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• Would You Patent A Rose?

• Mystic Ways Of Transformation

• It's Time To Herald A New Humanity

THE PIONEER
02 February 2004

Stay Tuned                                                                                  
Vivacity/ Relationships

Swami Chaitanya Keerti on why couples should discover attunement before deciding to spend their lives together

Human beings and their minds are complex phenomenon. Psychologists have been trying to understand this but it needs an enlightened mind to penetrate humanity's collective consciousness. In the Path of the Mystic, Osho reveals fascinating secrets. He says: "We are living in a network of invisible forces that connect us to each other. So, whenever something happens to one, it vibrates others. They may be far away but if it happens to many, vibrations are very strong. It can travel from one island to another, one continent to another, without visible means of communication."

Albert Einstein was once asked that if he had not discovered the theory of relativity, did he think it would have ever been discovered? He said, "If I hadn't discovered it, someone else would have. I was just quick enough." Later, it was found that a German physicist had already reached the conclusion on the theory in his notebooks; he was just late publishing it.

Another Japanese scientist was nearing end of his research on the same topic but was completely unaware of what was happening in other parts of the world. Moreover, it was difficult for him as he didn't understand English or German. But he also had reached the same conclusion. All it needed was the final touch.

It seems whenever something is happening, it doesn't happen to one. There is a wave. Whoever catches it, whoever is capable and intelligent will get the same idea. No discovery depends on an individual. It becomes attached to the individual's name because he is the first one to achieve it. Because it is a specialised subject not everyone will be able to discover it, but there are many in the same field, with similar specialisation. And if a certain wave surrounds the earth, it is likely to be caught by many minds.

Osho talks about a practical experiment we could do. He says: "You can sit in another room separate from someone with whom you have a loving relationship, a trust, something of the heart. Both should sit for 10 minutes in silence. Then decide that a person takes a card from a pack and makes a signal - may be a knock on the door - that "the first card has been taken; now you take a card." It's the other person's turn next. He has to be silent and in tune, open to what is happening next door. This way, take 10 one by one. If both are intelligent, seven cards will be the same.

This is the minimum; all the 10 cards can be same. Even if three are same, all that's needed are more experiments for it to grow. And you can do it with other things. Draw a picture, and the other will sketch the same, minus visible communication as something invisible reaches them. Change partners, and you'll see with whom it functions better. It means your minds operates on the same wavelength.

In my opinion, before two persons decide to live together they should check if their minds are in tune. They should be at least 70 per cent in tune, only then is it worth living together; otherwise don't create hell for each other. You love each other - forgive each other."

But you can try to improve attunement before living together. No need to move the court because what can a magistrate do?

This is something that should be a part of a university - there should be a department helping people find how attuned to each other they are, and helping to increase attunement. If they are so far apart it seems impossible, suggest, "You'll get in trouble. If you love each other... don't. It is better to say goodbye now than after messing up." This can be extended around the earth.

First try it in one house with 10 people and if you find a common wavelength, spread it around. They should start an experiment at the same time, and the results will be same. Percentage will also be the same because distance makes no difference.

(The writer is editor, Osho World monthly magazine, Delhi)


Hindustan Times
03 February, 2004

Be Aware and Live Intensely                                                           Back to top
MEDITATIONS| Swami Chaitanya Keerti

The enlightened mystics teach us to live our life with full intensity. But most of us conduct our lives as if in a daze. Real awakening needs certain intensity. Lack of intensity creates boredom. It is only sometimes when we are face to face with a dangerous situation that we become fully awake and fully conscious. 
Osho once told the story of a Sufi mystic, Bayazid, who used to talk to his disciples about awareness, and they would ask, "What is awareness? You keep on talking about it." One day he took them to the river. On both sides there was a small hill. He said, "We are going to put a long wooden bridge - just one foot wide - from this end to the other, and you have to walk on it. And then you will know what awareness is." They said, "But we have been walking our whole life, and we have never come to know." 
He said, "Wait," and he did the experiment. Many of them, who became scared, said: "We cannot walk. Just one foot wide?" 
"But how much do you need to walk on? When you are walking on the earth, you can walk on a one-foot-wide strip easily. Why can't you walk on a one-foot-wide strip hanging between two hills?" he asked his disciples. 
A few people tried. They took few steps but then came back, and said, "It is dangerous." Then Bayazid walked and a few followed him. When they reached the other side, those who followed him fell at his feet and said, "Master, now we know what awareness is. The danger was so much that we could not afford to walk in slumber. We had to be alert. Any wrong step and we would have gone forever." 
Osho says: "Awareness means an intensity. Such an intensity of wakefulness that no thought interferes. You are simply conscious without any thought. Try it. You can try it anywhere. While walking on road, every moment is danger. Here, every moment is risky as it can turn into death. You are all crossing the plank with a mountainous burden on you; just a small slip and you are gone. You have to be alert, so alert that no other energy is left in you, everything has become just a flame of awareness."



Hindustan Times
New Delhi, 11 February 2004

Make Work Your Worship                                                                     Back to top
PLATFORM| Swami Chaitanya Keerti 

Once Bodhidharma, an outrageous and outspoken Buddhist monk from India, went to China, where he was greeted by the emperor with fanfare. His name and fame had reached China and people were awaiting the arrival of the disciple of the Buddha. The emperor made a big show of welcoming Bodhidharma to make an impression on his people that he was also a very religious person. After welcoming him, the emperor asked the monk: "Bhante, please answer some of my questions. I have got hundreds of dharmashalas and temples built for the Buddhist monks so that they can relax and meditate comfortably. What shall be my reward in heaven?" 

