Look at this small kid on Why He Doesn't Want to Eat Octopus. You will love this. - Translated into English

There are no limitations, whatsoever, If we are devoted. A story of a Blind Devotee.

We were sitting one morning in the hall in deep meditation. Suddenly there was the sound of the tap-tap of a stick. A tall blind Muslim was trying to find the entry to the hall with his stick. I helped him to come inside. He asked me in Urdu where Bhagavan was sitting. I made him sit right in front of Bhagavan and told him, "You are now sitting just in front of Bhagavan. You can salute him". The Muslim told his story. He lived near Peshawar and he was a moulvi (teacher) of repute.

Once he happened to hear somebody reading in Urdu about Bhagavan and at once he felt that Bhagavan was his spiritual father and that he must go to him. Blind as he was, he took the next train and travelled thousands of miles all alone, changing trains many times, till at last he reached Ramanasramam. When asked what he was going to do next,he said. "Whatever Bhagavan tells me, I shall do". His immense faith made me ashamed of myself. How little did
the man hesitate to place his life in the hands of a South Indian swami. And what a mountain of doubts and hesitations I had to wade through before I came to Bhagavan's feet in earnest!

- Gudipathi Venkatachalam

Whom will we choose in life? If we are presented with the situation in life, Will we choose Sadhguru on one side OR will we choose Security, Safety, Fame, Honour, Recognition in the Society?

A story narrated by Sadhguru.

 

There is a beautiful situation or incident that occurred in the Mahabharat. The Kurukshetra war is imminent and these two parties are going about campaigning. At that time there were only two fronts – the Kauravas and the Pandavas. They are trying to gather all the support they can because they are going to war and every man matters. You would like to have the maximum numbers because it’s life and death, it’s not an election. They’re going from kingdom to kingdom campaigning and both of them have acquired formidable armies behind them.

Krishna is not a king, but he has a well trained army with over 10,000 men, who have been in many campaigns – a great asset. So in the afternoon Krishna is pretending to sleep. He is like that – he is pretending to sleep because when you know what is the next step and you still don’t want to disturb the game, a certain amount of pretension is needed. So he is pretending to sleep, stretched out on his bed. Duryodhana, the eldest of the Kauravas came, walked into this room and saw Krishna was sleeping. He sat down, wanting to wait. Krishna was just sleeping with a gentle smile on his face. His feet were pointed towards Duryodhana. Duryodhana looked at it and he didn’t like it. “He is not even a king; he is a cowherd. I am a great emperor. Why am I sitting at his feet?” So slowly he got up and came and sat close to his head. Then Arjuna came, a devotee of Krishna, and sat where Duryodhana had sat earlier. Krishna’s feet were pointing at him, he sees that as a blessing. So he sat there. Krishna opened his eyes after sometime, pretending to wake up. See this is the problem. Once you pretend to sleep you have to pretend to wake up. One act leads to many complex acts.

So he pretended to wake up, opened his eyes, and said, “Oh, Arjuna you have come.” Arjuna said, “Yes Bhagwan, I have come.” Before they could talk further Duryodhana cleared his throat to make his presence felt. Krishna said, ”Oh Duryodhana, even you? Both of you at the same time – what brings both of you here?” He knows the whole act.

Then both of them said that they have come to ask for his help in the war. Krishna said, “Both of you have come and both of you are asking for the same thing, so let me put it this way. One of you can have my army, another can have me. But I won’t fight, I’ll just come with you. Because my vision fell upon Arjuna first, he gets the first choice.” Duryodhana protested, “I came here first!” Krishna said, “But what can I do? I saw him first.”

Then Krishna told Arjuna , “You choose what you want.” Arjuna said, “Bhagwan we want you, I don’t care about the army. We just want you with us.” Krishna warned, “I am not going to fight for you. I’ll just come with you.” He said, “You don’t have to do anything, we just want you with us.” Then Duryodhana let out a sigh of relief – he was so happy! He knew the Pandavas were idiots, but he never thought they were such idiots, that they will choose one man against 10,000 trained men. And this one man is not going to fight. Just going to come with you, drive with you. 10,000 trained men against one man who is not going to fight – what a foolish choice. But that choice made all the difference. That choice made all the difference for what happened to the result of the war.

