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.

Osho, is it time I should become a sannyasin ?

It is already late! You have already waited too long. I have known you for years, you have known me for years. For what are you waiting ? The meeting should happen now. Still you are asking: “Is it time that I should become a sannyasin ?”

Are you dead? If you have any life in you, then this is the time. Now is the time. Remember Kabir(A mystic) was saying: Now wake up – wake up in the now, wake up here! Don’t postpone.

Is it not time to be getting home now ? You have waited already too long, too many lives. Sannyas is nothing but a passionate jump into the enquiry for the truth, a passionate search from where we come and to where we are going and who we are. That’s what sannyas is all about.

But you seem to be almost in a kind of sleep, that’s how everybody else is. The worldly dreams still seem to be important to you, hence the question. The world still seems to intoxicate you; money, power, prestige, are still haunting you. And you cannot be a sannyasin unless you are utterly frustrated with the world. And remember, I am not teaching escapism from the world; I teach transcendence, not escape. Be in the world, but don’t be of it.

A sannyasin is a person who lives in the world but lives meditatively, and meditation creates a distance. Then you can go on doing all kind of things but you don’t become intoxicated, you don’t become identified with them. To live in awareness, without any intoxication with money, power, prestige, is the way of a sannyasin.

You have fallen many many times. Are you not yet frustrated ? Are you not yet finished with the world? Are you still carrying some hope deep down in your heart? Are you still expecting that the world is going to deliver something to you ? It has never happened – to no one has it happened. And it is not going to happen to you.

The world only promises, it never delivers the goods. That’s its illusoriness; that’s why in the east we call it maya. Maya does not mean that it is not there – it is very much there, but it only promises. It never gives anything.

I have heard a story:

A man worshipped for many many years – he must have tortured God as much as possible. Morning, afternoon, evening, he was praying and praying and crying and weeping. And, finally, God has to appear, and he said,”What do you want? Be finished! Just take it and forgive me and forget all about me.”

And the man said,”I want something, a power, so that whatsoever I need is immediately fulfilled.”

So God gave him a box, a golden box and told him,”Whenever you are in need you can ask. Whatsoever you ask, the box will immediately give it to you.”

The man forgot all about God, he even to forgot to thank him. God waited a little, but the man was no more interested in him. He was looking at the box and he started asking,”Give me ten thousand rupees!” Suddenly ten thousand rupees appeared, and he was very happy.

And it continued: whatsoever he wanted used to come out of the box. Then one day, one sadhu – a wandering monk, also had a box – bigger than the man’s – exactly the same shape. The man became interested. He said, ”What is this?” The sadhu said,”This is a magic box. You ask anything, it gives you double.”

“Double?” The man asked, “If I ask ten thousand rupees,”. He said, “It gives twenty thousand!”.

He fell at the feet of the monk and said,”You are a monk, you have renounced the world – can’t you exchange? I have a small box. It gives only whatsoever you ask.” So they changed the boxes. It was late at night, so the amn thought, “In the morning , I will try out this new box”.

And in the morning he tried; he asked for ten thousand rupees…. And the box said,”Why not twenty thousand?”
And the man said,”Okay, twenty thousand.” And the box said,”Why not forty thousand?”
And the man said, “Okay , forty thousand.”
And the box said , “Why not eighty thousand?”

Then he became afraid, because nothing was coming out. He rushed to see the monk, but he had left; he had disappeared in the night.

In the East, we have called the world maya, illusory – it is like that box of the monk. You ask anything and it says, “Okay, you can have double.” But it never delivers any goods; it only promises. The world is almost like a politician – they promise but they never fulfill.

Are you not yet finished? Have you not seen it happening many times? Each time you are living an illusion, hoping, dreaming; sooner or later disillusion comes in, frustration comes in. But rather than seeing the reality of the world, you immediately jump on another illusion, you immediately start dreaming again.

Sannyas is seeing the reality of the world, that it never fulfills, that it cannot fulfill, that it is beyond its capacity to fulfill….. One turns in. One has been a beggar begging from this door to that door; when one turns in, begging disappears – one becomes an emperor. Then all is yours.

And you need not even ask for it – it is simply yours. This whole existence is yours, its whole beauty, its whole splendor, its starry nights, its sunsets and sunrises, its flowers and birds – all is yours. Not in the sense that you possess it, but in the sense that you can enjoy it.

A sannyasin learns how to enjoy, and the worldly man learns only how to possess. Remember these two things, they are basic. The worldly man only thinks of how to possess more – he never enjoys because he is concerned with possessing more and more and more. The sannyasin enjoys. Whatsoever he has he enjoys – and he enjoys the whole existence which need not be possessed.

Do you think first you have to possess the starry night, then you will enjoy it? Do you think first you have to possess all the birds, then you will enjoy their songs? This existence need not be possessed. And you can still enjoy. It is yours if you want to enjoy; it is not yours if you want to possess. To possess it is aggressive; it is aggression on existence. To enjoy it is prayerful.

Are you a seeker NOW ?

