Osho speaks on the Ever Eternal cause of Man's Worry

In India we have a small story...

A king was very puzzled because a man, a barber, used to come to massage him, to shave him every morning, and he was always happy – he had never seen him sad. The man lived just opposite the king’s palace. He used to get one gold coin every day, which was enough in those days to live for the whole month. So the poor man was living luxuriously... every day one gold coin.

In the night he would play on his flute, and the king would hear the sound of the flute. His problem was, ”I have everything, and this man gets only one coin every day; he is so happy and I am so tense, so worried. Where is the problem?” He asked his prime minister, an old man. The old man said, ”You wait just a few days, and you will know the reason.”

And the prime minister threw a bag full of ninety-nine gold coins into the barber’s house. The next day the barber came, but he was not the same man. He was looking sad. The king said, ”What is the matter? Are you sick or something?” He said, ”No, I am not sick, but a great problem has arisen. Some stupid guy has thrown a bag into my house with ninety-nine gold coins, and he has created problems in my life.”

The king said, ”But what is the problem?”

He said, ”The problem is that now my mind says to save the coin today: don’t eat, don’t waste it; at least make the bag complete, one hundred coins... So today I am going to fast, and you will not hear my flute tonight. And I am worried because that same mind is saying to me continuously: Now you cannot go on living the way you were living. Once in a while you have to save... one hundred, then one hundred and one, then one hundred and two, and where will it end? – it has finished me.”

The more money you have, the more you want.

The more power you have, the more you want.

The South Kailash Bhakthi Movement - To Velliangiri Mountains

The Velliangiri Mountains, a part of the Nilgiri’s Biosphere, are situated at the western border of Coimbatore district, Known as the “Kailash of the South”, these mountains are held and revered on par with the spiritually most powerful place on the planet – Mount Kailash, the legendary abode of Shiva. On the top of the Velliangiri Mountains, Shiva is worshipped as Swayambu, one who is self-created, and in this form, he graces the devotees. In the past, many siddhas, seers and sages have practiced severe austerities and attained self-realization on these Mountains.

To be able to receive the grace and blessings of Shiva as the Lord of Velliangiri, it is very important to maintain certain austerities with devotion and commitment for a duration of 42 days, considered as mandala, and then take up the pilgrimage to the top of the Velliangiri Mountains.

Going on this sacred trek in the time between 14th January and 15th june is particularly conductive. In preparation, it will be beneficial to perform a 42 day mandala of austerities such as eating once a day, taking bath in the morning and evening, applying vibhuti (sacred ash), wearing saffron robes and panchamukhi rudraksh, chanting the shiva mantra for 20 minutes twice a day and worshipping Shiva.

The additional practice of seeing, worshipping and bowing down to all life forms - trees, plants, birds, animals and human beings as Shiva will become a very powerful process by itself. The same austerities can be taken up by women. They can conclude their 42 day penance by cooking and serving annadhanam for other devotees.

By going through these austerities and having darshan of Lord Shiva of the Velliangiri Mountains, one can attain prosperity and spiritual growth.

The South Kailash Bhakthi Movement invites one and all to support this venture by helping to create basic amenities for the devotees and offer the possibility for everyone to benefit from this powerful space and live a life of ultimate wellbeing.

Cell : 94431 45660 email : thenkailayam@gmail.com
Sarva Shivamayam



The South Kailash Bhakthi Movement

Chavady, Thaneerpanthal Bus Stop, Semmudu P.O., Coimbatore – 641114.

Rudraksh

Rudraksh, the most celebrated esoteric accessory of spiritual seekers has been used extensively since time immemorial. Botanically known as Elaecarpus Ganitrus Roxb, Rudraksh are the dried seeds of a tree, which grows in a select locations of South East Asia, predominantly in the upper Himalayan mountain range of the Indian subcontinent bordering Nepal. A few Rudraksh trees have also been sighted in parts of the Velliangiri Mountains, in the Western Ghats.

The word Rudraksh literally means “tears of Shiva”. There are many legends in Indian scriptures and mythology that describe the divine origin of the Rudraksh tree. According to one legend, Shiva sat in meditation for many millennia with his eyes closed. Upon opening his eyes, he shed tears of ecstasy, which fell to the earth and became the holy Rudraksh tree. Rudraksh beads were Shiva’s gift to the world.

Benefits of Rudraksh

Rudraksh’s curative properties have been utilized worldwide for a number of physical, mental and psychosomatic illnesses. They are very supportive for maintaining physical and mental balance. They aid in creating an atmosphere conductive for restful sleep in unfamiliar environments.

For spiritual seekers, Rudraksh plays a supportive role in enhancing one’s spiritual growth. Some of the esoteric benefits ascribed to Rudraksh include enhancement of intuition, infusion of tranquility of the mind, assistance in meditation, purification of the aura, cleansing of the seven chakras, formation of a protective sheath around a person, providing protection against injury or negative and distorted energies, and development of dispassion and detachment.

Who can wear a Rudraksh ?

Anyone, irrespective of gender, cultural, ethnic, geographical, or religious background can wear Rudraksh. Rudraksh can be worn by children, students, the elderly, ill etc. for special benefits. They are intended for persons at any stage in life irrespective of mental and/or physical condition.

Selecting a Rudraksh

Rudraksh in their natural state have their own energies that are very beneficial to the wearer. However, Rudraksh can also be specially consecrated to enhance the impact upon the wearer. In the tradition, Rudraksh are usually received from a Guru - a spiritual Master. Rudraksh offered by Isha Yoga Center are carefully selected and checked for their quality and authenticity and undergo a special process of consecration by Sadhguru. Assisting the seeker in many ways, they are potent aids for one’s physical, mental wellbeing and one’s spiritual sadhana (spiritual practice).

The following is a list of Rudraksh available through the Isha Yoga Center, which have been selected by Sadhguru for use by the common man, with the corresponding attributable properties:

Panchmukhi : These are five-faced Rudraksh which can be worn by anyone above 14 years of age. It helps cultivate inner freedom and purity.

Dwimukhi : These are two-faced Rudraksh intended for married persons. It is supportive for marital relationships and should be worn by both husband and wife.

Shanmukhi : These are six-faced Rudraksh intended for children below 14 years of age. This Rudraksh aids in proper physical and mental development and draws qualities of motherly love toward the child.

Gowrishankar : These are beads which look like two beads fused together and can be worn by anyone above 14 years of age. It aids in prosperity and balancing the Ida and Pingala nadis (energy channels) and activates the seven chakras.

Conditioning of Rudraksh

To condition new Rudraksh beads, immerse them in Ghee (clarified butter) for 24 hours and then soak them in full fat milk for an additional 24 hours. Wipe the beads with a clean cloth, but do not wash them with soap. Conditioning should take place every six months.

Proper Care of Rudraksh

Rudraksh can be worn at all times, including during sleep and while doing one’s spiritual practices. Rudraksh can be worn during bathing times. However, care must be taken that the Rudraksh do not come in contact with hot water or soap. Rudraksh should not come in contact with metal, therefore it is advisable not to place them in metal containers. However, Rudraksh can be cast in gold or silver if one chooses to do so. Extreme care should be taken when fashioning Rudraksh in this manner, as damage may occur through improper handling.

The energies of broken, cracked, damaged and defective Rudraksh beads are distorted and should not be worn.

Giving birth to conscious human being – Sperm Bank

Questioner : YOU ARE FOR TOTAL BIRTH CONTROL. I FEEL THAT ALL THIS IS VERY SIMILAR TO THE NAZI IDEOLOGY. PLEASE COMMENT.

I don’t know anything about Nazi ideology, but if it is similar, it makes no difference. What I am saying is my understanding. If it is similar to some other ideology, it is a coincidence. I want humanity to be more scientific as far as breeding is concerned. We have been producing too many idiots, retarded people, crippled people, blind people, sick people. And those people are going to suffer for their whole lives. This is not compassion.

There is no need, because each time a man makes love to a woman he releases one million sperm. Only one sperm, once in a while – not every day – will be able to get to the woman’s egg. The remaining one million will die within two hours. Once one sperm has reached the egg, the egg closes, and the remaining ones have nothing to do but die. For two hours they can make their efforts, and within two hours there will be a line of one million soldiers dead. One does not know, in those one million soldiers, how many Albert Einsteins have died, how many Zorbas have died, how many Socrateses have died. One million is a big number.

