Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Monday, July 25, 2011
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Osho on Meditation and its effect on our Relationship.
"Whenever a male seeker comes to me he is interested in meditation; and whenever a female seeker comes to me she is interested in love. She can be made interested in meditation if I say that love will happen through it. But her deep desire is for love. Love is God for a woman…
When female seekers come to me, it is bound to happen: they will feel more love, but then a physical partner will be less satisfying. Whenever there is deep love, a physical partner will always become unsatisfactory, because the physical partner can fulfill only the periphery, he cannot fulfill the center…
So when female seekers come to me, their depth is shocked. They start feeling a new urge, a new love arising. Now their husbands or their boyfriends, their partners will not be able to satisfy it. Now this can be satisfied only by a much higher quality of being. This is going to be so.
The same happens to male seekers in a different way. When they come to me, they become more meditative. When they become more meditative, the bridge between their old partners is broken, becomes shaky. Now their girlfriend or their wife has to grow, otherwise the relationship is on the rocks, it cannot be maintained.
Remember this, that all our relationships, so-called relationships, are adjustments. If one changes, the adjustment is broken — for the better or for the worse, that is not the point. People come to me and they say: If meditation brings higher qualities, then why is the relationship broken? That is not the question. The relationship was an adjustment between two persons as they were. Now one has changed, the other has to grow with them; otherwise there will be trouble, things will become false.
Whenever a man is here, he becomes more meditative. The more meditative he is, the more he wants to be alone. The wife, the beloved, will be disturbed by it. If she is not understanding then she will start creating trouble — this man wants to be more alone. If she is understanding, then there is no problem; but that understanding can only come to her if her love grows. If she feels more loving, then she can allow this friend to be lonely, alone, and she will protect his loneliness. She will try to see that it is not disturbed—this will be her love now…
So whosoever comes to me should come perfectly aware that it is dangerous to be near me. Your old arrangements will be disturbed—and I cannot help it. I am not here to help your adjustments; that is for you to decide.
I can help you grow—grow in meditation, grow in love. To me, both words mean the same, because they reach to the same end." ~ Osho
When female seekers come to me, it is bound to happen: they will feel more love, but then a physical partner will be less satisfying. Whenever there is deep love, a physical partner will always become unsatisfactory, because the physical partner can fulfill only the periphery, he cannot fulfill the center…
So when female seekers come to me, their depth is shocked. They start feeling a new urge, a new love arising. Now their husbands or their boyfriends, their partners will not be able to satisfy it. Now this can be satisfied only by a much higher quality of being. This is going to be so.
The same happens to male seekers in a different way. When they come to me, they become more meditative. When they become more meditative, the bridge between their old partners is broken, becomes shaky. Now their girlfriend or their wife has to grow, otherwise the relationship is on the rocks, it cannot be maintained.
Remember this, that all our relationships, so-called relationships, are adjustments. If one changes, the adjustment is broken — for the better or for the worse, that is not the point. People come to me and they say: If meditation brings higher qualities, then why is the relationship broken? That is not the question. The relationship was an adjustment between two persons as they were. Now one has changed, the other has to grow with them; otherwise there will be trouble, things will become false.Whenever a man is here, he becomes more meditative. The more meditative he is, the more he wants to be alone. The wife, the beloved, will be disturbed by it. If she is not understanding then she will start creating trouble — this man wants to be more alone. If she is understanding, then there is no problem; but that understanding can only come to her if her love grows. If she feels more loving, then she can allow this friend to be lonely, alone, and she will protect his loneliness. She will try to see that it is not disturbed—this will be her love now…
So whosoever comes to me should come perfectly aware that it is dangerous to be near me. Your old arrangements will be disturbed—and I cannot help it. I am not here to help your adjustments; that is for you to decide.
I can help you grow—grow in meditation, grow in love. To me, both words mean the same, because they reach to the same end." ~ Osho
❤❤❤
Reaching out to Somalia - An Issue needing our urgent attention
Across the Horn of Africa, people are starving. A catastrophic combination of conflict, high food prices and drought has left more than 11 million people in desperate need. The United Nations has been sounding the alert for months. We have resisted using the “f-word” — famine — but on Wednesday we officially recognised the fast-evolving reality. There is famine in parts of Somalia. And it is spreading.