Questioner : Sadhguru, what should be the foremost quality of the seeker ?

Sadhguru : If you are a genuine seeker, that’s all. If seeking is the only quality you have, that is definitely the most important thing. Most of the seekers are only off-and-on seekers. In 24 hours, how many of you are even conscious of your seeking, and how many moments? “No, No, I attended all the programs, all the three. I also did 55 days of Hatha Yoga.” [Laughs] What you did yesterday is not the point. This happened……Charles.M.Schwab, who became one of the big steel magnets on the planet at one time (before the Mittals came), before he stood on his own feet, was working for Andrew Carnagie, another great entrepreneur. One day he sent a telegram to Carnagie, saying, “Yesterday, we broke all records.” So immediately, Carnegie sent back a message, “But what you are doing today?” [Laughs]

That’s all I am asking you – what are you doing today ? “No, I attended Isha Yoga, I did Bhava Spandana, I did Samyama, five Samyamas.” All that is fine, but what are you doing today ? That’s my question. People think, “Sadhguru……no compassion in him. It doesn’t matter what we have done, once again he is asking,’What have you done today?” Because if you are a seeker, what you were yesterday doesn’t mean anything to you. “What have you done today?” is the whole thing. The psychological survives, nourishes itself and flourishes on the past. The existential is of the now.

So unless you are truly concerned about what you are doing today, how you are right now, are you still a seeker ? “I have been a seeker for 10 years” – That doesn’t mean anything. Are you a seeker now ? Because the existential is only now ; the rest is all psychological. I see a lot of past seekers. They have been seekers for 25 years, 30 years – veterans. What to do with that ? Only if somebody is hungry now, you can serve them food, isn’t it ? If somebody is alive now, you can feed them. Somebody was – what can you do with them ? So if your seeking is in the past tense, it doesn’t mean anything. Are you a seeker now, right now ? If you are, that is what it means most to me because only then I can do something with you; if you are a past seeker, we are just neighbours. If you are a seeker now, I have something to do with you right now.

Shiva Sitar - Spiritual music from Niladri kumar

Lovers Dream - Niladri kumar - A beautiful music

The story of a Vaishnavaite Saint - Villiputtur Alvar

This excerpt is a conversation between a seeker and a devotee of Bhagavan Ramana Maharishi known as Annamalai Swami from the book “Living by the words of Bhagavan – David Godman”.


Seeker :IT must have been wonderful to have had such a great Guru to guide you. Where can one find such a person today ?

Annamalai Swami : It is difficult for most people to find a qualified Guru because ordinary people cannot tell you who has realized the self. Bhagavan once told me a long story which illustrates this very well.

Many centuries ago there was a jnani (A realized one) in Srirangam, a town near Trichy. Every day this jnani went to the Cauvery river to take a bath. When he began the walk he would place his hands on the shoulders of two of his devotees to support himself. He did not like to touch them directly so he put some silk cloths on the devotees shoulders. Every day he walked like this for one mile to the river to take a bath. On his return journey he would support himself in the same way.

One day this jnani and his disciples were walking to the river as usual. In the distance they saw a Sudra (A member of a lowest caste) walking with his beautiful wife. Both of them appeared to be walking towards a festival that was taking place on the other side of the river. Because the sun was very hot, the wife could not walk on the hot sand. The man was helping her by putting one of his dhotis on the sand for he to walk on. In this way she was able to walk along without burning her feet. The disciples of the jnani observed all this and commented about it to the Guru.

‘See what a great attachment this man has for his wife! He is putting his dhotis on the ground one by one just to make a cool path for her’. On the way the couple and the jnani met.

The Guru, with great curiosity, asked the man,’I have never seen any husband treating her wife like this. Why are you behaving in this manner?’

The man replied,’She is my God. Just looking into her eyes makes me feel very happy. When I look at her cheeks, her face, or any other part of her body, I always feel very happy. She is also wearing lot of gold ornaments which make her look even morebeautiful. Evan her name if ‘Ponni (Pon means gold in tamil language). She is just like a goddess for me.

The Guru told him,’You have been deluded by the appearance of the body. What is in the eyes? Just water and skin. What is in the body? Just blood, muscles and bones. You have been deluded by the appearance of the body. I have never seen a man covered with so much maya’.

Then the Guru continued:’Only dogs like muscles and bones. Just like these animals you have lust for pieces of meat. In future, when she is affected by serious illness, her beauty will go. When she dies, there will be no body and no beauty. So why do you have such attachment for such a perishable body? This is not the purpose of a human birth. Instead of wasting your time worshipping this body, try to realize that which is immortal, the Self. That is the only purpose of human existence.’

This man had a mind that was ready for teachings about the Self. When he heard the Guru’s words he immediately decided to carry them out. He said to his wife,’You go your way. From now on I will be going with this Guru’

He went with the Guru and the women went back to her house to live alone. The husband followed the Guru to his ashram. It was a big ashram with a lot of buildings. The Guru needed a man who could stay awake all night to watch the ashram, so this new devotee became a night watchman. His name, was incidentally, Villi.