A single man, in his whole life, releases billions of living sperm. He alone can fill the whole earth with people. The whole credit goes to the woman... because she can only produce one child in one year. But this child is just accidental. And my feeling is, that amongst one million people who are rushing towards the woman’s egg, there is every possibility that a Muhammad Ali may reach first, rather than Albert Einstein!

A Movie on Sperm Donor

But we don’t need Muhammad Alis. Boxing is such an ugly affair that it should be banned by law. The University of California has been researching for the last year: after each boxing match in California, for the following ten days the crime rates go thirteen percent higher – murders, suicides, rapes. And still boxing continues.

There is every possibility that the humble people – and all great people are humble – will stand aside and let the other go first. And the primitive and the ugly, the political, will not bother at all; they will push their way through and reach the egg first. Why leave it to accident when it is now in our hands to decide who should reach the egg?

The man can simply donate his sperm to the medical lab. They can find the best out of the one million, and just inject the woman. Such a simple affair, and we can raise humanity to really superhuman beings.

Yes, it may sound something like the Nazi idea, but it is not Nazi. It is simple arithmetic, simple science, simply humanistic. We can cancel those people who will be sick, who will be blind, who will be retarded – and we can choose the best. For thousands of years man has not evolved. We don’t know whether Charles Darwin is right or not. If he is right then it seems millions of years ago a few monkeys really took a quantum leap, became human beings, and since then we have not done anything comparable to that. We are far behind those monkeys who took the quantum leap and became human beings. It is time to take a quantum leap and through science is the only way to do it. Your old methods are bullock-cart methods; they won’t help.

So even if any of my ideas coincides with any other ideology, it does not matter. What matters is whether it is logical, rational, scientific, or not. Just by calling names you cannot criticize me. So remember, when you write your article, don’t just start saying that I am a fascist or a Nazi ideologist. That will not be fair to me. Whatever I am saying, I am giving you my argument. You can argue against my argument. If you have something better you can put it in, but don’t try these methods which belong only to third-rate intellects. Call anything Nazi, and people just start thinking it is wrong. You have to prove why I am wrong. You are free to prove me wrong. I would love to listen to the argument that I am wrong, but I have always come across people who simply go on calling names. That is not intelligent. That is not human.

The Art of Living in Simplicity – A Story of Leo Tolstoy narrated by Osho

Leo Tolstoy has a story, a beautiful story, of three villagers – uneducated, uncultured. They lived by the side of a lake in total isolation, under a tree. They were becoming more and more famous as saints.

The archbishop of the Russian Orthodox church of course was angry, because in Christianity you can be a saint only if you are certified by the pope. It is hilarious that a saint needs to be certified – as if it is also a title, an honorary degree that has to be conferred on the man. The very word ‘saint’ in English comes from ‘sanction’; it has to be sanctioned, certified. These three people were not certified and they had become saints. People were going to them in thousands and they were not coming to the archbishop. He was really pissed off!

One day he could not contain himself. He took a motor boat and went across the lake. Those three poor people fell at his feet and they said, ”Why did you have to make this long, tedious journey? You could have informed us and we would have come.” He was cooled down a little, seeing their simplicity. But he said, ”Do you think you are saints?”

They said, ”We don’t know what a saint means.”

He asked, ”Why do people come to worship you?”

They said, ”That is a problem to us. We don’t want them to – that’s why we have come far away from the village to live here in isolation. But people are crazy; they go on coming here. And we go on saying that we don’t know anything; we are just simple people, poor people.”

Now the archbishop was back into his daily posture of being the archbishop. He said, ”Then listen; first tell me, what is your prayer?”

All the three looked at each other and said, ”You tell him.”

The archbishop said, ”Anybody can say, there is no question – just tell me what the prayer is.”

They said, ”We are very embarrassed because we don’t know any prayer. Not knowing any prayer we have created our own – please forgive us. Our prayer is: ‘God, you are three; we are also three – have mercy on us.’ That’s all – longer prayers we cannot remember. It is simple and meaningful to us: ‘You are three, we are three – have mercy on us.’”

The archbishop had to laugh. He said, ”This is a strange kind of prayer! I will tell you the prayer authorized by the church, and you forget this prayer. This is not prayer, this is all nonsense!” They said, ”You can teach us; we are available. The only difficulty is, it should not be too long, there should not be big words; otherwise we will forget it.” He told them the whole prayer. They were very sad, and they said, ”Please repeat it one time more – it is very difficult to remember. But we will try it in three parts: one part one man will remember; the other part the other man will remember; the third part the third man will remember. This way we will make it. You repeat it at least one time more.” The archbishop repeated the prayer one time more. They all three touched his feet, and he greatly enjoyed it. He was thinking that there was going to be an encounter, but these were poor people, ignorant. He went in his boat, very happy that he had done a virtuous act of transforming three idiots to the right way of religion.

In the middle of the lake he was surprised; all three were coming, running on the water! He was so afraid – this time he REALLY pissed! He was trembling, ”My God, what is happening.” They reached the motorboat and said to the archbishop, ”Please, one time more! We have forgotten the prayer.”

The archbishop said to them, ”You forget my prayer; you continue your own. I was wrong to disturb you, please forgive me. Just go back to ‘You are three, we are three – have mercy on us.’ From today I am also going to do your prayer, because I am also three – I, my wife, my son. It fits and it is simple – and it works!”

Religions should be a simple, human, individual affair, like love. You don’t have organizations for love; you don’t create churches and synagogues and temples and mosques for love. But in love at least two persons are involved – in prayer you are absolutely alone.

Everyone should have freedom to chose their own path of spirituality – Swami Vivekananda

What is the Indian idea of the Christian faith ?

That it is very good.  We have a peculiar idea in India. Suppose I had a child. I should not teach him any religion; I should teach him breathings – the practice of concentrating the mind, and just one line of prayer – not prayer in your sense, but simply something like this, “I meditate on Him who is the Creator of this universe: may He enlighten my mind!” That way he would be educated, and then go about hearing different philosophers and teachers. He would select one who, he thought, would suit him best; and this man would become his Guru, or teacher, and he would become a Shisya, or disciple. He would say to that man, “This form of philosophy which you preach is the best; so teach me.” Our fundamental idea is that your doctrine cannot be mine, or mine yours. Each one must have his own ways. My daughter may have one method, and my son another, and I, again another. So each one as an Ishta, or chosen way, and we keep it to ourselves. It is between me and my teacher, because we do not want to create fight. It will not help any one to tell it to others, because each one will have to find his own way. So only general philosophy and general methods can be taught universally. For instance, giving a ludicrous example, it may help me to stand on one leg. It would be ludicrous to you if I said every one must do that, but it may suit me. It is quite possible for me to be a dualist and for my wife to be a monist, and so on. One of my sons may worship Christ or Buddha or Mohammed, so long as he obeys the caste laws. That is his own ishta.

Questioner : Are these exercises in breathing and concentration universally practiced ?

Yes; only some practice only a little, just to satisfy the requirement of their religion. The temples in India are not like churches here. They may all vanish tomorrow, and will not be missed. A temple is built by a man who wants to goto heaven, or to get a son or something of that sort. So he builds a large temple and employs a few priests to hold services there. I need not go there at all, because all my worship is in the home. In every house is a special room set apart, which is called the chapel. The first duty of the child, after his initiation, is to take a bath, and then to worship; and his worship consists of this breathing and meditating and repeating of a certain name. And another thing is to hold the body straight. We believe that the mind has every power over the body to keep it healthy. After one has done this, then another comes and take his seat, and each one does it in silence. Sometimes there are three or four in the same room, but each one may have a different method. This worship is repeated at least twice a day.

What should one choose, if one has to choose between memory and intelligence

Questioner : .INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM AND AUTHORITY ON ONE SIDE, AND AUTHORITARIANISM AND DICTATORSHIP ON THE OTHER SIDE, MOVE MAN’S LIFE AND HIS ASPIRATIONS.

PLEASE COMMENT ON THIS.

It is the same problem, the same question, phrased differently. Society is authoritarian; the church is authoritarian; the educational system is authoritarian. They all say, ”Whatever we say is right and you need not question it. You have simply to follow.”

And there are problems, for example in the educational system... I have been a student, I have been a professor, and I know that for the best part of life a person is being ruined by authoritarian people in the schools, in the colleges, in the universities. I was expelled from many colleges for the simple reason that I could not accept any authoritarianism. I said, ”You prove it and I am ready to accept it. But without proving it, without giving right arguments for it, without making it a rational statement, I am not going to accept it.”