 

Source Link :  http://blog.ishafoundation.org/inside-isha/happenings/mahabharat-8-days-to-go/

Isha Vidhya - A Volunteers's Story. Building the Grassroot Rural Strenght.

We say "We don't have time but The Mind is on Fire".

" BUT WE DON'T HAVE TIME..........

Buddha says: THE WORLD IS ON FIRE! Fortunate are those who can understand it, not only intellectually but existentially. Can't you see your life is nothing but anguish? Now there are two ways to get rid of this anguish, this fire; one is to become so involved in meaningless things that you can forget your anguish, so that the anguish cannot raise its head because you are so occupied: the whole day occupied with money, power, prestige, running after shadows, and when you come back home you are so utterly tired that you fall asleep. And then too you remain engaged in your dreams. Dreams are nothing but reflections of your day; the same game continues in your sleep.

People pass their whole lives in this way. People cannot sit silently even for a few minutes. And the whole Buddhist approach is that unless you are capable of sitting silently for hours together, doing nothing, just being, you will never know who you are and you will never go beyond your anguish. So the first way is to become occupied, involved in anything, whatsoever it is, the only purpose being that you can keep the ultimate question of your life repressed. There is no time.

When people are told to meditate, They say, "But we don't have any time." And these are the same people who are sitting for hours in the movies and they have time. And these are the same people who go to the Rotary Club and just go on doing stupid things. These are the same people whom you will find in the hotels, at football matches; these are the same people who will be playing cards and chess, and if you ask them they will say, "We are playing just to kill time." Time is killing you and you think you are killing time. Nobody has ever been able to kill time: time kills everybody.
And when you tell them to meditate the immediate response is, "But where is the time to meditate?" And it is not that they are consciously saying it; it is a very unconscious reaction. It is not that they are deceiving, they are deceived. It is not that they are just trying to deceive you by saying, "I don't have any time," they really feel, they think, that they don't have any time.

Volunteer for life - Sadhguru

Give openly, without expecting anything in return, and attain mukti.

Volunteering means willingness. When we do things out of our own inspiration, it is called volunteering. If we are inspired, who can stop us? We are not doing it for any purpose; just out of our inspiration. Since the willingness has come from within us, there is no calculation.

Unfortunately, in our day-to-day lives, it doesn’t matter where we go; whether to buy vegetables, or gold, or to get married? Our main concern at these times is to give less and get more. We are considered smart if we manage to get more for less.

But life does not operate like that. Volunteering means to give openly without expecting anything in return. Once we do this, we’ll acquire a different kind of strength. Once we gain this strength of being what we are whether we receive anything in return or not, we’ll get mukti.

Volunteering means just that. It is a rare sadhana. Every human being should make use of this. Every moment of our lives, wherever we are, we should be a volunteer. To make this a part of our lives, we should start by volunteering at our homes, offices and in our neighborhood. We can do small things like -

• Helping our family members and neighbours in their work without them asking for help.

• Complete a pending household chore or take up something new.

• Plant a tree or a plant in a flower pot and tend to it daily.

• Educate children for half an hour a week

• Spend time and share our joy with underprivileged children or old people

• Cook and serve the needy

When we take up these activities regularly, we’ll see that it makes a big difference. Our life will be full of actions that happen out of our own willingness and not under somebody’s pressure. This is volunteering; this is a life of freedom.

THE TIGER THAT LURKS BEHIND WORLDLY JOYS. Be Alert. - Paramhansa ramakrishna

God is like the wish-yielding tree of the celestial world (Kalpataru), which gives whatever one asks of it. So, one should be careful to give up all worldly desires when one's mind has been purified by religious exercises.

Just listen to a story: A certain traveller came to a large plain in the course of his travels. As he had been walking in the sun for many hours, he was thoroughly exhausted and heavily perspiring; so he sat down in the shade of a tree to rest a little.Presently he began to think what a comfort it would be if he could but get a soft bed there to sleep on. He was not aware that he was sitting under the celestial tree. As soon as the above thought rose in his mind, he found a nice bed by his side. He felt much astonished, but all the same stretched himself on it. Now he thought to himself,how pleasant it would be, were a young damsel to come there and gently stroke his legs. No sooner did the thought arise in his mind than he found a young damsel sitting at his feet and stroking his legs.