He soon became a very good devotee. Whatever the Guru told him to do, he would immediately do it with humility and love. Because of this attitude the Guru soon came to have a lot of love for him. The other disciples, who were all Brahmins, started to become jealous of Villi.

‘This man came after we did’, they said to each other. ‘He is a sudra, not a Brahmin, but our Guru seems to have lots of love for him.’

The jealousy of this disciples increased day by day. Eventually they decided they would make it appear that villi had done some crime so that the Guru would have to send him away. The Guru knew what was going on in the minds of these disciples so he himself decided to play a trick on them. One day the Brahman devotees washed their clothes and put them out to dry. While the clothes were drying, they went to sleep. During this time the Guru took all the clother and hid them.

When the disciples woke up and saw that all their clothes were missing, they came and told the Guru,’This villi has stolen all our clothes. You should send him out of the ashram.’

The Guru called Villi and told him.’All these people are against you. What can I do? Go back to your hime and meditate on the Self there. The Self is limitless. It is everywhere. You can do this meditation in the home. You don’t need to stay here to do it.’

Villi went back to his house without making any complaint. He obeyed the words of his Guru and spent his time meditating on the Self. He had no attachment to the world or his wife anymore. He just sat for most of each day and meditated.

One day Villi was walking towards the river when the Guru came there for his usual bath. The Guru could not hide his love for the disciple. He went up to Villi, embraced him, and asked him how he was getting on.

On seeing this, the Brahmin disciples became very jealous again.

‘What kind of Guru is this?’ they asked. “He acts with such partiality. He will not touch our bodies – he puts silk clothes between his hands and our shoulders – but he went and embraced this man. This man is a sudra who probably eats meat. He even lives with his wife. How can our Guru treat such a bad man like this?’

When the Guru came back to them they asked him why he had behaved like this. They even complained to him about his partiality.

In response, to show the purity of Villi, the Guru suggested that the disciples play a trick. The Guru said to them,’Tonight, go to Villi’s house and steal all the gold ornaments that his wife is wearing’.The diciples initially objected;’No! No! We cannot do that. Stealing is a sin.’

The Guru told them,’I am commanding this, so you must do it’. The disciples reluctantly agreed to carry out the order. In the middle of the night they broke into villi’s house. Villi was sleeping in one of the rooms and his wife was sleeping next to him, lying on her side. The disciples carefully took the ornaments from the outer hand.

While they were trying to remove the ornaments from the other hand, the wife woke up and began shouting,’Thieves! Thieves!’ The disciples ran away with all the gold they had managed to collect, handed it over to the Guru and gave him the account of what had happened.

Meanwhile, Villi woke up and saw that his wife was crying and shouting “Thieves! Thieves!’. Instead of commiserating with her, he told her,’You are a bad women!. You have too much attachment for gold. From now on I will not take any food from your hands. If I take food from such a women, who is so attached to gold, my meditation will be affected. What does it matter if thieves have stolen your gold ? You should not have been so attached to it. From now one cook your food on one place. I will cook my food on other place. Starting tomorrow, we will live separately’.

From that day onwards, two of them lived separately in the same house. The wife naturally became very upset at the treatment she was receiving. She complained to all her neighbours. She also went and complained to the Guru. ‘I did not do any harm’, she told everyone. ‘I never made any mistakes. I just shouted “Thieves! Thieves!’ when some thieves broke in and stole my gold. My husband had punished me for this. He will not even talk to me. You cannot see such a useless husband anywhere in the world.

Looking at the disciples, the Guru said, ‘Villi is seemingly living in samsara but he has no attachment to gold or money. He is not even attached to his wife. That is why I felt such love for him by the river. Now, after seeing how he lives, you can understand. You are living as Brahmins, as brahmacharis, but you have not yet reached the state of detachement. Villi is now living in the sahaja (natural) state (the state pf Self-realisation).

After Villi had attained that state of jnana many visitors started to come to see him. He simply lived in a hut and taught the path of jnana. After some time a small village was built around him to accommodate the visitors and the devotees. The village is called Villiputtur. It is still existing today. Villi eventually became known as Villiputtur Alvar and he is now revered as one of the greatest Vasinavaites saints.

So, who can tell who is a jnani and who is not ? These Brahmin disciples had spent years meditating with a jnani and doing service to him, but they were not able to recognize Villi’s greatness until the Guru pointed out to them. One has to have a pure mind and good karma to find a Guru and recognize him.

Self correction - Bhagavan Ramana Maharishi

                                          
The following is the excerpt from the book "Living by the words of Bhagavan - David Godman".  It has been narrated by the disciple of Bhagavan Ramana Maharishi known as Annamalai Swami.  The following :-

Bhagavan Ramana Maharishi taught that one should reform oneself rather than find fault with others. In practical terms this means that one should find the source of one’s mind rather than make complaints about other people’s minds and actions. I remember a typical reply that Bhagavan gave on this subject.