And I was fighting in every subject, because in every subject the teachers were simply lecturing. Students were taking notes, because all that was needed was to repeat in the examination papers what the teachers had been telling them. And the better you repeat, exactly like a parrot, the more credit you get. Small things they were in difficulty to prove, and it became embarrassing to them. Every day it was a question... Anything they would say, I would stand up immediately – and I was asking relevant questions – ”On what grounds...?”

For example, one of the professors who was teaching me religions made the statement that the VEDAS – the Hindu holy scriptures – were written by God. I had to stand up. I said, ”I object. In the first place you have not been able to prove the existence of God. In the second place, now you are saying that these books, which are full of rubbish, are written by God. Have you ever looked into the VEDAS?” I asked him, ”Have you ever read from the first page to the last page?” There are four VEDAS, big volumes. ”I have brought all the four with me, and at random I can open and read, and let the whole class decide whether this is a statement which God could have written.”

The VEDAS are full of prayers. Now, God cannot pray; to whom will he be praying? And prayers for such stupid things that it is simply ridiculous to say that they are written by God. One Brahmin is praying, ”I have been continuously doing all the rituals, living according to the scriptures and you have still not given me a child. Give me a child; that will be a proof that my prayers have been heard.” I asked him, ”How could God have written this passage? It is written by someone and addressed to God, but it cannot be written by God himself. And if this is the situation of God, then that poor fellow should not be bothered about it. God is asking about a child from somebody else, so why should we not ask from the same source? Why should we bother this poor fellow?”

Their only answer finally was that every college would reject me. The principal would say, ”We are sorry. We know you are right, but we have to run the college. You will destroy the whole institution. Professors are threatening to resign, students are saying that you don’t allow the professors to teach, because on a single point every day the whole period is lost. Eight months have passed and the course will not be finished in the coming two months if the same thing continues. ”They have come here to pass examinations; they are not interested in truth, they are not interested in the validity of any statement. Their only reason to be here is to get a certificate. And you are a strange fellow – you don’t seem to be interested in certificates.” I said, ”I am not interested at all in certificates. What will I do with the certificates of these people who don’t know anything? I cannot think of these people as my examiners. The day you give me the certificate, I will tear it up immediately before you – because these people can’t answer.”

But the whole system is geared in that way. When I became a professor myself, I had to make a new arrangement. The arrangement was that in each forty-minute period, twenty minutes I would teach the syllabus as it is written in the books, and twenty minutes I would criticize it. My students said, ”We will go mad.” I said, ”That is your problem – but I cannot leave these statements without criticism. You can choose; when your examination comes you can choose to write whichever you want. If you want to fail, choose my part. If you want to pass, choose the first part. I am making it clear; I am not deceiving anybody – but I cannot go on deceiving you by teaching you something which I think is absolutely wrong.”

The vice-chancellor finally had to call me, and he said to me, ”This is a strange type of teaching. I have been receiving every day reports that half the time you teach the syllabus and half the time you have your arguments, which destroy the whole thing that you have taught them. So they come as empty as they had gone in... in fact in more of a mess!” I said, ”I’m not worried about anybody. What have they done with me all these years when I was a student? I was expelled from one college and then another. And you can come one day and listen to whether I am doing any injustice to the prescribed course. When I teach the prescribed course, I do it as totally as possible, to make it clear.”

He came one day and he listened, and after twenty minutes he said, ”That is really great. I had been also a student of philosophy, but nobody has ever told me this way.” I said, ”This is only half the talk. You just wait, because now I am going to destroy it completely, step by step.” And when I destroyed it completely he said, ”My God! Now I can understand what the poor students are reporting to me. You are not supposed to be a professor in this structure of education. I can understand that what you are doing is absolutely honest, but this system does not create people of intelligence; this system only creates people of good memory – and that’s what is needed. We need clerks, we need stationmasters, we need postmasters – and these people don’t need intelligence, they need a good memory.”

I said, ”In other words you need computers, not men. If this is your educational system, then sooner or later you are going to replace men with computers” – and that’s what they are doing. Everywhere they are replacing important positions with computers, because computers are more reliable; they are just memory, no intelligence. Man, however repressed, has a certain intelligence.

“Perhaps” – The Golden word used by Bhagawan Mahaveer of Jainism – Swami Sukhabodhananda speaks on it.

Religious people appear to respect a book that they truly neglect. If one truly respects sacred teachings, it is necessary to practice than merely preach. Then the choice becomes simple; you can either stand up and be counted or lie down and be ignored. It is wiser to act on what you choose rather than say what you choose.Among the beautiful teachings of Jainism is Syat Vaada (“Perhaps”}. If one truly practices, the beauty of it will be revealed as an inner freedom. Syat Vaada says everything is relative and nothing is absolute.

For example, if one is practicing Syat Vaada, and hears that a person is stupid, then he will say that his stupidity is relative and not absolute. Jain seers spoke of the theory of relativity thousands of years before the western world was aware of it. Syat vaada can be better be understood through a story.

A poor Chinese farmer found a beautiful black horse on his farm. The farmer and his only son were excited to see such a beautiful horse. The King of that place heard about that wonderful horse and offered a huge sim to buy the horse. The farmer humbly rejected the offer. All the villagers told the farmer that he was stupid in rejecting the offer from the king. The farmer answered “may be”.

After few days the horse was missing. The villagers once again told the farmer,”Do you realize you were unwise?” The farmer answered again “may be”. After a few days the horse returned with 20 other horses. The villagers now told the farmer, “You are really wise by not selling the horse.” The farmer again answered “may be”.

The farmer’s only son while training the horses fell down and broke his leg. Meanwhile, a war broke out in China, and all the youngsters had to go to war except the farmer’s son, as he was not fit. The villagers once again said, ”You are lucky, you only son is saved.” The farmer yet again said “may be”.

This explains in Syat Vaada the things are relative. If one understands the theory of relativity one will not be the victim of absolutisation. How does one practice this principle in daily life? This insight from a story reveals a lot on how it can help people in their lives. When an opinion is made of a person, the question to be asked is – “Is it absolute or relative?” Whenever one makes an opinion of others and considers it as absolute, then one stops seeing the person as a flowing being. Nobody is static, everyone is a flowing being. Considering as absolute is, destroying the basic quality of an individual as a flowing being.

Questioner : How does this concept help in our daily life?

Swami : Syat Vaada involves applying it in the following ways in our daily lives :

• As far as I know

• Up to a point

• To me

The quality of our life depends on the quality of our relationships. Keeping the perception of our relationship relative is keeping it open. Being open gives ventilation to life.

If someone says Mr. X is stupid, then he is not practicing Syat Vaada. But if he says, ”As far as I know, Mr.X is stupid,” then he is not labeling the person and at the same time validating his perception, yet being open to other variables which do not make the other person stupid.

So often, we are prisoners of our own knowledge. So by saying, as far as I know, I am not making my knowledge as absolute and at the same time not deleting whatever I know and being open to other variables. In this process, I am setting myself free and others free by not labeling the other. We label others and see only the labels and not the persons. This is an ignorant way of living. Jainism tells us to live a life based on this principle and be wise. A wise person created happiness around while an unwise one creates unhappiness.

Practicing Syat means “up to a point”. If I can make statements like “Up to a point this person is bad,” then I am allowing myself to see beyond my limiting perception. Any person is bad up to a point. Even a thief is bad up to a point, but he will do good acts for someone he cares for. So how can we say that the thief is bad in absolute terms?

This principle can be applied as “To me”. In our perceptions and in our opinion of others, if we tell ourselves that “To me” a person is bad and not that he is bad in the absolute term. Such a perception is more factual.

We suffer in life for we make absolute statements of others and ourselves. We can set ourselves free and others by practicing this principle, which says maybe or things are relative. When we operate on a relative plane, we are open to other possibilities. Creativity happens in the space of openness.

When we are open, we see opportunities . There are far more opportunities than we think. When opportunity knocks, a wise person is open to the opportunities, whereas a unwise person complains. So openness is a great virtue and this is the result of the practice of the principle of the principle – Syat vaada.

Is there a difference between looking good,feeling good and being good ?

There are three traits in human consciousness. Looking good, feeling good and being good. The most important of these traits is ‘being good’. Many people value ‘feeling-good’. However, if “feeling good” is not anchored on being good, then people get into drugs…….. Drugs temporarily make you feel good, but are not good for your well-being.

