Doctor Gasbag to see if she can get some advice.

“You need much more exercise,” says Gasbag. “And you eat far too much. You must exercise every day.”

“But doctor,” complains Olga, “what exercise should I do?”

“It is easy,” replies Gasbag. “Begin slowly. Just strip off, lie down on your bed, and try to sit up and touch your toes. Then lift your legs back over your shoulders. Keep doing this until you start sweating off those pounds.”

That night, Olga decides to give it a try. Naked, lying on the bed, she can hardly see her toes. Still, she pushes forward, and tries to grab her feet. Then she lifts her legs back. But she gets stuck with her bum sticking out and her legs pushed back over her head.

At this point, Kowalski stumbles into the bedroom, utterly drunk.

“Jesus Christ, Olga!” he shouts in shock. “Comb your hair and put your teeth back in! You look like your mother!”

Nansen: The Point of Departure

There is this old Italian, see, who runs a pasta factory, and his three daughters work for him. One day they are all sitting around making the pasta, and he says to the eldest, “Agnesa, eef-a you were not here making the ravioli and the spaghetti, who-a in all-a the world-a you would like-a to be-a?”

“Oh Papa, I would like-a to be-a Sophia Loren-a. She ees so beautiful! All-a the men are after her.”

“Very good-a,” says the father. “And you, Maria, tell-a your Papa, eef you were not-a here, een steenking old Napoli, making the spaghetti, who-a in all-a the world-a you would like-a to be?”

“I would like-a to be-a Gina Lollobrigida. She ees so beautiful! All-a the men are after her. She has-a the Alfa Romeo and-a the Cadillac!”

“Very good-a,” says the father. Then he says, turning to the youngest, “Lucia! Bella! Well-a, tell-a your Papa, eef-a you were not-a here-a up to your elbows een the raviolis, who-a in all-a the world-a you would like-a to be-a?”

“I would like to be…Veectoria Pepeleena!”

“What?!” cries the father. “Who een the hell-a ees Veectoria Pepeleena?”

She pulls a newspaper cutting out of her bra and shows it to him: Victoria Pipeline to be Laid by 400 Men in Two Weeks.

- Osho

The Heart Sutra

Copyright © 2009 Osho International Foundation

We should enjoy life by doing kindness to others.

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The seer, therefore, teaches that all the things that we desire and think beautiful, we ought to produce within ourselves instead of expecting them from others. What a task that is! What great self-sufficiency there would be if every country always itself produced that which it seeks from others; what an independent life it would be to produce within ourselves what we expect to obtain from others! Instead of depending on them for something we ourselves can give them, we should experience the joy of giving, the joy of being kind to others. What joy and freedom we should ourselves find in being kind to another. However natural it may be to have someone love and admire us, are we not dependent? The wife is dependent of her husband’s love; the friend is dependent on the friend’s love. But in the other case we would be free and independent; for our joy would lie in the love itself, and not in the person.

We should enjoy life by doing kindness to others. Receiving kindness from others only makes the recipient expect more. He keeps saying, ‘He is doing this for his own benefit; he is not considering me; he is blaming me; he did not help me; he did not deal fairly with me.’ His life becomes full of grudges because he expects from everybody all the good that he wants, and he does not know that he ought to have it all in himself; that he should become independent. Therein lies the secret of character. … If a person thinks that God is all, but the whole world is vile, he does not worship God, for God is all and God is beautiful. ‘God is beautiful and he loves beauty,’ the Prophet said. And as His being is in us, we are supposed to love beauty also. What is beauty? Not only the external beauty, but the beauty of personality, the beauty of character, that is the real beauty. If we did not worship it, we should not admire it in other people. We cannot appreciate anything without beauty of character.

All gains, whether material, spiritual, moral, or mystical, are the outcome of one’s own character; and if we have gained nothing, it is only by reason of our own character.

from  http://wahiduddin.net/mv2/VII/VII_14.htm

All Thought Is Partial

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You and I realize that we are conditioned. If you say, as some people do, that conditioning is inevitable, then there is no problem; you are a slave, and that is the end of it. But if you begin to ask yourself whether it is at all possible to break down this limitation, this conditioning, then there is a problem; so you will have to inquire into the whole process of thinking, will you not? If you merely say, “I must be aware of my conditioning, I must think about it, analyze it in order to understand and destroy it,” then you are exercising force. Your thinking, your analyzing is still the result of your background, so through your thought you obviously cannot break down the conditioning of which it is a part.Just see the problem first, don’t ask what is the answer, the solution. The fact is that we are conditioned, and that all thought to understand this conditioning will always be partial; therefore there is never a total comprehension, and only in total comprehension of the whole process of thinking is there freedom. The difficulty is that we are always functioning within the field of the mind, which is the instrument of thought, reasonable or unreasonable; and as we have seen, thought is always partial. – J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