A devotee, who was quite intimate with Bhagavan, asked him, ‘Some of the devotees who live with Bhagavan behave very strangely. They seem to do many things that Bhagavan does not approve of. Why does Bhagavan not correct them ?’

Bhagavan replied,’Corrrecting oneself is correcting the whole world. The sun is simply bright. It does not correct anyone. Because it shines, the whole world is full of light. Transforming yourself is a means of giving light to the whole world.’

Once while I was sitting in the hall, someone complained to Bhagavan about one of the devotees who was sitting there;’He is not meditating here, he is just sleeping’.

‘How do you know’? retorted Bhagavan. ‘Only because you yourself gave up your meditation to look at him. First see yourself and don’t concern yourself with other people’s habits.’

Bhagavan sometimes used to say : ‘Some people who come here have two aims; they want Bhagavan to be perfect and they want Ashram to be perfect. To achieve this goal they make all kinds of complaints and suggestions. They don’t come here to correct themselves, they only come here to correct others. These people don’t seem to remember the reason why they came to Bhagavan in the first place. If they do one Namaskaram (Bowing down) to us they think that the ashram is then their kingdom. Such people think that we ought to behave like their slaves, only doing whatever they think we ought to do’.

Feeling the life at Isha - A music video

Being yourself - Osho

A GREAT HASSID MYSTIC, Zusya, was dying. His old aunt was always worried about Zusya because he was not following the traditional Jewish religion. She was very much worried about him. She was an old woman with all the old orthodox thoughts. At his deathbed she came and asked Zusya, "Have you made peace with God?"


Zusya opened his eyes and said, "But I have never been in and conflict with him! Why should I make any peace with God? I have never struggled against him. I have lived a life of let-go!"

The old woman could not understand the life of let-go, the life of total surrender to the

ultimate, to the whole, flowing with the whole. She again asked, thinking that he had not understood; she said, "Have you made peace with Moses?"



Zusya said, "When I am in front of God, he is not going to ask me, 'Zusya, why are you not
a Moses?' He will ask me, 'Zusya, why are you not a Zusya?' I am not supposed to be Moses, otherwise ke would have made me a Moses! Who was preventing him? He never made another Moses."

God never repeats. He never sends carbon copies to the world. Mahavira is not repeated,
Buddha is not repeated, Christ is not repeated, Mohammed is not repeated, Kabir, Nanak --
nobody is ever repeated.

And this is what we all are doing: we are trying to be like Moses or like Mahavira or like
Mohammed. Zusya is right, his insight is great. He says, "God will ask me, 'Why are you
not Zusya?' He has made me Zusya and I have to be myself. That is my responsibility. To
be Moses is not my responsibility; that was Moses' responsibility and that is something
between Moses and God. I have nothing to say about it, nothing to do with it; it is not my
concern at all."

The most essential thing is: you have to be yourself. Don't be distracted by anybody, by
any scripture, by any priest, by any politician. Don't be distracted. Stick to one thing: "I
have to be myself." Don't be stubborn. Don't bother about non-essentials. If the rule is to
keep to the left, follow it; it is a non-essential thing. Whether you keep to the left or
whether you keep to the right does not matter; it is just a traffic convenience. In India we
keep to the left because of the Britishers, because they had the idea of keeping to the left;
the Americans keep to the right. Both are okay; there is nothing essential about it. But one
thing is certain, that the traffic has to be managed and one has to decide either left or right
-- the traffic cannot be left in chaos.

These are non-essentials. Don't start fighting for them; that is a sheer wastage of energy.
But about the essential no compromise should ever be made.

The Desiderata (A mystic) says: Without surrender, without making any compromise, remain
yourself. That does not mean that you have to be continuously fighting. It simply means if
you are alert, aware, watchful, you can save your being without being contaminated by the
others.

Everybody is like a vulture trying to dominate you. Even those who say they love you,
their love is also nothing but an ego trip. They love you so that they can dominate you. The
husband loves the wife to reduce her almost to a thing, to a commodity. The wife loves the
husband just to dominate him, just to exploit him. All this love, all these relationships. . .
Parents love their children if the children are following the ideas of the parents; if they are
obedient then they love their children, if they are not obedient then all love disappears --
instead of love they start hating.

One sannyasin asked me just the other day: "Listening to the Desiderata I am confused
about what to do. I have not Gone to see my mother for two years because she insists that I
have to come to her not as a sannyasin. I cannot come in orange with a new name." So she
is puzzled: "What to do? Is it an essential or a non-essential? Should I compromise?"
If you think only of clothes it will look like a non-essential: why hurt the mother
unnecessarily? You can go in white, you can go in any other color -- clothes are just
clothes. But that is not the point: the mother is trying to dominate you. It is not a question
of clothes, because why should she be against orange? If you go in blue she is not against
it, if you go in green she is not against it, if you go in white she is not against it. Why
should she be worried about orange? What is wrong with orange? Is your mother a kind of
bull or something? Why should she be worried about orange? Orange is one of the colors!
If all other colors ate acceptable and orange is not acceptable, it is not a question of colors
or clothes; the question is deeper. She insists that you have to be obedient to her. And the
sannyasin is thirty-two years old, not a small child. But the desire to dominate. . .