This is a wake-up call we cannot ignore. Everyday, I hear the most harrowing reports from our U.N. teams on the ground: Somali refugees, their cattle and goats dead from thirst, walking for weeks to find help in Kenya and Ethiopia; orphans who arrive alone, their parents dead, terrified and malnourished in a foreign land.
From within Somalia, we hear terrible stories of families who watched their children die, one by one. One woman recently arrived at a U.N. displacement camp 140 kilometres south of Mogadishu after a three-week trek. Halima Omar, from the region of Lower Shebelle, was once considered well off. Today, after three years of drought, she barely survives. Four of her six children are dead. “There is nothing in the world worse than watching your own child die in front of your eyes because you cannot feed him,” she said of her ordeal. “I am losing hope.”
Even for those who reach the camps, there is often no hope. Many are simply too weak after long journeys across the arid lands and die before they can be nursed back to strength. For people who need medical attention, there are often no medicines. Imagine the pain of those doctors who must watch their patients perish for lack of resources.
As a human family, these stories shock us. We ask: how is this happening again? After all, the world has enough food. And yes, economic times are hard. Yet since time immemorial, amid even the worst austerity, the compassionate impulse to help our fellow human beings has never wavered.
That is why I reach out today — to focus global attention on this crisis, to sound the alarm and call on the world's people to help Somalia in this moment of greatest need. To save the lives of the people at risk — the vast majority of them women and children — we need approximately $1.6 billion in aid. So far, international donors have given only half that amount. To turn the tide, to offer hope in the name of our common humanity, we must mobilise worldwide.
This means everyone. I appeal to all nations — both those who fund our work year-in and year-out, and those who do not traditionally give through the multinational system — to step up to the challenge. On July 25, in Rome, U.N. agencies gather to coordinate our emergency response and raise funds for immediate assistance.
Meanwhile, we must all ask ourselves, as individual citizens, how we can help. This might mean private donations, as in previous humanitarian emergencies in Indonesia after the tsunami or Haiti after the earthquake, or it could mean pushing elected representatives toward a more robust response. Even in the best of circumstances, this may not be enough. There is a real danger we cannot meet all the needs.
The situation is particularly difficult in Somalia. There, ongoing conflict complicates any relief effort. More broadly, sharply rising food prices have stretched the budgets of international agencies and NGOs. Operating conditions are complicated by the fact that the transitional national government of Somalia controls only a portion of the capital city, Mogadishu. We are working on an agreement with the forces of al-Shabab, an Islamist militia group, to grant access to areas of the country that they control. Even so, serious security concerns remain.
We must also recognise that Kenya and Ethiopia, which have generously kept their borders open, face enormous challenges of their own. The largest refugee camp in the world, Dadaab, is already dangerously over-crowded with some 380,000 refugees. Many thousands more are waiting to be registered. In neighbouring Ethiopia, 2,000 people a day are arriving at the Dolo refugee camp — also struggling to keep pace. This compounds a food crisis faced by almost seven million Kenyans and Ethiopians at home. In Djibouti and Eritrea, tens of thousands of people are also in need — and potentially many more.
Even as we respond to this immediate crisis, we need to find ways to deal with underlying causes. Today's drought may be the worst in decades. But with the effects of climate change being increasingly felt throughout the world, it will surely not be the last. This means practical measures: drought-resistant seeds, irrigation, rural infrastructure, livestock programmes.
These projects can work. Over the last ten years, they have helped boost agricultural production in Ethiopia by eight per cent a year. We have also seen improvements in our early warning systems. We knew this drought was coming and began issuing warnings last November. Looking ahead, we must ensure those warnings are heard in time.
Above all, we need peace. As long as there is conflict in Somalia, we cannot effectively fight famine. More and more children will go hungry; more and more people will needlessly die. And this cycle of insecurity is growing dangerously wide.
In Somalia, Halima Omar told us: “Maybe this is our fate — or maybe a miracle will happen and we will be saved from this nightmare.”
I cannot accept this as her fate. Together, we must rescue her and her countrymen and all their children from a truly terrible nightmare. (Courtesy: U.N. Information Centre for India and Bhutan)
(The writer is Secretary-General of the United Nations.)
