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• Be real and love yourself 

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Hindustan Times
june 19 2004

Be real and love yourself 
Swami Chaitanya Keerti

What is the most essential thing for the seeker on the path? What is his goal?

What should he pursue to attain bliss and contentment? The first and foremost thing is this mantra: "Be Yourself."

The social environment that surrounds us expects us always to live in a particular way that suits its structure and the whole package of investment in it. And there's not so much regard for the individual, his original self and his freedom. The individual is sacrificed to something very artificial and superficial. Almost every child is made to grow this only that he loses his real self in his growth process. One becomes too much concerned about, even scared of others' opinions about oneself, keeps seeking approval from others and does not give love and respect to oneself . This is the surest way to become sad and miserable. This calamity happens to each child while he is growing to become part of society.

Osho suggests that the first thing is to love oneself. "This can become the foundation of a radical transformation. Don't be afraid of loving yourself. Love totally, and you will be surprised: the day you can get rid of all self-condemnation, self-disrespect, the day you can get rid of the idea of original sin, the day you can think of yourself as worthy and loved by God, will be a day of great blessing.... And a person who loves himself can easily become meditative, because meditation means being with yourself. If you hate yourself - as you do, as you have been told to do, and you have been following it religiously - if you hate yourself, how can you be with yourself? And meditation is nothing but enjoying your beautiful aloneness, celebrating yourself; that's what meditation is all about."

If you are lost too much in social formalities and moralities and have become fake, you need to come back home very urgently and natural and spontaneous. Be real! And you would become blissful and contented.


The Pioneer
Vivacity/ Relationships                                                                    Back to top  
june 17 2004

Feeling Functions 
Swami Chaitanya Keerti 

Life is a process of learning. We stop growing when we stop learning. What we learn from outside sources is tuition. And there's another source within us, that of intuition. The two are distinct dimensions of learning - one from outside to inside and vice versa.

Between tuition and intuition is the difference of "in". This is the dimension of meditation. In Hindi, we talk of antardrishti, translated as "inner eye" or "insight". This belongs to the dimension of intuition.

Osho explains this beautifully in the following words. He says: "Intellect lives on tuition. Others have to teach you. Intuition comes from within, it grows out of you and is a flowering of being. This is the quality of consciousness without a centre. Timelessness; or you can call it the now, the present. But remember, it is not present between past and future; it is the present in which past and future have dissolved."

Talking of intuition, Osho says: "The word is significant. We are given tuition everywhere. That is to repress intuition. In schools, colleges, universities, you are given tuition. It means something from outside being forced on you, and intuition means something from your core. If unconscious, it will remain instinct.

"If you are conscious, instinct plus awareness equals intuition. Then for the first time you have found your Master within you. Intuition is your Master, your real university. And now you don't need a scripture, you don't need any guide. Your inner light is enough to lead you to the ultimate goal of enlightenment."

Normally, a human being functions on three levels - instinct, intellect and intuition. Instinct is of the physical level. Animals possess it. Intellect is functioning of the head, one needs to be human to have intellect. Intuition is deeper - one needs to have his heart functioning properly. Behind these is our being, whose only quality is witnessing.

Osho says: "The head only thinks; hence it never comes to a conclusion. It is verbal, linguistic, logical but because it has no roots in reality, thousands of years of philosophical thinking have not given us a single conclusion. Philosophy has been the greatest exercise in futility.

"Beyond intellect is feeling. Another name for this is intuition, a more scientific name. But few reach intuition, because for that you have to go beyond intellect. Meditation is the only way. Unfortunately, meditation is not part of our education. It stops at intellect, creating a quarrel between instinct and intellect, creating a schizophrenia."

If you meditate, something beyond intellect starts functioning. You can call it the heart, intuition. It has no arguments but tremendous experiences. But it is not the end of your nature. Like instinct, on the other polarity of your being, beyond the mind - which is the world of intellect - is a world of intuition. 

"This opens doors through meditation: Which is simply knocking on doors of intuition; intuition is also completely ready; it does not grow; you have inherited that from existence."

That's what meditation is about: Dropping the mind and moving to the heart. A leap from thinking to feeling, intellect to intuition. Head to heart. Extremes existing with unbridgeable distance between them.