"Otherwise," the mother says, "I don't want to see you." What kind of love is this? It insists
that "You have to be according to me."
Forget the clothes. It is a very essential question; it is not non-essential. It is essential to
defend yourself against all these who try to dominate you, because they will not stop only
at that. Once you give in, then the whole trip begins, and then there is no end to it.

Every person has the freedom to be himself or herself. And if the mother really loves you
she would like you to be yourself, she would like you to come the way you are. Love
always accepts the other without any conditions; if there are conditions, it is not love.

Dhyanalinga - The Guru

With the seven chakras of the Dhyanalinga energized to the very peak, the Dhyanalinga is like a Guru to a seeker, touching him in a different dimension. For one to make use of Dhyanalinga as one’s Guru, a simple way is to just gaze at the Linga for a few minutes and then sit with eyes closed, not trying to visualize, not trying to imagine, not trying to bring back into memory.




It is important to imprint the form of the Linga into one’s inner situations, into one’s energy system, because Dhyanalinga is not a physical form, it is an energy form. One does not have to imagine or visualize or anything. It functions from within. Once you allow this to imprint itself into your system it is always with you, guiding you, making things happen to you on deeper dimension within you. It functions as one’s guru and for one who is seeking to do spiritual sadhana it will be extremely useful. One can clearly experience this.



When it comes to using the Linga, it does not mean that one has to always be in the sphere of the Linga. Once the form of the Linga has been imprinted into one’s system, wherever one may be, it function that way, irrespective of the distance. So one does not really need any assistance. It will always function that way. But if one does need assistance, one can use a small picture of the Linga. Just by looking at it, one can revive the impression. Or in terms of removing the other impressions which are there in one’s mind and body, a visual image of the Linga can help take them away.



The Dhayanalinga yantras also can assist in that way. But above all, once you are in the sphere of the Linga, if you take the imprint of the energy form into you, you yourself are like a yantra, you yourself are like a living temple. But the assistance of images, pictures and yantras can always be used.

Moving Towards the Ultimate - Shekhar Kapur in conversation with Sadhguru

Shekhar Kapur : I just walked into a space where all the brahmacharis are chanting. There’s something special about their chants. It kind of hits you right here. It’s kind of energizing and powerful. So, what is a brahmachari ? I mean, we understand in Hinduism, brahmachari means denial. But you often said it’s not about denial; it’s about gaining something. Tell me about it.



Sadhguru : [Laughs] You know, for example, if somebody wants to climb Mount Everest, he prepares for years; probably for a lifetime. And then he goes into the harshest of the climate, denying himself every pleasure of life; of comfort, of family, of society. He denies himself everything that people normally want to have – all that to climb mountain. But do you really believe he is denying himself, or is he making another possibility, something which you can never imagine, a reality in his life ?So, that is brahmacharya. The word Brahmacharya literally means – Brahman means “the Ultimate”, charya means “path” – you are on the path of the Ultimate. Or in other words, you are somebody who is not willing to settle for small things. Anybody who has created anything worthwhile in his life has naturally denied himself a lot of simple pleasures that other people have. When you are making film, maybe you are not eating well, maybe you are not sleeping well. Sitting with your wife, having dinner with the family – everything you deny yourself, because you want to create something, isn’t it ? Isn’t that true with every man and woman who has created something worthwhile in their lives ? The same with brahmacharya. They are on the path of the Ultimate. Because of that, their attention is not diverted to other things what people think are valuable.

Shekhar Kapur : So, what is the Ultimate ?

Sadhguru : See, if you look around here, there are mud and stones and trees and plants – this is creation. From this soil, this tree is throwing out wonderful, fragrant flowers; from the same soil, a mango tree will throw out mangoes; from the same soil you have come and make movies; [Laughs] from the same soil, I have come, and I’m a Guru. So, there is something here which can make this mud into a tree, into a fruit, into a filmmaker, into a Guru, and into a billion other things. Don’t you want to know what it is ? Don’t you want to experience what it is ? If it was somewhere in heaven, I would not be interested. But, there is something within you which can transform a rice grain or a banana or a piece of bread into a human being. This is the ultimate source of creation.

Shekhar Kapur : Yeah

Sadhguru : Don’t you want to know what it is ? Don’t you want to experience it ? Don’t you want to know the power of it, the beauty of it, the joy of it ? So, brahmacharis are people who have had a taste of that, and now they want all of it. They don’t care whether they eat or not; they don’t care whether they drink, smoke and enjoy other simple physical pleasures that other people are addicted to. They have had a taste of the Ultimate; now they want it all. They won’t settle for anything less.

Shekhar Kapur : Okay. Now, I understand that till you experience it… [ you won’t know ]. Talk about the Ultimate. What is the Ultimate ?