People also value looking good more. Impressing another is or primary importance. For them, looking good, physically and psychologically is more important than feeling good and being good. There is nothing wrong in looking good, as long as it is based on being good. More often, people want their image to be appreciated to feed their ego. Glamour is food for their ego; it decorates your ‘looking good’ pattern. Hence, glamour is of a greater appeal.

Questioner : Why is ‘looking good’ wrong ?

Swami : It is not a question of right or wrong. There exists a deeper meaning to it.

Reflect on this real incident.

A young girl from an orthodox Indian family became a widow at the age of 20. She expressed to me in one of my workshops that she was feeling lonely. I asked her why she could not remarry. She replied that she ccame from an orthodox family and feared what people would say if she were to get married again. I asked her as to what people were talking about her right then. She replied that they felt that she was a good woman. However, I asked her, if she was feeling-good. In the eyes of the people, she was looking-good but was not feeling good.

People sacrifice “feeling-good” and “being-good” for the sake of “looking-good”. By not remarrying, she was not being-good to her self. When looking-good is not based on being-good, then life becomes a mess. The world runs on the illusion of looking-good. If you do not look good, you will not survive this rat race, little realizing that even if you win, you continue to be a rat. Are people happy in spite of being successful ? Why is it that many successful people are still miserable? The reason being that they do not know the art of being happy. A study done on happy people showed that happy people showed that happy people were good finders. They always seek and find something good even in the bad.

Use the image of looking-good but do not be used by the image of looking-good. Just as you wear a dress, you are not the dress; so you are not the image. To be happy, be free from any image of yourself. Be empty of image, empty of thoughts, empty of conclusions. This inner emptiness is joy. This is a new way of looking.

Questioner : How do you deal with bad people at work or in society ?

Swami : Learn to accept that the world is like a forest where you will come across all types of animals. You have to be alert, accepting and be able to protect yourself. Every person’s soul is on a journey. Learn to accept it. Also, learn to empower them…. More by your “presence” than by your words.

Words are shallow for those who are too much in the mind. They will be lost in words. If you have learnt to go beyond mind, then your “presence” will have magic. The energies of your heart and being will flow. Invisible ripples of your consciousness will start communicating to the other. It is said that when Lord Buddha walked, flowers not in season bloomed because his consciousness was very powerful.

Questioner : Why should I learn to accept bad person ?

Swami : There is very little choice you have other than in accepting. Even if you reject him, he will still exist in this cosmos. When I say accept, I do not mean that you agree with him but be at peace with him. Learn to see elegance in imperfection. Understand that his being bad is communicating something to you. Existence is teaching you how not to be like him, through him. Hence, be grateful to him for in his badness lies a lesson for you to learn, how bad it is to be bad.

We mentally hold on to the pain for a week, a month or years together, unable to shake off the pain from our memory – Swami Sukhabodhananda

A farmer had an old donkey. One day, the donkey fell into a dry well. The farmer tried his best to rescue the donkey but failed. Finally he decided to let the old donkey die by burying it in the well itself.

He took a spade and started filling the well with debris. The donkey being a wise one, shook off the debris from its body as and when debris fell on it. This continued for a while. Suddenly, the farmer was surprised to find the donkey emerging from the well. The continous shaking of the debris helped the donkey to come out of the well.

It gives a great insight. Shake it off and step up. People may throw garbage, but shake the garbage off and step up and life will be different and divine.

But why do people abuse and throw garbage on us ? How can I be still inspired in spite of my boss and others throwing garbage at me?

“Garbage in” is “Garbage out”. One can give what one has. Once you understand this, you will be kind. You cannot expect a scorpion to kiss you. People around, with their hurt bodies create pain for others. Their minds are so noisy that they create noise. Be an anthropologist and study unhappy people. If Victor Franklin could do that why can’t you do so ? He was in a Nazi jail for ten years and studied how people could bear the torture and some could not. After being released from jail, he wrote a beautiful book – Man in search of Meaning. He said that one thing the Nazis could not do to him was to take away his attitude. Remember , the success of most people depend on 90 % attitude and 10% situation. Many studies validate this.

Be like the donkey in the story, shake it off and step up. Quite often, we hold on to what has happened in our lives. We mentally hold on to pain for a week, a month and create a hurt body in us. We cannot shake it loose from memory. The hurt body starts eating our joy. It starts re-living the experience of abuse and creates a mountain out of a molehill. Observe and try to change. We have a choice to keep an abuse within us or live or re-live with it or shake it off.

You are what you eat - Osho explains on this proverb

And the second proverb, ”you are what you eat,” is certainly true.

A man who is vegetarian is basically nonviolent. You can see it: the people who have been vegetarians for centuries are absolutely non – violent. They have not created any wars; they have not created any crusades, any JIHADS. The people who are meat eaters are bound to have little sensitivity, they are more hard. Even in the name of love they will kill; even in the name of peace they will go to war. In the name of freedom, in the name of democracy, they will murder.

There are cannibals also still in existence – not many: a small tribe in South Africa, of three hundred people. Nobody passes through that area, because if you pass through that area you will never reach your goal – you will become food! Because nobody passes through that area, those people have been eating their own people. In the beginning of this century their population was three thousand. Now they are only three hundred.

I am reminded of a Christian priest, a missionary, who was the first man from the West to reach to the cannibals to convert them to Christianity. They immediately got hold of him. They put him in a big pot. He said, ”What are you doing?” They said, ”Just wait a little and you will know.” Then they started putting logs and wood under the pot. The missionary saw the situation, looked around at those people’s faces... ferocious. Trying somehow to persuade them that this was not good, he said, ”Before you do anything, listen to me. Have you ever had any taste of Christianity?” They said, ”Wait, we will have. We will make soup of you and then everybody will have the first taste of Christianity.”

A cannibal cannot be called human. If he can eat living human beings, he has no heart, he has no love, he has no sensitivity. He is just a stone. But you don’t think the same way when somebody kills a lion or a deer, because you don’t think that the deer has as much life as you have. The deer may have a beloved; the deer may have children. You don’t think of the lion, when you kill him, that he may have a family. His small cubs will be orphans. He is as alive as you are – in fact more alive than you are. Destroying him only for a few taste buds on your tongue, for the taste...

It seems to me that killing animals for eating is not very far away from killing human beings. They differ only in their body, in their shape, but it is the same life that you are destroying. With new technology the earth is perfectly capable of giving you food. You can make it as tasteful as you want, and you can give it any flavor that you love. Just for taste, destroying life is simply disgusting. And destroying life, you are destroying many qualities in you. You cannot become a Gautam Buddha. You cannot have that purity of consciousness, that sensitivity.

One day Gautam Buddha is passing a street with his disciple Ananda, talking to him. A fly sits on his forehead and he is so much involved in talking that just mechanically he waves his hand – the way we do – and the fly is gone. But then he suddenly stops, closes his eyes, and raises his hand very slowly, very gracefully. Ananda said, ”What are you doing? The fly is no longer there.” Buddha said, ”I misbehaved with the fly. That was not the right treatment – I should have been more graceful. I’m trying it, now I should have behaved, so that in future I don’t commit the same mistake. After all, a fly is also alive, and she was just sitting on my forehead.”

Now this man, who cannot even mistreat a fly, will certainly have a far purer consciousness than anybody else, a far deeper serenity than anybody else. Vegetarian food lacks only one thing: certain proteins, which are absolutely needed for intelligence to grow. That is the reason not a single vegetarian has been awarded the Nobel prize. Even in India three persons have been awarded the Nobel prize, but all the three persons were nonvegetarians. I have looked into the matter deeply. I have enquired from scientists, medical people, and found a substitute, the unfertilized egg. Added to vegetarian food, it makes it complete. It gives all the proteins that the old vegetarian food misses. And the nonfertilized egg is just vegetable; it has no life.

A simple change, and we can make the whole of humanity more sensitive, more artistic, more full of reverence for life. You cannot be religious if you are not full of reverence for life. God you have not seen, but life is all around you. To you, life is the only representative that proves that existence is not dead, it is alive.

Eating anything by killing is irreligious, unspiritual, unaesthetic. And once the unfertilized egg is added to the vegetarian food, the food is perfect – better than the none vegetarian food. It fulfills all your needs without any destruction. A man who lives by destruction will die by destruction. It is not a coincidence that both the world wars were fought in the West. And the third world war will also begin – if it begins – in the west.