The traveller felt supremely happy. Presently he felt hungry and thought: "I have got whatever I have wished for; could I not then get some food?"
Instantly he found various kinds of delicious food spread before him. He at once fell to eating, and having helped himself to his heart's content,stretched himself again on his bed. He now began to revolve in his mind the events of the day. While thus occupied, he thought: "If a tiger should attack me all of a sudden!" In an instant a large tiger jumped on him and broke his neck and began to drink his blood. In this way the traveller lost his life.

Such is the fate of men in general. If during your meditation you pray for men or money or worldly honours, your desires will no doubt be satisfied to some extent; but, mind you, there is the dread of the tiger behind the gifts you get. Those tigers —disease, bereavements, loss of honour and wealth etc.,—are a thousand times more terrible than the live tiger.

- Tales and Parables of Sri Ramakrishna

OSHO, CAN YOU ALSO MAKE MISTAKES?

Darshan,
NOT A FEW BUT MANY...PLENTY! because I don't take anything seriously. So many times my sannyasins write to me, "Osho..." Subhuti wrote just a few days ago; when I said that Napoleon was obsessed with food, he wrote to me, "Is it Napoleon or Nero?" Who cares; Subhuti? Whichever you like! Sometimes I say Nero, sometimes I say Napoleon. I am not a very learned mm, and I am absolutely happy in being utterly unlearned.
The other day somebody wrote: "You said that the gospels were written a few centuries after Jesus. This is not correct!" But I have not told you that this is correct! If it is incorrect it makes no difference to me. He has also written -- must be a learned man!...you have fallen in wrong company! -- he has also written: "You said that it was translated into Latin first." To me Latin and Greek are all the same! I don't understand Latin, I don't understand Greek, so all that I meant was that it was translated into something that I don't understand!
Teertha understands it perfectly well. He has written a story. He has written to me:

Osho, I was walking down M.G. Road one day when I saw a very strange sight: there was this man, right in the middle of the road, moving his arms as though he was rowing a boat. (Demonstrate, but mind the microphone!)
I watched for a while, and eventually had to call out to him to find out what was going on.
"What are you doing?" I shouted.
"Rowing a boat, of course!" he replied.
"But you are not in a boat" I called back.
"I am not?!" he yelled, looking panic-stricken; and then started swimming as hard as he could. (Demonstrate, but mind the microphone.)

Now he knows that I can hit the microphone -- and he is much more concerned about the microphone!
I can commit mistakes a-plenty, but I am not deterred by them, I go on committing them -- because if I start thinking that no mistake has to be committed then I cannot relate to you what I want to relate. Then I will have to be absolutely silent, because the truth that I have known can only be related if I am ready to commit many mistakes. Then too it is not related as it is.

A telephone operator in San Francisco says that the city's Chinatown receives fewer calls than any other area of similar size in the city. And with a straight face she explained the reason: "I guess there are so many people named Wing and Wong that people are afraid they will wing the wong number."

I am not afraid -- I go on winging the wong number! And it is not only that I can commit mistakes...the world is proof enough that God also commits mistakes. Otherwise, do you think you would have had any chance of being here in the world?

Mulla Nasruddin was speaking to Morarjibhai Desai. Seeing Mulla Nasruddin in orange, Morarjibhai Desai was obviously annoyed. He said to Nasruddin, "Mulla, what turned you on to Rajneesh?"
'The day I saw him walking out with his hands folded, I knew then that God exists," replied Mulla.
Morarji, looking at Mulla from the corner of his eye, asked, "Hmmm, and what do you feel when you see me?"
Mulla said, "That God can also make mistakes." Osho

★ ♥ ★ Narayan - FOR YOUR LOVE (Krishna Das) W/Lyrics ★ www.SherawaliMaa....