Sadhguru : See, my work as a Guru is just to give you a taste of that Ultimate, so that your life goes into a tizzy, you go crazy, and you want to go for it. You had a taste; now you can’t stop. [Laughs]

Shekhar Kapur : So your work is to drive people mad….?

Sadhguru : Yes. Because if people sleep through their life, in the name of comfort, in the name of security, they are wasting their life. They must go all the way. This is not my desire – it is their desire also. Today you have a desire to fulfil one thing. If that happens, you want the next one and the next one and the next one. If you carefully look at your desiring process, you will see you are not willing to settle for anything limited, isn’t it ? There is something within you which does not like boundaries. There is something within you which is longing for the Ultimate – always. So, this is not my idea; this is not my philosophy that you should seek the Ultimate. You are anyway seeking the Ultimate in unconscious ways. But if you seek in unconscious ways, you will always remain frustrated; and the chances of finding it are remote. It is better to seek what you want in a conscious, focused way. So, brahmacharis are also seeking just what you are seeking; but they are seeking it 100% consciously.

Shekhar Kapur : So, what is the Ultimate ? [Sadhguru laughs] I’m looking for words.

Sadhguru : See, whatever we look at, we can only look at it the way you understand it right now. If I say something which is not in your understanding, I’d be compelling you to believe me or disbelieve me. I don’t want to go into such obscenities. I think it’s obscene to demand that you must believe me. I’ll never do that to anyone. So, right now, what you call as “myself”, you actually gathered over a period of time?

Shekhar Kapur : Yeah.

Sadhguru : In terms of your mind, it is a huge heap of impressions. In terms of your body, it is a heap of food that you have eaten. So, you gathered this. What you gather can be yours; can it ever be you?

Shekhar Kapur : No. Then what is the “you” beyond “yours”?

Sadhguru : So you are existing here without even knowing “what is me”. This “me” is not a simple me. This “me” is the Ultimate. This “me” can make a piece of bread, a banana into a human being. This is not a simple thing. This ame “me” which can make a banana into a human being also created the whole cosmic scape. It is not a different “me.” So, the choice is just this – either you can exist here just as a piece of creation or you can exist as a very Creator himself. That’s the Ultimate, for now. There is more to it, but for now….[Laughs]

How to respond to the suffering in the world

Questioner : As a capitalist society, here in the US and elsewhere, we tend to function out of our economic interests.  For me it is hard to be happy when I know that things that I buy involve exploiting people and that I am living in a society that in some way promotes violence around the world.  How am I supposed to focus on myself only and forget about the suffering of the world ?

Sadhguru : Oh, you are just on the way to becoming a human being! [All laughs]...  because a human does not land here as a human being, he has to become one, he has to evolve.  If a dog, a monkey or a tiger is born, it is already a dog, a monkey, a tiger.  If it eats well, it will become a good tiger.  A tiger is never sitting there, worrying itself out how to become a good tiger, "Will I end up has a house cat?" [All laugh]  There are no such struggles in it.  Food is all it has to take care of.  But you are born as a human.  To become a worthwhile human being you have to do many things.  What is human is so complex and so beautiful, you have to make it.  Your mother just deliver you as a raw material; it's your project to become a humanbeing.  How well you conduct this project is how wonderful a human being you become.  So, you are beginning to become a little sensitive to somebody else's suffering, that's good.  You are on the project. [Laughs] "It must happen, It must happen" something within you should cry.  Otherwise how is it supposed to happen ?

                                          Let's say half the world is miserable right now - it actually is.  Now if you make yourself also miserable, you are only adding to the problem.  They are miserable for one reason, you are miserable for another reason.  This doesn't solve the problem.  Only if you are joyful, only if you know what it means to live beautifully, you can create this for somebody else too.  How can you make it happen for someone when you don't know yourself what happiness is ?  You will think, "If I dump food there, it will be okay."  It will not be okay.  That's how the world has handled it.  They think if you throw some aid, it is going to be okay.  It is not going to be okay because you yourself don't know what it means to be okay.  So, if you are concerned about life around you, the first thing is you must be concerned about this life [referring to oneself].  If you do not know how to take care of this one [referring to oneself], how will you take care of that one [referring to other] ? Only if you know how to keep this one in the best possible state, you also know how to take care of that one.  Otherwise, just with good intentions, you will cause misery to everybody in the world.  More misery happened to this planet out of good intentions than out of bad intentions.

Questioner : I hear what you are saying but for me to focus on my own inner happiness is almost like a selfish thing to do ...

 Sadhguru : See, when you say "selfish", I want you to understand, the very basis of your existence here is the Self.  Everything is self-ish - put a hyphen.  [Laughs] It's all self-ish.  If you are concerned about the rest of the world, which everybody should be, either you are concerned about them as rest of the world, or you are concerned about them just the way you are concerned about yourself.

                            If you are concerned about that one just as you are concerned about this one, if you go to fix that one without fixing this one, what will that one tell you ?  That one will tell you, "First take care of yourself.  What nonsense are you going to do to me ?"

Questioner : It's hard for me to sit down and focus on yoga or something like that ..........