In the East – particularly the people who have been vegetarian for centuries – they have never fought a war I remember my childhood. My grandmother would not allow poor tomatoes in the house, because they look like meat. I said, ”You are mad. These poor tomatoes are not meat.” But she said, ”Even the look... As long as I am alive, please don’t bring any tomatoes into the house.”

Do you think this woman can kill somebody? Can you imagine this woman can commit suicide? Yes, it is true, you are what you eat, because what you eat makes your mind, makes your body, makes your senses, gives you qualities. In India, I have been watching – not a single vegetarian is a beggar. Where there are millions of beggars, not a single vegetarian is a beggar. I have been visiting jails, and enquiring; I have never come across a vegetarian in the jail. They simply don’t commit anything – their sensitivity prevents them. If we want a really human world, a world of loving people, respectful of each others’ lives, then we will have to think about our food and about our other habits. They should be changed. They are not so valuable.

And if you love the flavor of meat, that flavor can be given to any food. Now it is a simple matter. There is no need, just for that flavor, to kill a living, beautiful animal and destroy the ecology of the earth. They are our brothers and our sisters.

The day Saint Francis died – he used to travel on a donkey – the last thing he said is worth remembering. He addressed the donkey – the last thing – not his disciples. He said, ”Brother donkey, please forgive me. I have been riding on you. I accept my guilt; it was not right to ride on a brother. Please forgive me before I die.” But he addressed the donkey as brother.

We are part of this existence: these trees, these animals, these birds, they are our brothers and our sisters. This is our whole family. Just a slight understanding, and you can change your consciousness from being polluted, from being destroyed. You can rise as high as anybody has ever been able.

What trusting a Guru really means ? Sadhguru

Questioner : Sadhguru, you say we should not simply believe anything, but rather experiment with life and see for ourselves. However, it seems to grow spiritually, tremendous trust in the Guru is needed. So what is the difference between the belief and trust ?

Sadhguru : Belief springs from your expectation. You have a set of rights and wrongs, goods and bads, divines and devils within you. When you say “I believe you”, you are expecting that I am going to live according to your rights and wrongs. Suppose I do something which is not within the field of your rights and wrongs, then the first thing that will happen is, you are going to come to me and say,”I believed you, and you did this”. So all that you are trying to do is, you want to mold me into your limitations. If your Guru can be contained within your limitations, then you better not go anywhere near that man because he will be of no help to you. He will solace you, he will comfort you, but this man is bondage; this man is not liberation. Trust is difference. Trust is your quality; it is not subject to anything else; it is simply there. When you say “I trust”, it means that you are not subjecting me to any particular kind of action, to any set of expectations that you have within you. When you say, “I trust”, it means’ “It does not matter what you do, I trust”. That is not falling into the framework of your limitations.

I never asked you to trust me. The very reason why I never used the word “trust” with people is because it is badly corrupted. If at all anybody here spoke about trust, it is to raise you beyond your own likes and dislikes, your own goods and bads, your own limitations. The basis of your personality are your likes and dislikes. The very feeling of “I trust you” raises you beyond this bundle of likes and dislikes,”no matter what you do, I trust you”. Trust does not mean, “If you do this, I trust you; If you do this, I don’t trust you”. That is believing, you are trying to fix the other person into your expectations. If you really want to make use of a Guru’s Presence, you must be willing to allow that Presence to overwhelm you, to overpower you, to destroy you in one way. At least for those few moments that you are with him, you should be no more yourself. Who you consider yourself to be should be absent in his Presence.

If this doesn’t happen, whatever you are talking about is of no significance. So, when people spoke about trust, this is what it meant, that you allow somebody else to enter you. If you have to allow somebody else to enter you, you have to become vulnerable. It is dangerous; you don’t know what he will do. Once he enters you, you are subject to anything, that’s always the fear, isn’t it so ? The very reason why you have built walls is, somewhere when you made yourself vulnerable, somebody did something which was not your expectation; this became a big fear and you built walls around yourself. Now, when you say, “I trust you”, you are willing to pull that wall down. Pulling that wall down means that somebody else does not have to live within the framework of your expectations. Whatever that person may do, it is okay with you. So one aspect is, the Presence of the Guru, the quality of who he is, does things to you. Another thing is, the moment you create that kind of situation that you are not bothered about what is going to happen to you, that itself is transformation.

The time frame I have with people is limited.  So I am making myself available only as a Presence, not as a person.  As a person, I am just keeping a certain face – in many ways within the framework of your expectations. If I have to use my person also as a device, then it needs much more trust, and maybe more time. People who are with me for longer periods of time find me an impossible person, which I am not with you. [Laughs] I am not yet using my person as a device with you because it needs more time, otherwise you will run away. You will definitely run away If I start using my person as a device. Only with a few people, I use my person as a device; with others, only my Presence.

See, right now you are a certain person; this personality is an unconscious creation of yours. This personality that you call “myself” is in some ways an accident, depending upon what kind of situations you have been exposed to. You took in certain impressions, and you became this kind of person. Your personality is constantly evolving, beaten around by life. Whichever way your life beats you, you will become that kind of shape and form. The situation around you are not expert sculptors; if you are being beaten around by every event that happens around you, in the end you will be a very ugly, shapeless person, that’s for sure, because it is an unconscious creation. Your personality is constantly being constructed by external situations. The way they beat you around, that is how your personality is. The one whom you call as Guru ins not a person. The whole process of self-realization means someone has transcended his personality and then he carefully crafts a personality as it is necessary for the kind of role that he wants to play.

In a limited way, on the surface, you too are building your personality to suit your activity. A being who is experiencing himself beyond limitations, does it in a very deep way. He structures every aspect of his life as it is necessary for the role that he has chosen to play; it is a conscious construction. When it is a conscious construction, it is just a device; it is not bondage anymore. Any moment, he can just pull it down. I first spoke about the Dhyanalinga in the “Wholeness Program”. This was a ninety day program with a certain group of people that we conducted in the middle of a forest. In this commited atmosphere, I started changing my personality.

Every day, they saw a new person. Some people were terrified, some of them were overjoyed, some of them were broken, some of them were made, but they saw that every day, I was building a new kind of person because I was stepping into a new role. My earlier personality could not have suddenly fulfilled that purpose, because people’s ability to experience my Presence is very limited; they mostly experience me as a person. Generally, your mind judges, “Oh, he is a good man, he is a bad man. He is a polite man; he is a generous man; he is an impolite man; he is an abrasive person”. Just in very rare moments, you are able to experience the Presence; most of the time, you are only clinging to the person. So the moment I announced the Dhayanalinga, I changed my personality completely. A few people who were deeply involved with the work just left because they said, “This is not fair; this is not the man that we came with.” I had prepared the situation, I had told them it was going to happen, but they didn’t take it as if it was really going to happen.

When it really started happening, suddenly the person that they knew, they loved and trusted, was just disappearing and a totally new person was coming up. I had warned them, “As I evolve this, many of you will leave.” They didn’t believe it, “No, we are commited. We like what you are doing. We are with you.” [Laughs] But when I started structuring a different person because I had to fulfill a completely different role, it was too shattering for them. This is happening to you in your lives, too, please see. People whom you think you love and trust, when their personality begins to change in the smallest ways, your reactions are violent, isn’t it ? So a Guru constructs his personality fully consciously the way it is necessary for this work. And even now, the way I operate has a person is very different in different places. It may be shocking for you if you see me in other kinds of situations. Suddenly you would feel,”I don’t know this man. Who is he ?” Because you have fallen into the comfort of knowing this kind of person, when you see another kind of person, you are unable to handle it.

So generally, a Guru creates his personality in such a way that people don’t know whether to love it or to hate it. He carefully crafts a personality where one moment, you think, “Yeah, I’m really in love with this man.” Next moment, you may feel completely different about him. And both of these emotions are not allowed to cross certain lines. Within those lines, you are constantly being thrashed around, so that after some time you will know, this is not a person. This is not a human being. Either he is a devil, or he must be divine.