An appeal to all nations and individuals to step up to the challenge of helping the famine-hit, conflict-ridden nation.
What Isha Yoga has done to me ? An Isha Meditator shares his experience of doing Inner Enginnering and Bhava Spandana Program
"As there is a science and technology for external wellbeing, there is a whole science and technology for inner wellbeing. I call it Inner Engineering. " Sadhguru on Inner Engineering
A life of self imposed limitations, doubts and restrictions - that was my life until I decided to pursue the Isha yoga program in february this year (2011). Death of close people, sickness in family, chronic health issues, work stress, career confusions these are just common human experiences and yet as we experience these events, we are left clueless. I was one of those clueless folks at the time I signed up for Inner Engineering - Leadership Retreat held in February this year.
Till that date, I had listened to Sadhguru's talks on and off for the past 5 years. I first came to know of Sadhguru from my wife 5 years ago. She was introduced by a friend to attend an Intro talk and without much time, she got initiated into Shambavi Mahamudra. Since then, she had been doing Isha yoga regularly with such commitment that I feel so lucky now to have her as my wife. Despite seeing her energy levels and commitment to her duties on a daily basis, I have always resigned to my regular modes of solution - thinking prodigiously, analyzing despondently and deciding limitedly. With my limited mind, I only chose to look at her frailties and reason how the yoga has not helped her, when there is an abundance of positivity and stability she had brought to me on a daily basis. Yes! so limited I was with my understanding of my wife and my own self that I was functioning in a zombie mode of discontent. Chronic health issues and increased stress levels were making it worse. At that point, I would rather read books, acquire knowledge of theorems and proofs, programming models, indulge in business ideas, read about economics, buddhism, hinduism, history, biology, anything science and all sorts of nuances to cure or escape my discontent - than my own self and abilities to look at the root of my distress.
During the time, since I have heard of Sadhguru, I had listened to his talks in youtube but never ventured to start on the yoga. I somehow just did not feel that yoga was the right thing for me. I was so much engrossed into my own failed techniques of dealing with myself, that I had closed myself to other possibilities.
Though I had developed an admiration for the man's social and environmental work, his clear thinking and speaking ability, I had my doubts. Since childhood, I had developed certain expectations of how a guru should be and in some ways, Sadhguru was too wild to fit into that mould. Also, Just like the average - Joe, I had reservations and skepticism about anything that has a tag 'spirituality' to it. Having seen some of the popular gurus of India put to shame in public, I was your common skeptic. What I did not realise was that all my doubts and understanding are limited by my own experiences or those borrowed from my acquaintances. It is like discussing wine with others based on what is written on reviews and never having tasted it.
So whatever it was, in february, I was part of the group attending the Inner engineering leadership retreat at Los Angeles. Just sitting before Sadhguru, listening to his words of wisdom - not from bhagavad gita or upanishads or bible or quran or fountain head or marxism - but out of his own experiences opened me up. Not a single word was contrary to logic and yet mysteriously, these words had such a liberating experience. Difficult questions raised by the people around me about family, loved ones, all facets of life were all answered with such clear clarity that over time, I wanted to experience what he is experiencing. absorb everything he has to say and soak in the wisdom of it. In a period of 3 days, I had been able to gain a sense of awareness and peace inside me, I walked out of the program - a mind transformed and focussed more on shedding on my perceived limitations rather than dwelling on them. For the first time in my life I started paying such close attention to my breath or the food I am eating with a devotion that seemed perfectly natural. In a poetic way, I see Inner engineering and Shambavi mahamudra as to taking an inner shower that wipes of all the nonsense I have accumulated in my mind during my lifetime.