Sadhguru : That is because you have prejudiced ideas about yoga.

Questioner : If someone is getting slaughtered in Darfur, Africa right now with a machete, it is hard for me to go to the mall, hang out with my friends and enjoy myself.

Sadhguru : Going to the mall is different, doing yoga is different. [All laugh.]  Yoga does not mean that you have to sit and focus on yourself.  Whether you go to the Darfur or to the neighborhood, there are problems everywhere. If you reach out to the problem in the neighborhood or in Darfur, wherever you wish to, wherever you are capable of doing something, in what condition would you like to go there, both physically and mentally ?

                               We are working in Sierra Leone.  Let's say tomorrow morning I'll drop you in Sierra Leone.  I'll give you two years time to make a difference; let me see.  You will get lost in the problem.  I have dropped people there who have spent three, four, five years training themselves to do this.  Now they went there.  Just go and see the kind of difference they have made in three month's time because they know what to do with themselves and what to do with other people.  If you do not invest this time in yourself to enhance your capabilities, if you just go there with great emotion, you will get lost in the problem.  Just good intentions won't do.

                              If you want to make a difference, you need capability.  Otherwise you will sit in your house and crib about everything in the world, and nothing happens.  If you are interested in doing something, the first thing is how to enhance your capabilities, your own ability to deal with life.  Otherwise how are you going to reach out to anybody and do anything ?  In the remotest part of India, at every street corner, if you go and sit in the tea shop, right there revolutions happen; they change the world.  But the moment the tea is over, the revolution is over. [All Laugh]  Haven't you seen tea shop revolutions ? Right there everything is happening - they know how to run the country, they are advising the prime ministers, they can be the batting coaches for Tendulkar [great indian cricketer].  The only thing is they don't know how to make a good tea. [All Laugh]  Everything else they know.  So, just being concerned, just being emotionally charged about a problem is not a solution.  Solutions will come only when we empower ourselves.  If you do not take time to empower yourself there will be just not one Darfur, we will create a thousand Darfurs on this planet.

                              Out of good intentions people have done more horrible things than out of bad intentions.  So if you are concerned about humanity, please empower yourself, so that no matter what kind of situation you are placed in, you are not going to be broken and shattered by the situation, you will do the best you can do.  First empower yourself, is that a crime? That is yoga - a technology to empower yourself.

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   EXPERIENCES OF ISHA MEDITATORS WHO MADE A DIFFERENCE IN SIERRA LEONE

                  "After going there, I realized how advanced India is.  Sierra Leone is in such a bad state.  I had never imagined that even today, people are living in such conditions.  They don't have proper food to eat.  They don't have proper clothes to wear.  Not just for a particular community - the whole country is like that.  There is no proper education.  There is no culture.  There are no role models.  There is nobody to look up to.  It's just so painful to see that.  I could not believe that in today's world, there is a place like that.  While we are living this kind of life, there is another part of the world where people are living in such conditions - such unimaginably pathetic conditions.

                        Just the simple thing that there is somebody caring for them, there is somebody to be with them, not really offering any money or anything, but there is a human being standing next to them as a human being - it meant so much to them.  And it meant so much to us.

                    For all of us, these two month's in Sierra Leone have been one of the greatest experiences, one of the deepest experiences in our lives.

                                                                    Swami Rijuda

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                                          "I have been trying to write something about Africa for the last two months.  Usually words come so easy but now I find a lump in the throat and a tightness in my heart with the very thought of this people and this land.

                                          Africa broke my heart.  I was devastated, shattered, being there.  I had always wanted to work there, but the ideas I had about it were nothing compared to the reality of the whole situation.  My deepest pain is seeing human beings unable to reach their full potential, unable to even have a chance of knowing life deeper than just survival.  And all this was there; a diminished humanity, and the whole situation obscenely exaggerated by the efforts of so many people wanting to do something but incapable of really making a difference, and by those who are still seeking to exploit and exploit and exploit.

                                        Whether it was War, exploitation, slavery, greed, whatever the reason in the past, for ignoring and misusing an entire continent's plight, I cannot see any reason.  There is no justification for the fact that millions of people have to live in such conditions when the world is splurging in luxury.  Tears flood my eyes as I write this and all I can say is that after being there, I cannot eat as I did before.

                                        Every morsel of food that I put into my mouth reminds me of the six weeks we had there.  Six weeks where, for the first time in my life, I had to think whether I would spend 1 dollar to eat something to sate my hunger or not spend it.  It is not that food was not available, but it was not easily accessible because of the pace of work that was going on.

                                        And that itself made me realize just how much I take for granted.  These people, still dancing,  still celebrating life in spite of all the struggles, all the fight for survival, have made me more human and more willing."

                                                                                        Tina, Isha meditator.