That which is not in your experience cannot be taught to you intellectually. It can only be taught to you by taking you to a different dimension of experience. To take a person from from one dimension of experience to another dimension of experience , you need a device which is a higher level of intensity and energy. That device is what we call has Guru. The Guru-shishya relationship is on an energy basis. A Guru is touching you in a dimension where nobody else can touch you. There are many ways to move your energies to Agna. But from Agna to Sahasrar, there is no particular way to do anything; it is just a jump. It is because of this that the Guru-shishya relationship has been held as the most sacred relationship in this culture. If you have to take this jump, you need deep trust – otherwise, it is not possible.

Being is intrinsically valuable - Osho

The question : Osho, I have heard that enlightenment, or the natural state of man, is something acausal (uncaused) – it just happens. And all our endeavours to bring about awareness, to be aware, are actually taking us away from this state since they are all mind games, and these activities for self-awareness are just a “holy business”. I cannot imagine what my life would be if I gave up the search since it has permeated my life as long as I can remember. If there is no way to integrate, nothing one can do, why all this activity ? Why bother ? Yet what else is there to do ? Please comment.

Osho : It is one of the most significant question to be asked. We will have to go deep into it. It is true, absolutely true, that enlightenment is acausal; It cannot be caused by our efforts. But that does not mean that you have to cease making efforts, because then too it will not happen.

This mystery, this paradox, has to be understood deeply. The tendency of the logical mind is either to decide that enlightenment is causal so that one can make efforts to achieve it, or if it is acausal, it happens only of its own accord – then there is no need to make any efforts.

In both ways you will miss. If you think it is causal, and make efforts, you will miss, because it is not causal. If you think it is not causal, that hence there is no need to make any efforts, why bother ? You will miss again.

The reality is : you have to make all possible efforts, yet it is not going to happen through your efforts, but you will be prepared through your efforts to receive it when it happens.

It is acausal. It will happen. It is not a doing on your part. But when it happens, will you be ready to see it? That is the point, the very crux of the matter. When it happens, will you be ready to recognize it ? When it happens, will you be ready to welcome it, to open your heart to it, to receive it into your being ? Will you be ready to become a host to the guest when it knocks on your doors ?

Your efforts are not going to create enlightenment; your efforts are simply to make you more and more available to it, open to it, vulnerable to it. Your efforts are going to make a womb out of your being so you can be pregnant with it. It is going to happen from the beyond. And it is not that it is going to happen somewhere in the future – it is already happening. You are just not ready.

When it happened to Buddha, it could have happened to the whole earth, to the whole of humanity. But Buddha was ready to receive it and others were not ready to receive it. The sun rises: it will rise only for those who have eyes, it will not rise for those who are blind.

If you go to a physician, he can help – he can help you to get rid of your blindness. His medicines are not going to create the sunrise; his medicines are of no use as far as the sunrise is concerned. It happens on its own – it is already happening, happening everyday – but it never happens to a blind person or to the person who is not blind yet keeps his eyes closed.

Your efforts will only open your eyes. And this is the part of the opening of your eyes – to understand that enlightenment is acausal. But this is not your understanding, remember.

You say : “I have heard that enlightenment or the natural state of man is something acausal ….”

You have heard it. It is not going to help you – unless you start feeling that it is acausal. And how are you going to feel that it is acausal ? By making all possible efforts and failing again and again, one day suddenly the realization happens that efforts can’t make it. In that realization you don’t start thinking, “Why bother?” You don’t start thinking of stopping efforts. Efforts simply stop in that understanding. In that understanding efforts evaporate.

That’s how it happened to Gautama The Buddha. For six years he made all possible human efforts to achieve it, but because it is not an achievement he could not achieve it. And the more efforts he made, the more frustrated he became – obviously. If you don’t make any efforts for it you will not be frustrated, and when you make efforts with your total heart, it hurts to fail each time. He staked his whole life for it, and yet it was not happening. He was not holding anything back. If he had been holding anything back, then this understanding that happened to him would not have been possible – that all efforts are futile.

It happens only to those who are not holding anything back, when you have put all that you have at stake, when nothing is left behind, when you are utterly empty – you have emptied yourself totally – and it is not happening, then the understanding arises, “My efforts are futile. My efforts are ego efforts – the ego is futile. My efforts are my own mind games. The mind itself is the barrier.”

But this has to become your own experience. It is not going to help if you have heard it. You can hear great truths, but unless they arise in your own being, they are not true. A heard truth is a lie; only an experienced truth is a truth. And only the experienced truth liberates. How will you experience it ? You would like to have it without any efforts. You would Like to have it without any efforts. You would like to have it to happen as it happened to Buddha – minus those six years that preceded it.

Those six years of tremendous effort are a must. Then one day suddenly, one evening when the sun was setting, the revelation happened to him: ‘My efforts cannot take me beyond myself’. This is so natural. It is like pulling yourself up by your own shoestrings – it is utterly futile. But how is one going to know it ?

Those six long years…. And they must have looked to him like sixty years to him, because they were really painful – all kinds of ascetic practices, long fasts, torturing the body, doing all kinds of yoga exercises, many of which are just stupid, standing on your head, distorting your body, utterly ridiculous postures – he did all. Whatsoever was said to him, he followed it literally, word for word. He went to all kinds of teachers; they must have all been pseudo. Not even a single one of them was a Buddha, was yet enlightened. They gave him many strategies to work out.

If he had not been doing them perfectly well, they would have been safe. They would have told him,”Because you are not doing totally, hence you are missing.” But this was impossible. The man was so authentic, so sincere, so innocent totally, that even those pseudo teachers had to tell him, “Excuse us, forgive us – this is all we know. And you have done it all, and we cannot expect more from you. Now you have to go somewhere else. This is all we know, and now you know that this is not going to give you enlightenment – it has not given enlightenment to us either. But it is very rare to find a person like you. People come and they do it very partially. With them we can always say, ’Because you are not total, hence you are missing,’ but we cannot say this to you. Your innocence forbids it. Your totality…. We are ashamed. In fact, we ourselves have not done these practices so totally. Forgive us, and find another teacher. And if you ever find enlightenment, don’t forget us. If you ever find truth, please remember us – we are also seeking and searching. We are also blind” those teachers confessed to Buddha.

After six years of wandering, one evening, sitting silently underneath a tree, by the side of the River Niranjana, this revelation welled up within his being: that human efforts cannot help you to transcend humanity. It can only happen. It cannot be caused. But now these six years of austerity had purified him; this fire had made him gold. These six years had helped him to see the utter uselessness of the mind. Now he was ready to be silent, effortless, passive.

That night he slept with no search, not even for truth, because search creates desires, desires can be fulfilled only through effort – the search disappeared. The desires disappeared. The efforts disappeared. For the first time he slept toally relaxed – neither worldy desires tortured him nor other worldly desires. He had no dreams that night, that was the first night without dreams, because dreams are a by-product of your desires.

Buddha lived those six long years through all kinds of things like this. It is only by experiencing these things that one day one can conclude that this is all nonsense. And when it is your own realization that it is all nonsense – you need not drop it – it simply disappears.

That night he slept without dreams. And in the early morning when he opened his eyes and the last star was disappearing, something in him disappeared – the ego. He became enlightened.

This enlightenment is not something that has come from outside – it is your intrinsic nature. It has come from within. But the within and the beyond are synonymous; the within is the beyond. It is through the within that the beyond penetrates.

Then Buddha said, “Enlightenment is not an achievement – it is a gift from existence.” But those six years had prepared him to receive it.

Prepare yourself to receive it. It is acausal, but that does not mean that you have to stop all efforts. If you stop you will miss. If they stop on their own, because your understanding has penetrated so deeply that it is impossible to make any effort anymore, even if you want to, you cannot. In that state of effortless passivity you become the host and existence becomes the guest.

Overcoming Obstacles on the Path - Sadhguru

When we make an attempt to cross the threshold of where we are right now and move into other dimensions of experience, a few things gets mixed up. If you do not develop the necessary discrimination and balance within yourself, handling this mixup can lead to lots of confusion. You step into spiritual process and suddenly you don’t know where you belong. You don’t know whether you are this or that. People who don’t know any kind of spirituality, who just live their mundane life, seem to be dead sure of what they are doing. Spiritual people are always confused. [Laughs] It is good if you are confused. It means you are constantly stepping into new territory – that is why you are confused, and it is okay. If you live with the familiar forever, there will be certainty, but there will be no progress. If you are stepping into unfamiliar territory on a daily basis, you will always be confused. This confusion needs to be handled properly, productively, rather than becoming a self-defeating process.