On coming back home after the retreat, just like any old habit, doubts still surfaced. Exposed to the same situations and environment, confusions still persisted. Just as anything new and strange brings a sense of doubt and fear, I was also intensely trying to comprehend the experience logically, revalidate the authenticity of Sadhguru's experience using my overactive mind. This even drove me nuts and created a certain level of anxiety in me. My sole support during this confusing times was to observe that what I am doing is only with myself and there cant be any more harm that I can do by sustaining this practice than what I had done before. Strangely as I stuck to the daily practice, my trust in the yoga and what I had experienced henceforth re-established the clarity. My trust levels changed from the state of distrust with a stranger to a child trusting his mother and to finally the state of trust we have on our own lungs to breathe or heart to beat. I see the same process of yoga inherent in the very own life process that is active in us every day. Since then, the experiential wisdom gained has been serving me well to establish the distance from thoughts of all colors and see these thoughts as they are - just thoughts nothing more or less. Just like a bee that first tasted honey, the few pleasant experiences made me more determined to pursue the yoga practice with a commitment that I normally struggle to have. Now I wanted to full experience the fruit of this yoga and do all that I can.
In May this year, I was fortunate enough to do the Bhava spandana program iwith Sadhguru. If Inner engineering is like a seed of wisdom, Bhava spandana is like drowning in truth. When drowned in truth, what is untrue cannot exist anymore. To keep it in simplistic terms, I do not see myself now as someone unsatisfied with my life anymore. I might not have had favorable or unfavorable outcomes towards the endeavors I have pursued or pursue in future, but I am free enough to see the truth behind life processes and the nature of the outcomes do not have any impact on my inner well being. Sounds philosophical when expressed but isn't that what we all need?. Everybody needs that ability to pursue on one's goals with freedom and never to be impacted by the outcomes of our efforts.
What I have shared here is not just my story. It can be yours too. It is yours, if you feel the pain I had experienced about being dissatisfied with your life situations in general. The characters in your story might be different. The environment might be different. The players might be different. But if you understand th underlying theme of discontent and want to change it, you should try Inner Engineering (Isha yoga). Religions, spiritual texts and science, can give a person counseling or mental supports to hold on. I have leaned on these all through my life and they have served their purpose. But none of these provide me with the ability to liberate myself from the need of a support, especially when things go contrary to my expectations. Inner Engineering provided that to me. Try it and see what it can do for you. This is my humble request and wish for every fellow human being who is suffering or discontented needlessly. I hope it reaches you as it reached me.
Now I would like to conclude this deeply personal post with this quote of Sadhguru.
"Every human being is capable of living absolutely blissfully within himself. They have denied themselves this because they never looked at themselves. " - Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev.
Hope you will give it a try - Inner Engineering!
Source : Venkata VC, Isha Meditator
A life of self imposed limitations, doubts and restrictions - that was my life until I decided to pursue the Isha yoga program in february this year (2011). Death of close people, sickness in family, chronic health issues, work stress, career confusions these are just common human experiences and yet as we experience these events, we are left clueless. I was one of those clueless folks at the time I signed up for Inner Engineering - Leadership Retreat held in February this year.
Till that date, I had listened to Sadhguru's talks on and off for the past 5 years. I first came to know of Sadhguru from my wife 5 years ago. She was introduced by a friend to attend an Intro talk and without much time, she got initiated into Shambavi Mahamudra. Since then, she had been doing Isha yoga regularly with such commitment that I feel so lucky now to have her as my wife. Despite seeing her energy levels and commitment to her duties on a daily basis, I have always resigned to my regular modes of solution - thinking prodigiously, analyzing despondently and deciding limitedly. With my limited mind, I only chose to look at her frailties and reason how the yoga has not helped her, when there is an abundance of positivity and stability she had brought to me on a daily basis. Yes! so limited I was with my understanding of my wife and my own self that I was functioning in a zombie mode of discontent. Chronic health issues and increased stress levels were making it worse. At that point, I would rather read books, acquire knowledge of theorems and proofs, programming models, indulge in business ideas, read about economics, buddhism, hinduism, history, biology, anything science and all sorts of nuances to cure or escape my discontent - than my own self and abilities to look at the root of my distress.
During the time, since I have heard of Sadhguru, I had listened to his talks in youtube but never ventured to start on the yoga. I somehow just did not feel that yoga was the right thing for me. I was so much engrossed into my own failed techniques of dealing with myself, that I had closed myself to other possibilities.