"I am a hindu and I love my muslim brothers"

To move into deeper meanings of life, I will say that I am a nobody and am in love with everybody.  Truly, after watching this movie"My name is Khan", it just struck me that how after the 9/11 episode, people have started aligning the name of terrorism with every muslims of the world.  How just a few insane people have taken to themselves has the "Protectors of Islam" and are waging a cowardice war in the name of "Jihad". 
                                            It's true that life becomes difficult when people start doubting our identity but atleast within ourself we can feel that we are innocent and we cannot let the people decide on how should we live our life.  But the mass lives on people's opinion and hence they can never be at peace with themselves.
                                            This is where Sadhguru comes forth.  I remember him saying that controlling the outside situation may not be in your hands but what happens within yourself is definitely under your control. 
                                            There is one beautiful scene in this movie where Shahrukh Khan goes to the restaurant along with his companions.  Just when he is about to eat, he remembers that It's time to pray and readies himself to go for his namaaz (prayer).  But the companions points out to him that It will look so embarrassing to do namaaz in full public view.  Beautifully, Shahrukh points out that Does the time of his prayer should be decided by the people's opinion or it should be decided by the kind of relationship he has with God.  Which is important ?  It just struck me that how often we may have postponded our "Meditation and Practices", fearing that what people will think of us if we do it in full public view ?  Truly, there are many kinds of situation we face while travelling in the train and how often we postpone our practices because of what people may think about us. There are many lessons to be learned in life.
                                            In this movie, "Shahrukh" suffers from Asperger Syndrome, an Autism like disease.  Though he has limited capabilities but he is gifted with a full blown loving heart.  It again struck me when Sadhguru says that on the outside, we may all be differently capabled but from the inside, we can live our life to peaks.
                              Shahrukh reaches in a village which is struck by a hurricane to save a old woman, where love is the only relationship between them.  Though he keeps saying that he cannot do much to help them but the matter of fact is that he is there to help, in the midst of all the danger.  It is not about what we do but it is always about how we feel within ourself.

 Dvd is available at My Name is Khan

Sharing lighter moments with Osho

Questioner : I AM A POLACK. I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY PEOPLE THINK THAT POLACKS DON'T HAVE ANY INTELLIGENCE.




Vedam,

I ALSO WONDER why people think that Polacks don't have intelligence. They have a different kind of intelligence, that is true -- so different, a unique kind of intelligence.  Nobody else in the world has that.

I have heard about the Polack Pope:

He was aboard a plane and the pilot said, "It is unfortunate that out of the four engines one has stopped working, but there is no need to worry. Three engines are more than enough to take us to our destination. The only thing is we will be three hours late."

After fifteen minutes he said, "Sorry to interrupt you again: the second engine has stopped, but no need to worry. Two engines are still more than enough and we will complete our journey, but now we will be six hours late."


And after half an hour he announced again, "Ladies and gentlemen, sorry to announce that the third engine has also failed, but still there is no need to panic. One engine is enough to take us to the destination, but now we will be nine hours late."

And after just five minutes he said, "If you want to say your prayers you can say them, because the last engine has stopped?"

And there was great panic and chaos, but the Polack Pope was sitting silently. The lady sitting by his side was weeping and screaming.  He said "What is the matter? Why are you so worried? At the most we will be twelve hours late!"

This is pure intelligence! It is mathematics, nothing else! Who says Polacks don't have intelligence?
I have read Bertrand Russell's Principia Mathematica -- that's nothing compared to the Pope's mathematics!
There are people who don't understand the Polacks and they go on spreading rumors that they have no intelligence. I am not anti-Polack. I love them, I enjoy them! I can see their intelligence is totally different!

Kyacki's son had been acting a little strange lately, so Kyacki took him to a psychiatrist.
"Tell me, son," questioned the shrink, "how many wheels does an auto have?"
"Four. "
"Very good," said the doctor. "Now what is it a cow has four of that a woman has two?"
"Legs."
"And what does your father have that your mother likes most?"
"Money."
The psychiatrist turned to Kyacki and said, "You don't have to worry about him -- he's smart!"
"He sure is!" said the Polack. "I missed the last two questions myself!"
 
Just a matter of different intelligence! Who says they don't have any intelligence?
Vedam, don't be worried. Enjoy the intelligence that God has given to you!

Banducci, Sullivan and Piwalski, traveling together in Mexico, got drunk and killed a Mexican. All three were sentenced to the electric chair.

First they sat Banducci down and asked him if he had any last words. "I am a dentist," said the Italian, "and I will care for everyone in the village for twenty-five years if you will let me go."
The authorities refused and the executioner proceeded to carry out the sentence. He pulled
the switch and nothing happened.
"By law," said the executioner, "the Italian is a free man, because the electric chair did not work."

Then the Irishman sat down. The same question was asked. "I am a doctor," said Sullivan, "and I would care for the villagers for twenty-five years in exchange for my freedom."
Again the answer was no. The switch was pulled and nothing happened. He went free.

Then Piwalski sat down. He was asked if he had any last words.
"I am a graduate in electrical engineering from Texas A M," said the Polack, "and if you
put that white wire in that hole, and the red wire in that hole..."

And who says that Polacks don't have intelligence?! Just sheer nonsense! They have intelligence -- in fact, only they have intelligence!