It is doing like trapeze – when you are swinging on your own trapeze, it is fine. But when you let go and try to catch the other, that in-between space is terrible, because you are neither here nor there. This is the predicament of the people who want to explore, know, and experience other dimensions of life. They want to know the other side, but they are unwilling to release themselves from the familiar even for a moment, so the struggle becomes unnecessarily long. If you letgo of your trapeze anyway and jump, the trapeze on the other side is always in place. You could catch it, but instead you just swing and swing, you loosen the grip, or you hold it with your little finger. This is torturous.

When I talk about leaving the familiar to explore the other, it does not mean leaving physically. It does not mean you have to leave your home or office and go somewhere. It is not an external thing. It is an internal process – internally leaving things that you have been attached to , things that you have been identified with. Only because you have felt that you are not sufficient, you took this step of turning spiritual. Suppose you were just happy, absolutely fulfilled, just be eating your morning breakfast and drinking coffee, you would not have tried anything else. Somewhere, a realization came that this is not enough. You want to know something else; you want to experience something else. You want to be much bigger than who you are right now.

So when this state of mixup happens, you are neither here nor there, there will be confusion. If you are a devotee kind of person, confusion is not a problem; but such a thing is not possible if your mind questions everything. If unconditional devotion is not there, you will have to handle it the harder way, trying to make a sense of every little thing that is happening which is actually not reasonable. When you just about to reap the benefits of things that you have worked for all your life, suddenly they become meaningless. That’s not reasonable; but that’s the way it is.

So, if the spiritual process should not be painful, if it has to become a joyful process, one way is devotion – but that is out of question for most people. If that is so, the next thing you need to develop is a very keen sense of discrimination so that you are able to clearly see what is true, and what is not. Not arriving this from past experiences and conditionings of life, but out of very keen sense of discrimination. If you go into this, first of all you must have developed a razor-like intellect so that you can cut things clean and see. If you have a blunt knife, you cannot do this; it will mess up everything. It won’t give you a vision of anything.

So one of the things that you can do is to keep the intellect aside and become very devout; it will work. Or, you really sharpen the intellect to such a point that it will cut absolutely clean and give you a clear distinction of what is what. If these two things are not possible, the next possibility is that you just crank up your energy to such a pitch that none of this things matter. Your mind says something else , your emotions say something else, but your energies are so cranked up that it all doesn’t matter ……. Your mind can be wrong, you know that. Any number of times it has been wrong. It is continuing to be wrong, but your life energies cannot be wrong. Your life energies do not know any right and wrong; they know life and life alone; low pitch or high pitch, that’s all. If your energies are getting high-pitched, so high that they are almost slipping you out of the body, that’s very good. Otherwise, you must give yourself to service activity. Simply serve whatever you see has meaningful. Any one of this things, you must do, otherwise spiritual process becomes painful because there is a mix-up of realities. You are in transition from one state to another. You are neither here nor there.

You have heard of the hippie movement during the 60’s ? People wanted to break everything that was familiar and try to live their life in some other way. All conventions of society became so suffocating, they wanted to break this and do something new. In many ways very genuine people, but they did all the wrong things. They got so mixed up that they it became the most confused and tortured generation for a long time. But the longing and their sincere effort to break away from what they know and step into something that they do not know was wonderful. That generation was a tremendous possibility, if only they had a right kind of guidance. Not much of this movement happened in India, but especially in the United States, it really swept the country in a big way. When they did not know what to do and how to break their limitations, they got into alcohol, drugs and all kinds of things. One of the reasons was, to take away distinction. So, probably for the first time, men and women started dressing in a similar ways.

The hippie couple like this came to the Indian embassy in New York because India was one of the big destinations at that time. Because everyone was after mukti, nirvana, or very cheap hash, whatever, lots of people queued up to come to India because India was a promise of something else, they thought. So they came to the Indian Embassy where Shankaran Pillai was a concerned officer. He looked at this couple, couldn’t make out which is a man and which the woman. Then he asked, “Which one of you has a menstrual cycle ?” The man said “No man, I got a Honda”.

So stepping into spiritual process is like that – things get mixed up. When things get mixed up, don’t step back. What you need is a little more discrimination. If you step back, again you will fall back into the familiar, that is no good. After having made the effort to step into the unfamiliar, there is no point in stepping back into the familiar; that’s a backward step. You just need more discrimination, more vision to see things clearly; which needs sadhana, which needs some work. The ability to see life the way it is does not come free. You have to do the necessary things to get the discrimination. It won’t happen by accident.

Is it difficult ? It is not difficult. But if doing the right things is very difficult for you – yes, it is. Otherwise, if you are capable of joyfully doing whatever you recognize as the right thing to produce results, then it is not difficult. Simply sitting here without doing anything for the next two hours – is it very difficult ? If that is difficult , then sadhana is difficult. If you can simply sit for the next two hours without doing anything, no matter what is happening with your mind, no matter what is happening in the world, then sadhana is very simple and easy.

I see many of you going through these struggles and confusions. Some of you step back and struggle. Some of you are cursing me. “Before he came, we were fine. He came and confused all the hell out of us “. [Laughs] Because I’m not one of those sweet ones who have come to please you, to become popular with you. There is a saying in Telugu for people who go on hesitating to do things; they won’t take a drastic, decisive step when it is necessary. They say, these are the kind of people who want to do chicken masala, but every day, they go and ask the chicken, “Shall I grind the masala today?” The chicken will anyway say, “No, not today.”

I am not one of those. I cut the chicken and then grind the masala. [Laughs] If you are unwilling to cut up what is familiar and see the basis why you are inclined towards it, you will not step into the unfamiliar. Unless you begin to see the hollowness of where you are right now, you will not begin to seek something else strongly. If the longing is not strong, you will hang in between forever, in limbo. The longing will not become strong unless we open up our lives, dissect everything and see what it is; what it is worth, and what it is not worth. It is not about making it meaningless. It is not about making it ridiculous. Not glorifying it, not making it filthy, just seeing everything the way it is. If you see everything the way it is, you will see there is no point in stopping in one place, you must move; this will become very clear.

Only because you decorate your present situations with all kinds of sweet emotions, you cannot see them the way they are. This is not about demeaning your present existence. This is about seeing the limitation of where you are so that you can move to the next step of life.

Listen to your consciousness, not conscience. - Osho

Questioner : How to develop my conscience ?

There is no need to develop a conscience at all. What is needed is consciousness, not conscience. Conscience is a pseudo thing. Conscience is created in you by the society. It is a subtle method of slavery. The society teaches you what is right and what is wrong. And it starts teaching the child before the child is aware, before the child can decide on his own what is right and what is wrong, before the child is even conscious of what is happening to him, before the child is even awake. In a kind of sleep, in a kind of dream, the child lives in the beginning. In the mother’s womb the child sleeps for twenty four hours. Then after the birth he sleeps for twenty-three hours, twenty-two hours, twenty-one hours, twenty hours……….slowly, slowly. But he remains in a kind of limbo, neither awake not asleep. The child cannot make any distinction between what is real and what is unreal. And we start teaching the child what is right and what is wrong – we are conditioning him. We are conditioning him according to our ideas. All these ideas – from parents, from priests, teachers, politicians, saints – all these ideas jumble together inside him. They become his conscience.

And because of this conscience he will never be able to grow consciousness – because conscience is a pseudo consciousness. And if you are satisfied with the pseudo you will never even think of the real. It is very deceptive; the way we have been bringing up children is very deceptive. It is ugly, it is violent, it is against humanity.

That’s why millions of people live without any consciousness. Before they could have grown into consciousness, we gave them pseudo toys to play with. And their whole lives they think this is all that is needed to live a good life. And their whole life they will be rewarded if they follow the conscience, and they will be punished if they don’t follow the conscience.

From the outside they will be punished and rewarded, and from the inside also. Whenever you do something that your conscience says is wrong, you feel guilty, you suffer, you feel inner pain. You are afraid, you are trembling; it creates anxiety. And the fear about heaven, that you may lose heaven, and the fear of hell, that you may fall into hell….. with great inventiveness your saints have painted the joys of heaven and the miseries of hell.

This is conscience. Conscience is artificial, arbitrary. Conscience is needed because the society does not want you to be intelligent. Hence rather than making you intelligent, it gives you fixed rules of behavior: do this, don’t do that.