" I am Most Grateful to this man Magga Baba " ~ O S H O

❝ I have had the fortune to be loved by many strange people. Magga Baba is the first on my list. The whole day he was surrounded by people. He was really a free man, yet not even free to move a single inch because people were holding on to him. They would put him into a rickshaw and take him away wherever they wanted. Of course he would not say no, because he was pretending to be either deaf or dumb or mad. And he never uttered any word that could be found in any dictionary. Obviously he could not say yes or no; he would simply go.

Once or twice he was stolen. He disappeared for months because people from another town had stolen him. When the police found him and asked him whether he wanted to return, of course he did his thing again. He said some nonsense, ”YUDDLE FUDDLE SHUDDLE....”

The police said, ”This man is mad. What are we going to write in our reports: ‘YUDDLE FUDDLE SHUDDLE’? What does it mean? Can anyone make any sense out of it?” So he remained there until he was stolen back again by a crowd from the original town. That was my town where I was living soon after the death of my grandfather.

I visited him almost every night without fail, under his neem tree, where he used to sleep and live. Even when I was sick and my grandmother would not allow me to go out, even then, during the night when she was asleep, I would escape. But I had to go; Magga Baba had to be visited at least once each day. He was a kind of spiritual nourishment.

He helped me tremendously although he never gave any directions except by his very being. Just by his very presence he triggered unknown forces in me, unknown to me. I am most grateful to this man Magga Baba, and the greatest blessing of all was that I, a small child, was the only one to whom he used to speak. Those moments of privacy, knowing that he spoke to no one else in the whole world, were tremendously strengthening, vitalizing.

If sometimes I would go to him and somebody else was present, he would do something so terrible that the other person would escape. For example he would throw things, or jump, or dance like a madman, in the middle of the night. Anybody was bound to become afraid – after all, you have a wife, children, and a job, and this man seems to be just mad; he could do anything. Then, when the person had gone we would both laugh together.

I have never laughed like that with anybody else, and I don’t think it is going to happen again in this lifetime... and I don’t have any other life. The wheel has stopped. Yes, it is running a little bit, but that is only past momentum; no new energy is being fed into it.

Magga Baba was so beautiful that I have not seen any other man who can be put by his side. He was just like a Roman sculpture, just perfect. Even more perfect than any sculpture can be, because he was alive – so full of life, I mean. I don’t know whether it is possible to meet a man like Magga Baba again, and I don’t want to either because one Magga Baba is enough, more than enough.

He was so satisfying and who cares for repetition? And I know perfectly, one cannot be higher than that. I myself have come to the point where you cannot go any higher. Howsoever high you go, you are still on the same height. In other words, there comes a moment in spiritual growth which is untranscendable. That moment is called, paradoxically, the transcendental.

The day he left for the Himalayas was the first time he called me. During the night somebody came to my house and knocked on the door. My father opened it and the man said that Magga Baba wanted me.

My father said, ”Magga Baba? What has he to do with my son? Moreover he never speaks, so how could he call for him?”

The man said, ”I am not concerned about anything else. This was all I had to convey. Please tell the person concerned. If it happens to be your son, that is not my business.” And the man disappeared.

My father woke me in the middle of the night and said, ”Listen, this is something: Magga Baba wants you. In the first place he does not speak....”

I laughed because I knew he spoke to me, but I did not tell my father.

He went on, ”He wants you right now, in the middle of the night. What do you want to do? Do you want to go to this madman?”

I said, ”I have to go.”

He said, ”Sometimes I think that you are a little mad too. Okay, go, and lock the door from the outside so that you don’t disturb me again when you come in.”

I rushed, I ran. This was the first time he had called me. When I got to him I said, ”What’s the matter?”

He said, ”This is my last night here. I am leaving perhaps for ever. You are the only one I have spoken to. Forgive me, I had to speak to that man I sent to you, but he knows nothing. He does not know me as a spiritual man. He was a stranger and I bribed him simply by giving him one rupee, and told him to deliver the message to your house.”

In those days, one gold rupee was too much. Forty years ago in India one gold rupee was almost enough to live on, in perfect comfort, for one month. Do you know the English word ”rupee” comes from the Hindi word rupaiya which means ”the golden.” In fact the paper note should not be called a rupee; it is not golden. At least the fools could have painted it in golden colors, but they didn’t even do that. One rupee, of those days, is almost seven hundred rupees of today. So much has changed in just forty years. Things have become seven hundred times costlier.