MENTAL FACTORY

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Now I will take you to the most wonderful mental factory. It is very close to you; it is a wonder of wonders. Even a rank materialist, if he is very sincere, will be turned into a perfect theist, instantly, if he closes his eyes for a moment and seriously reflects on the working of this marvellous factory. The Kena Upanishad opens with the following lines: “Who is the Director of this mind? Who gives Light and Power to this mind?” It goes on “Brahman is the Mind of minds, the Prana (life) of pranas, the Eye of eyes, the Ear of ears.”

What a bold philosophy. At once it raises man to an unerring solution for all the different problems of life. The four mahavakyas (great utterances): “Prajnanam brahma” (consciousness is the Absolute); “aham brahma asmi” (I am the Absolute); “tat twam asi” (that thou art); “ayam atma brahma” (the Self is the Absolute), infuse power and joy into the hearts of all hearers. They produce drastic changes in your life. Then you will laugh at the vain pomp, the empty glory and the artificial and miserable life of a rich man.

The eyes and the ears are the gate-keepers of this mental factory – they are the `way in’ and mouth is the `way out’. Eyes and ears bring inside the mental factory matters for manufacture. Light and sound vibrations are brought inside through these two avenues.

First of all they are made into `percepts’ by the mind. They are then presented to the intellect. The intellect converts these `percepts’ into `concepts’ or ideas. These ideas are expressed by the outside gatekeeper, the organ of speech.

The external physical eyes and ears are mere instruments. But the real visual and auditory centres are in the brain and in the astral body – these are the real senses. Understand this point well. The intellect receives these materials from the mind and presents them to the purusa or Atman (the Self), who is behind the screen.

The mind is the head clerk of this mental factory. He has ten clerks, the five jnana indriyas (senses) to bring news from the facts outside. The facts are placed by the mind before the intellect, who places them before the purusa (inner self). A message comes back from the purusa to the buddhi (intellect). Buddhi decides and determines, and then gives the answer back to the mind, for execution. The five karma indriyas (organs of speech, hands, feet, genitals and anus) execute the order of the mind who is their master.

- Swami Sivananda

All that you speak is a reflection of inner thought

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All that you speak is a reflection of inner thoughts. All that you do is a reflection of inner action. Hence, to act according to your inner impulse is Dharma (right conduct). To speak what you feel inside is Sathya (truth). To contemplate on what you experience in your heart is Shanti (peace). To understand properly the promptings of the heart is Ahimsa (non-violence) .
Consideration for all emanating from the heart is Prema (love). The five values are thus reflections of feelings emanating from the heart. Being truly human means having complete harmony between thought, word and deed. If there is divergence between thought, word and deed, what is the outcome? Fruitless action.- Bhagavan Sri sathya Sai Baba.

All living beings are actors on this stage

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All living beings are actors on this stage. They make their exit when the
curtain is rung down or when their part is over. On that stage, one may play the
part of a thief, another may be cast as a king, a third may be a clown, and
another a beggar. For all these characters in the play, there is only One who
gives the cue! The prompter will not come upon the stage and give the cue, in
full view of all. If He does so, the drama will lose interest. Therefore,
standing behind a screen at the back of the stage, He gives the cue to all the
actors, regardless of their role — be it dialogue, speech, or song — just when
each is in most need of help. In the same way, the Lord is behind the screen on
the stage of Prakriti (Creation), giving the cue to all the actors for their
various parts. – Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba

Living Outside the Circle

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I always feel so unworthy of love. I feel this makes me keep my door closed and now my heart is suffering but I have forgotten where the door is.

It is one of the crimes that has been committed against everybody everywhere in human society: you have been continuously conditioned and told that you are unworthy.

Because of this conditioning, the major part of humanity has given up even desiring any adventure, any pilgrimage to the stars; they are so convinced of their unworthiness. Their parents were telling them, “You are unworthy.” Their teachers were telling them, “You are unworthy.” Their priests were telling them, “You are unworthy.” Everybody was forcing the idea on them that they were unworthy. Naturally they accepted the idea.

