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Pioneer/ Vivacity/ Relationship
17th November 2003

Just jalebis
Swami Chaitanya Keerti

The other day a Western guest who had the opportunity of relishing a piece of jalebi, expressed his amazement about its shape and sweetness, inquiring how it was made. My friend tried to explain the method, describing it in Indian English: "Round and round and round... full stop."

Yes, the jalebi is a peculiar sweet in that it represents the philosophy of life and death. A jalebi's circles are circles of life. Its full stop the point of death. We move endlessly in circles, then comes death. The end that is not real because we are born again and restart the same game. Enlightened people like Buddha call it a vicious circle, a wheel which moves on. We are like spokes of the wheel. Sometimes we come up, sometimes we go down.

The wheel goes on moving, up and down, life and death. One moment of success, another of failure; one of hope, another of despair. It has been going on for eternity.

Explaining Eastern wisdom in practical terms, Osho says, "You love a woman, your mind hankers for repetition. Why? Why hanker for the same experience? You eat food, you hanker for it again. Why?"

The reason is whatever you do, you never do it totally. Something remains discontented. If you do it totally, there will be no hankering for repetition and you will be searching for the new, exploring the unknown.

You will not move in a vicious circle, your life will become growth. Ordinarily people move in circles. They appear to move but they only seem to. He further adds, "There is a great and urgent need to do something one has never done before - a search for yourself. You have run after everything in the world and it has not led anywhere. All roads go round and round; never reaching a goal. They don't have a goal."

Visualising this perspective, one suddenly becomes sick of action, anger, fights, love affairs, greed and jealousy. This is the foundation of Eastern wisdom. It creates great boredom with life, death and the vicious circle.

That is the original meaning of samsara. It means the wheel that goes on moving without stop. An awakened person jumps out of this vicious circle and starts living each moment in full awareness.

Spiritual growth means we stop moving in circles and become centred. We don't escape to the Himalayas - we move inward to the point where nothing moves.