He said, ”I just gave him one rupee and told him to deliver the message. He was so bewildered by the rupee that he did not even look at me. He was a stranger – I have never seen him before.”

I said, ”I can also say the same. I have never seen the man either in this town; perhaps he is a passer-by. But there is no need to be worried about it. Why did you have to call me?”

Magga Baba said, ”I am leaving and there is nobody whom I could call to say goodbye to. You are the only one.” He hugged me, kissed my forehead, said goodbye and went away, just like that.

Magga Baba had disappeared many times in his life – people had taken him and brought him back again – so when he disappeared last, nobody bothered much. Only after a few months did people become aware that he had really disappeared, that he had not come back for many months. They started looking around the places he had been before but nobody knew about him.

That night, before he disappeared he told me, ”I may not be able to see you blossom to a flower but my blessings will be with you. It may not be possible for me to return. I am going to the Himalayas. Don’t say anything to anybody about my whereabouts.” He was so happy when he was saying this to me, so blissful that he was going to the Himalayas. The Himalayas have always been the home of all those who have searched and found. ❞

~ O S H O , Glimpses of a Golden Childhood, CHAPTER #15,
1984 in Lao Tzu House, Rajneeshpuram, USA

Exploring the truth of Tantra Yoga with Sadhguru

A lot of misinterpretation especially in the West has presented tantra to mean uninhibited sex. Sadhguru clarifies what tantra really is and what it is not.

Sadhguru:

Unfortunately, in western countries, tantra is being presented in such a way that it is supposed to mean uninhibited sex. It has been so badly misinterpreted. This is because books on tantra have been written by people who just want to sell books. They are not tantrics in any way. The word “tantra” literally means a technique or a technology. This is an inner technology. These are subjective methods not objective methods. But in the current understanding in society, the word tantra refers to very unorthodox or socially unacceptable methods. It is just that certain aspects are used in a certain way. It is not any different from yoga. It is just a small limb of yoga called tantra yoga.


People thinking in terms of “I have sexual needs so I will follow the tantric path,” is nonsense. In tantra, it is not that someone is using just sexuality to grow. They are using every aspect to grow. Unfortunately, there may be people who are attracted to such a path for the wrong reasons. They go because they want a spiritual sanction for their sexuality. Why do you want to bullshit yourself about spirituality? Handle your biology as biology, you do not have to give it other names.

The simple principle of tantra yoga is: whatever can take you down can also take you up. The ways in which a man usually sinks in his life are through food, alcoholic drink and sexuality. Tantra yoga uses the same three vehicles to rise up. But once people start using certain substances, they must be in a certain state, otherwise it just becomes addiction. This needs extreme discipline, a kind of discipline which is not possible for most people to even attempt. When people walk this kind of path, if a 100 people take it up, 99 will end up only as drunkards.

However, this is what is known as left-hand tantra which is cruder technology; it involves various rituals. There is also right-hand tantra which is very refined technology. These two are completely different in nature. Right-hand tantra is more internal and energy-wise, it is all about you. It does not involve any ritual or outside act as such. Is it tantra? In a way it is, but the word yoga includes all of them together. When we say yoga we are not excluding any possibility – everything is there in it. It is just that a few perverted people saw a certain type of tantra which is purely left-hand tantra where there is certain usage of the body. They just took that part, magnified it and wrote books about it with all kinds of weird sex and they said, “This is tantra.” No, it is not tantra.


Tantra means you are able to use your energies to make things happen. If you can make your mind razor sharp to cut through everything, this is also one kind of tantra. If you make your energies work upon your heart to become utterly loving and you can burst forth with enormous love that just overwhelms everyone, this is also tantra. If you make your physical body enormously powerful to make it do incredible feats, this is also tantra. Or if you can make your energies do things by itself without employing the body,  mind or emotion, this is also tantra.

So tantra is not some weird nonsense. Tantra is a certain capability. Without it there is no possibility. The question is “How refined is your tantra?” If you want to make your energies move, do you have to do 10,000 rituals or can you just sit here and do it. That is the big difference. Low technology or high technology is the question, but without tantra, there is no spiritual process.