Once you accept the idea of unworthiness, you naturally close. You cannot believe that you have wings, that the whole sky is yours, that you have just to open your wings and the sky is going to be yours, with all its stars.

It is not a question of somewhere you have forgot to open one door. You don’t have any doors, you don’t have any walls. This unworthiness is simply a concept, an idea. You have become hypnotized by the idea.

Since the very beginning, all cultures, all societies have been using hypnotism to destroy individuals — their freedom, their uniqueness, their genius — because the vested interests are not in need of geniuses, not in need of unique individuals, not in need of people who love freedom. They are in need of slaves, and the only psychological way to create slaves is to condition your mind that you are unworthy, that you don’t deserve anything; that you don’t even deserve whatever you have, you should not go for anything more. Already you owe too much for things which you are not worthy of.

Hypnotism is a simple process of continuous repetition. Just go on repeating a certain idea and it starts settling inside you, and it becomes a thick wall, invisible. There are no doors, no windows; there is no wall either.

George Gurdjieff has remembered his childhood…. He was born in the Caucasus, one of the most primitive parts of the world. It is still at the stage where humanity was when it lived through hunting; even cultivation has not started. The people of the Caucasus are great hunters and any society that lives by hunting is bound to be a nomadic society. It cannot make houses, it cannot make cities, because you cannot depend on animals. Today they are available here, tomorrow they are not available here. Certainly you will kill them, and because of your presence they will escape; either they will be killed or they will escape.

Gurdjieff was brought up by a nomadic society, so he was coming from almost another planet. He knew a few things which we have forgotten. He remembers that in his childhood the nomads hypnotized their children, because they cannot carry them continuously while they are hunting. They have to leave them somewhere under a tree, in a safe place. But what is the guarantee that those children will remain there? They have to be hypnotized. So they used a small strategy, and they have used it for centuries.

From the very beginning when the child is very small, they will make him sit under a tree. They will draw a circle around the child with a stick and tell him, “You cannot go out of this circle; if you go out of it, you will be dead.”

Now those small children believe, just like you. Why are you Christian?…because your parents told you. Why are you Hindus? Why are you Jainas? Why are you Mohammedans?…because your parents told you.

Those children believe that if they go out of the circle they will die. They grow up with this conditioning. You may try to persuade them: “Come out, I will give you a sweet.” They cannot, because death…. Even sometimes if they try, they feel as if an invisible wall prevents them, pushes them back into the circle. That wall exists only in their minds; there is no wall, there is nothing. Unless the person who has put them in the circle comes and withdraws the circle, takes the child out, the child remains inside.

The child goes on growing but the idea remains in the unconscious. So even an old man, if his father draws a circle around him, cannot get out of it. So it is not only a question of the child; the old man also still carries his childhood in his unconscious. It is not a question of one child. The whole group of nomads have put their children under trees nearby, and all the children are sitting there the whole day long. By the time their parents come back, it has become such a conditioning that no matter what happens, the child will not leave the circle.

Exactly the same kind of circles are drawn around you by your society. Of course they are more sophisticated. Your religion is nothing but a circle, but very sophisticated; your church, your temple, your holy book is nothing but a hypnotic circle.

One has to understand that one is living surrounded by many circles which are only in your mind. They don’t have a real existence, but they function almost as if they are real.

It is simply a conditioning that you are unworthy. Nobody is unworthy. Existence does not produce people who are unworthy. Existence is not unintelligent. If existence produces so many unworthy people, then the whole responsibility goes to existence. Then it can be definitely concluded that existence is not intelligent, that there is no intelligence behind it, that it is an unintelligent, accidental materialist phenomenon and there is no consciousness in it. This is our whole fight, our whole struggle: to prove that existence is intelligent, that existence is immensely conscious.

It is the same existence which creates Gautam Buddhas. It cannot create unworthy people. You are not unworthy. So there is no question of finding a door; there is only an understanding that unworthiness is a false idea imposed on you by those who want you to be a slave for your whole life.

You can drop it just right now. Existence gives the same sun to you as to Gautam Buddha, the same moon as to Zarathustra, the same wind as to Mahavira, the same rain as to Jesus. It makes no difference, it has no idea of discrimination. For existence, Gautam Buddha, Zarathustra, Lao Tzu, Bodhidharma, Kabir, Nanak or you are just the same. The only difference is that Gautam Buddha did not accept the idea of being unworthy, he rejected the idea.