Though I had developed an admiration for the man's social and environmental work, his clear thinking and speaking ability, I had my doubts. Since childhood, I had developed certain expectations of how a guru should be and in some ways, Sadhguru was too wild to fit into that mould. Also, Just like the average - Joe, I had reservations and skepticism about anything that has a tag 'spirituality' to it. Having seen some of the popular gurus of India put to shame in public, I was your common skeptic. What I did not realise was that all my doubts and understanding are limited by my own experiences or those borrowed from my acquaintances. It is like discussing wine with others based on what is written on reviews and never having tasted it.
So whatever it was, in february, I was part of the group attending the Inner engineering leadership retreat at Los Angeles. Just sitting before Sadhguru, listening to his words of wisdom - not from bhagavad gita or upanishads or bible or quran or fountain head or marxism - but out of his own experiences opened me up. Not a single word was contrary to logic and yet mysteriously, these words had such a liberating experience. Difficult questions raised by the people around me about family, loved ones, all facets of life were all answered with such clear clarity that over time, I wanted to experience what he is experiencing. absorb everything he has to say and soak in the wisdom of it. In a period of 3 days, I had been able to gain a sense of awareness and peace inside me, I walked out of the program - a mind transformed and focussed more on shedding on my perceived limitations rather than dwelling on them. For the first time in my life I started paying such close attention to my breath or the food I am eating with a devotion that seemed perfectly natural. In a poetic way, I see Inner engineering and Shambavi mahamudra as to taking an inner shower that wipes of all the nonsense I have accumulated in my mind during my lifetime.
On coming back home after the retreat, just like any old habit, doubts still surfaced. Exposed to the same situations and environment, confusions still persisted. Just as anything new and strange brings a sense of doubt and fear, I was also intensely trying to comprehend the experience logically, revalidate the authenticity of Sadhguru's experience using my overactive mind. This even drove me nuts and created a certain level of anxiety in me. My sole support during this confusing times was to observe that what I am doing is only with myself and there cant be any more harm that I can do by sustaining this practice than what I had done before. Strangely as I stuck to the daily practice, my trust in the yoga and what I had experienced henceforth re-established the clarity. My trust levels changed from the state of distrust with a stranger to a child trusting his mother and to finally the state of trust we have on our own lungs to breathe or heart to beat. I see the same process of yoga inherent in the very own life process that is active in us every day. Since then, the experiential wisdom gained has been serving me well to establish the distance from thoughts of all colors and see these thoughts as they are - just thoughts nothing more or less. Just like a bee that first tasted honey, the few pleasant experiences made me more determined to pursue the yoga practice with a commitment that I normally struggle to have. Now I wanted to full experience the fruit of this yoga and do all that I can.
In May this year, I was fortunate enough to do the Bhava spandana program iwith Sadhguru. If Inner engineering is like a seed of wisdom, Bhava spandana is like drowning in truth. When drowned in truth, what is untrue cannot exist anymore. To keep it in simplistic terms, I do not see myself now as someone unsatisfied with my life anymore. I might not have had favorable or unfavorable outcomes towards the endeavors I have pursued or pursue in future, but I am free enough to see the truth behind life processes and the nature of the outcomes do not have any impact on my inner well being. Sounds philosophical when expressed but isn't that what we all need?. Everybody needs that ability to pursue on one's goals with freedom and never to be impacted by the outcomes of our efforts.
What I have shared here is not just my story. It can be yours too. It is yours, if you feel the pain I had experienced about being dissatisfied with your life situations in general. The characters in your story might be different. The environment might be different. The players might be different. But if you understand th underlying theme of discontent and want to change it, you should try Inner Engineering (Isha yoga). Religions, spiritual texts and science, can give a person counseling or mental supports to hold on. I have leaned on these all through my life and they have served their purpose. But none of these provide me with the ability to liberate myself from the need of a support, especially when things go contrary to my expectations. Inner Engineering provided that to me. Try it and see what it can do for you. This is my humble request and wish for every fellow human being who is suffering or discontented needlessly. I hope it reaches you as it reached me.
Now I would like to conclude this deeply personal post with this quote of Sadhguru.
"Every human being is capable of living absolutely blissfully within himself. They have denied themselves this because they never looked at themselves. " - Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev.
Hope you will give it a try - Inner Engineering!
Source : Venkata VC, Isha Meditator
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