The day humanity drops this whole nonsense of conscience and starts helping children to grow their consciousness will be the greatest day, will be the real birth of humanity, a new human being , a new earth. Then we will help the child to become more intelligent, so whenever a problem arises the child has enough intelligence to encounter it, to face it, to respond to it. Why should one need any conscience? Intelligence is enough, consciousness is enough.

Conciousness will make you capable of responding to the present immediately, and your response will be true. Conscience is old, and the situation is always new – and your conscience is always old. There is no meeting ground. You go on responding according to the conscience cultivated in you by the society, forced into you by the society, conditioned in you by the society – and situation is totally different.

One of my friends went to Tibet. He is a very religious Brahmin, very orthodox. He went there to study Buddhist scriptures, but he could not stay in Tibet – he had to come back as quickly as possible. The journey was simply a sheer wastage, an unnecessary trouble, because to go into Tibet is not easy.

And the problem was that from his very childhood he had been taught to take a cold bath before the sun rises. Now to take a cold bath in Tibet before the sun rises……. He was telling me that it was impossible. And if he did not take the cold bath before sunrise, the whole day he would feel guilty. The society has taught him that without taking a cold bath in the morning, you cannot pray. Your prayer is useless. And without prayer, you cannot eat anything. So he was taking cold bath in the morning, and that was dangerous to life.

In Tibetan scriptures it is said that once a year it is a must that one should take a bath. Once a few Tibetan lamas came to stay with me, and those were the days when Maneesha was not there and Radha was not there to smell these people – and I suffered so much.

For those few, seven, eight days that they stayed in my house, I was almost out of house. Any excuse and I would escape from the house – the whole house was stinking, because they would not take bath. And a hot summer in India….and they would not take any bath. They were following their conscience.

It has been a difficult thing for me to talk to Jain monks. They used to come to see me; it was so difficult to talk with them – because they don’t cleanse their mouths, rinse their mouths, they don’t clean their teeth. That is not allowed. That is thought to be a part of beautifying the body – and how can a jaina monk beautify the body? He is so dead set against it.

Just to talk to them is so difficult – they have such bad breath. It is bound to be so. And the jaina monks are not allowed to take a bath either, because why should you be so careful about your body? The anti-body attitude. Their bodies stink, their mouth stinks.

One jaina nun became so much impressed by me and became so much interested in me that I told her,” You can atleast take a sponge bath – nobody will know. Just a wet towel, you can……and nobody will ever know that you have taken the bath.”

The idea appealed to her. She took one sponge bath, felt very good and very bad too. She told me, “It feels very good and I feel fresh, but it hurts inside that I have commited a sin.”

Do you ever think when you take a bath that you have commited a sin? And she had not even taken a full bath – just a sponge bath. But she felt so guilty that she had to fast for three days as repentance.

This is conscience. Conscience goes on making you a fool. Situations change, but the conscience cannot change, it cannot grow – conscience remains static. You go on living with ideas that were given to you in your childhood, by your ignorant parents, ignorant teachers. And you will llive according to them, and you will suffer much. And your response will never be true because it will never fit with the situation. You will always be lagging behind.

There is no need to develop conscience. The need is to drop the conscience and develop consciousness. Drop all that you have been taught by others, and start living on your own and searching and seeking…… Yes, in the beginning it will be difficult because you won’t have any map. The map is contained by the conscience. You will have to move without the map, you will have to move into uncharted, with no guidelines. Cowards cannot move without guidelines; cowards cannot move without maps. And when you move with maps and guidelines, you are not really entering into new territory, into new realms – you are going in circles. You go moving into known; you never take a jump into the unknown. It is only courage that can drop conscience.

Consciousness is neither Christian nor Hindu nor Mohammedan – it is simply consciousness. Conscience divides people, consciousness unites. What is the need of carrying a guide with you? Consciousness is enough. Whenever a certain need arises, your consciousness will respond. You have a mirror, you will reflect it. And the answer will be spontaneous. Life brings challenges, you bring consciousness to those challenges. And meditation is a way of dropping conscience and moving into consciousness.

The miracle is: if you can drop conscience, consciousness arises on its own – because consciousness is a natural phenomenon. You are born with it; just the conscience has become a hard crust around it and is not allowing its flow. Everything starts to fall in harmony with existence. And to be in harmony with existence is to be right – not to be in harmony with existence is wrong.

Nowhere to go - Sadhguru

Questioner : After years of doing sadhana, I still feel I might not be getting anywhere. What to do ?

Sadhguru : I doesn’t matter how many years of Sadhana you do, you will not get anywhere. Not that you might not, you will not because the idea of doing sadhana is not to go somewhere. The idea of doing sadhana is to come to a state where you can simply be here. To understand and know that what is here is everywhere, what is not here is nowhere. So, getting beyond the need to go somewhere – that is sadhana. Because there is nowhere to go. If you do not know how to be here and now, you will not know how to be anywhere. There is only here, there is only now; the rest is all in your head. So, sadhana is to bring you to a state where atleast for some period of time in the day, just sitting is good enough. Everything is that is worth knowing is here and now, and that is the only place you can be. If you live, you are here and now ; if you die you are still here and now. You cannot go anywhere. There is nowhere to go.

Sadhana is a device; it is a method to bring you to a certain level of maturity where the need to go somewhere is gone. What is why people steeped in sadhana are not moving anywhere. If you travel around the world, you will still not know whether the world is flat or round, forget about the intricacies of life. But if you are truly here, everything that is worth knowing is right here, because you cannot perceive anything on the outside. It doesn’t matter if you sit here or in the Himalayas or Africa or the United States or South Pole or North Pole. Maybe certain atmospheres are supportive, certain atmospheres are not supportive, that is a different thing – but essentially, you can only experience what happens within you.

So, wherever you go, only this is there. You know, these mountains here are called Velliangiri ; that means “White Mountian”. You can make them the Himalayas – that is what it means. We also call them “Kailash of the South”. If you sit here long enough or involved enough, they will become the Kailash; you don’t need to make the journey. You may make the journey and still not know anything. You may just sit here and know everything, because you can only experience what happens within you. You cannot experience what happens in the mountain; you cannot experience what happens in the sky; you cannot experience what happens anywhere; you can only experience what happens within you.

You can sit here, look at somebody, and experience love. You can close your eyes, just think about somebody, and experience love, isn’t it ? So, you can either stimulate it from outside or simulate it from inside, both are possible. Either you are on “push-start” or “self-start”. [Laughter] It is only a technology difference. Either you are a current machine or a past machine. You look at the moon, you look at the earth, you close your eyes, you open your eyes – still what is happening within you is all that is happening to you; nothing more, nothing less.

So, sadhana is to bring yourself to that level of maturity to simply see, it does not matter what you do, it does not matter whether you climb the peak or sit in the valley, it does not matter whether you are successful or not in the world, it does not matter whether you are well-known or not, it does not matter if you are eating whatever you dream of or drink kanji, it is just the way you experience it. This is not a trap; this is a beauty of life. There is really nowhere to go. You can sit here and be blissful, ecstatic; you can sit here and be miserable. You have a whole range of choice. You can sit here and think,”This is the most tortuorous moment in my life”. Life has not put any bondage upon you. Bondage is all your making. Existence has left you free, absolutely free. You can sit here and that’s it. Nothing needs to happen; still you can go through life in a most wondrous way because of what you do within yourself. Or you can go all over the place and do all kinds of things, and still go through life in an utterly miserable way. Both are your making.

So, sadhana is that blessed process through which you realize this, that there is nowhere to go. When the need to go stops, your sadhana is successful; then you just sit. Sitting need not necessarily mean you are physically sitting in one place. It is just that the itch to go into this and that is gone. If you sit, you are fine ; if you run, you are fine; if you fly, you are fine; if you walk also, you are fine. Wherever you are, you are just fine. Once the itch is gone, you are at ease. Once you are at ease, you don’t have to do anything. Just a little bit of waiting, that’s all. Only if you are in love, you can wait, because when you are in love with somebody, you are feeling emotionally pleasant. Love creates a lot of mental anxiesty because that is your idea of concern. So your mind is getting unpleasant, but your emotion is pleasant – and still it is worthwhile.

If you are irritated, agitated, frustrated, or angry, you cannot wait because you are unpleasant. Depending upon the type of karmic substance you have and the kind of active and dynamic help that you get from outside, the period of waiting may alter. It maybe a few moments, a few years, whatever, but just sitting and waiting. When your insides are pleasant, waiting for a few years is not a big deal. You just wait.