So drop the idea of unworthiness, it is simply an idea. And with the dropping of it, you are under the sky .There is no question of doors; everything is open, all directions are open. That you are is enough to prove that existence needs you, loves you, nourishes you, respects you.

The idea of unworthiness is created by the social parasites. Drop that idea. Be grateful to existence…because it only creates people who are worthy, it never creates anything which is worthless. It only creates people who are needed.

My emphasis is that every sannyasin should respect himself and feel grateful to existence that he has been required to be here at this juncture of time and space.

- Osho, Beyond Enlightenment, Talk #31

Do it, and you will see.

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Questioner: Sir, if there is no effort, if there is no method, then any transition into the state of awareness, any shift into a new dimension, must be a completely random accident, and therefore unaffected by anything you might say on the subject.

Krishnamurti: Ah, no, sir! I didn’t say that. [Laughter] I said one has to be aware. By being aware, one discovers how one is conditioned. By being aware, I know I am conditioned – as a Hindu, as a Buddhist, as a Christian; I am conditioned as a nationalist: British, German, Russian, Indian, American, Chinese – I am conditioned. We never tackle that. That’s the garbage we are, and we hope something marvelous will grow out of it, but I am afraid it is not possible. Being aware doesn’t mean a chance happening, something irresponsible and vague. If one understands the implications of awareness, one’s body not only becomes highly sensitive, but the whole entity is activated; there is a new energy given to it. Do it, and you will see. Don’t sit on the bank and speculate about the river; jump in and follow the current of this awareness, and you will find out for yourself how extraordinarily limited our thoughts, our feelings, and our ideas are. Our projections of gods, saviors, and
Masters – all that becomes so obvious, so infantile.
- JKrishnamurti
Collected Works, Vol. XV – 138

If the soul is awakened

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‘If the soul is awakened, how does it awake, and who awakens it?’ We see that the time for nature to awake is the spring. It is asleep all winter and it awakes in the spring. There is a time for the sea, when the wind blows and brings good tidings, as if it awakes from sleep; then the waves rise. All this shows struggle, it shows that something has touched it and makes it uneasy, restless; it makes it want liberation, release. Every atom, every object, every condition and every living being has a time of awakening.

Sometimes there is a gradual awakening, and sometimes there is a sudden awakening. To some persons it comes in a moment’s time — by a blow, by a disappointment, or because their heart has broken through something that happened suddenly. It seemed cruel, but at the same time the result was a sudden awakening and this awakening brought a blessing beyond praise. The outlook changed, the insight deepened; joy, quiet, independence and freedom were felt, and compassion showed in the attitude.

Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:
from  http://wahiduddin.net/mv2/XIV/XIV_19.htm

Overcoming Negative Thoughts

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Question: Swamiji, please teach me how to ignore negative thoughts when they enter my mind. I have noticed that when a single thought enters, if I don’t wipe it off immediately, it opens the floodgates to a whole range of negative feelings. This makes me weak.

Answer: About dealing with the negative thoughts, here is the secret for finding relief and strength: Do not be afraid of negative thoughts. Allow them to come – rather invite them – when you sit ready to receive them, in the morning or so, after your ablutions and prayers or meditation. Allow them to surge forth. React to them freely. You should not hurt yourself physically. Mentally and emotionally do whatever you feel like, without reservation. Cry, weep, sob, curse yourself, lament your weakness or fate – anything.

Let the spell be for 20 to 25 minutes. By then, the thoughts will become weak and ineffective; the mind will become stronger. The whole process must be like writing on water, in the end. Get up, wash your face and take to your other routines. Repeat the exercise for a few days.

Understand that no negative thought has any effect if you do not own it and act upon it. You are not responsible for the arising of any thought. Your responsibility commences from the time you act upon it. The difference is crucial. If negative thoughts come and you are not prepared to act upon them, they will simply disappear, leaving you to yourself, as before. If their incidence has no effect or purpose, automatically they will stop coming again. If at all once in a while, they happen to intrude, simply be indifferent.

All that I say is 100 percent possible, provided you practise it earnestly and assiduously.

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. – Swami Bhoomananda Tirtha

© Narayanashrama Tapovanam, 2011

http://www.brahmavidya.org