Source Link :  http://blog.ishafoundation.org/yoga-meditation/demystifying-yoga/the-truth-about-tantra/

Moving, wherever the winds takes us to.

GOD IS EVERYWHERE

[Chapter from 'In quest of God' by Papa Ramdas, in the book Papa describes the life of renunciation depending fully on Ram having fully renounced the individual will. ]

They(Papa Ramdas and his friend-guide who is another Sadhu) travelled to Kalahasti. After a day’s stay here, they left for Jagannath Puri. It was noon. The Sadhuram and Ramdas were in the train. A Ticket Inspector, a Christian, dressed in European fashion, stepped into the carriage at a small station, and coming up to the Sadhus asked for tickets.

“Sadhus carry no tickets, brother, for they neither possess nor care to possess any money,” said Ramdas in English.

The Ticket Inspector replied: “You can speak English. Educated as you are, you cannot travel without a ticket. I have to ask you both to get down.”

The Sadhuram and he accordingly got down at the bidding of the
Inspector. “It is all Ram’s will,” assured Ramdas to his guide.

They were now on the platform and there was still some time for the train to start. The Ticket Inspector, meanwhile, felt an inclination to hold conversation with Ramdas who, with the Sadhuram, was waiting for the train to depart.

“Well,” broke in the Inspector looking at Ramdas. “May I know with what purpose you are travelling in this manner?”

“In quest of God,” was his simple reply.

“They say God is everywhere,” persisted the Inspector, “then, where is the fun of your knocking about in search of Him, while He is at the very place from which you started on this quest, as you say?”

“Right, brother,” replied Ramdas, “God is everywhere but he wants to have this fact actually proved by going to all places and realising His presence everywhere.”

“Well then,” continued the Inspector, “if you are discovering God wherever you go, you must be seeing Him here, on this spot, where you stand.”

“Certainly, brother,” rejoined Ramdas, “He is here at the very place where we stand.”

“Can you tell me where He is?” asked the Inspector.

“Behold, He is here, standing in front of me!” exclaimed Ramdas enthusiastically.

“Where, where?” cried the Inspector impatiently.

“Here, here!” pointed out Ramdas smiling, and patted on the broad chest of the Inspector himself. “In the tall figure standing in front, that is,in yourself, Ramdas clearly sees God who is everywhere.”

For a time, the Inspector looked confused. Then he broke into a hearty fit of laughter. Opening the door of the compartment from which he had asked the Sadhus to get down, he requested them to get in again, and they did so, followed by him. He sat in the train with the Sadhus for some time.

“I cannot disturb you, friends, I wish you all success in your quest of God”. With these words he left the carriage and the train rolled onwards.

O Ram, Thy name be glorified!

Maharajji - The Funny Prankster. When one falls in love, one forgets who he is.

Two Devotees, A policeman and a dacoit were both once visiting Maharajji. Each was massaging a leg. Maharajji said to the dacoit: "There is a bounty out for you and anyone who brings you in gets a reward. Isn't that true?"
"I don't know, Maharajji," the dacoit replied.
Then Maharajji turned to the policeman and, indicating the dacoit, said: "Do you recognize him?"
"No, Maharajji."
Such was his play.

Who says that Enlightened Masters don't get angry :P :P :P

I appreciate whatever God gives me, but I don't miss it, when it is gone. Someone once gave me a beautiful coat and hat, an expensive outfit. Then began my worry. I had to be concerned about not tearing or soiling it. It made me uncomfortable. I said, "Lord, why did You give me this bother?"

One day I was to lecture in Trinity Hall here in Los Angeles. When I arrived at the hall and started to remove my coat, the Lord told me, "Take away your belongings from the pocket." I did so. When I returned to the cloakroom after the lecture, the coat was gone. I was angry, and someone said, "Never mind, we will get You another coat." I replied, "I am not angry because I lost the coat, but because whoever took it, didn't take the hat that matches it, too."

Don't let your feelings rule you. How can you be happy if you are all the time fussing about your clothes or other possessions? Dress neatly in clean clothes and then forget about them, clean your house and forget it.

Kashi - The Eternal City | DVD