Bodhidharma said, "You will go to hell directly. This will be the reward of all that you have done." 

The emperor was disturbed. But he had no idea how the real sages behaved. He had seen only those monks who run after the rich and powerful. This is a mutual exploitation. The ordinary monks and sadhus also want recognition from the rich and powerful to show to their followers how great they are and the rich people want to maintain their social status and keep such monks happy. 

Bodhidharma shocked the emperor but it was the most enlightening statement that showed the emperor the true path of meditation. 

Most of the creative people are always seeking Padmashri and other awards and only a few of them get such awards. The others feel frustrated. But what the people don't realise is that to be creative is a reward unto itself. 

Osho says: "There is no God for me except this existence, which is so utterly beautiful that work with love is bound to become your worship. In worship the worker is lost completely, only the worship remains. Digging a ditch in your garden, making food for those you love, or anything else, if you are lost in it so utterly that there is no ego or even its shadow left - you have become your work. I want worship to become your 24-hour-a-day thing. It has to become
existential. Then you don't need to go to any church, to any synagogue."



INDIATIMES/ SPIRITUALITY
Love: Fly High Into An Open Sky                                                      Back to top

Swami Chaitanya Keerti

We all love to be loved. Life without love seems to be totally meaningless. Love comes as a fresh breeze that opens our hearts and raises our consciousness. We open our wings like free birds and fly high into the sky. 
Love brings a dance to our ordinary walk. We walk as if we are not walking - we start flying. The gravitational phenomenon that pulls us down starts losing its grip and we enter into the realm of grace that pulls us upward. Love is an ultimate taste of freedom. This freedom is very unique - it is freedom not only from others but from oneself also. Love is just a state of egolessness. 
Osho tells a beautiful anecdote: There is a very well-known poem by the Sufi poet Rumi: The lover went and knocked at the door of the beloved. A voice asked "Who is it?" He said, "Open the door. It is I." 
There was no answer, all was silent within. The lover knocked again. He called out again and again, "Open the door. It is I, your lover," but there was no response. Finally a voice came from within, "Two cannot be contained in this house. This is the house of love, it cannot accommodate two." Then again there was silence. 
Love brings a dance to our ordinary walk. We walk as if we are not walking - we start flying.
The lover turned back. He wandered for years in the jungles. He undertook many fasts and practices; he performed many rites and holy works. He purified himself and thus cleansed his mind. He became more aware; he began to understand the conditions. 
After many, many years he returned once again and knocked at the door. The same question came from within, "Who is it?" But this time the answer that came from outside was, "You alone are." 

And, Rumi says, the door was opened. 

If you go to the gates of God as somebody - then even if you appear as a sannyasin, a renunciate, a wise man, whatever, you will fail. The gate opens only for those who are nothing, nobody, who have annihilated their selves totally. 

In ordinary life also, love opens its doors only when you are not, when you are completely merged in the other and the voice of I has stopped. Then when this I becomes less important than you, and when you becomes your whole life, then you are capable of destroying yourself for the beloved; you willingly and happily enter into death. Then only does love blossom. In everyday life we thus get a glimpse of the one when two are no more. 

Love opens its doors only when 
you are completely merged in the other 
and the voice of 'I' has stopped.

When the ultimate love arises, there should remain no sign of you; your name, your designation, your very self should turn to dust. Only when you annihilate yourself completely can this happen. Remember the words of Jesus: He who saves himself will be lost; he who loses himself will be saved. In His kingdom he who destroys himself attains everything and he who saves himself loses everything. 
( Osho: The True Name # 9 ) 

In another discourse, Osho illustrates this true love: Love gives you freedom to be yourself, helps you to be yourself. 

Even if it goes against his own interest, still, a loving person will suffer himself rather than make the loved one suffer. 

Another ancient story... 
A woman loved her husband, but the husband never paid any attention to her. He was in love with a prostitute, knowing perfectly well that prostitutes don't love - because there were many other customers. He was only a customer, not a lover. And in his life he had seen that the day the customer's money is finished, the prostitute's door is closed for that man. 

The last wish 
He had destroyed his health, he had destroyed his money, now he was dying. Just as he was dying, his wife asked him, "If you have any last wish so that you can die contented..." 

He said, "Yes, I have a wish, but I am ashamed to say it to you." 

"I love you as you are" 
She said, "Don't be ashamed. This is not the time to be ashamed. I love you as you are - there is no question of feeling ashamed." 

He said, "My only wish is to see the prostitute just once more before I die." The woman said, "There is no problem." 

He had lost all their money, there was no money in the house. She had to carry the dying man on her shoulders to the prostitute's house. She knocked on the door. 
The prostitute opened the door and could not believe it. She said, "Am I hallucinating? Is this real? You are the wife of the man..." 

The wife said, "Yes, I am the wife and also the lover of the man." 

The prostitute said, "Then why have you brought him here? He destroyed your life, he spent all your money and he was mad after me. And to me, once the money is finished, all relationship is finished. He was only a customer. This is a marketplace and he knows it. You are a strange woman!" 

"In his happiness is my happiness, and if 
he can die contented I will feel I have 
fulfilled my duty, my love."


She said, "But this was his dying wish. He wanted to see you, and I love him so much that I could not say no. In his happiness is my happiness, and if he can die contented I will feel I have fulfilled my duty, my love." 

No complaint about the man, about his whole behaviour. No jealousy against the woman. Love knows no jealousy, love knows no complaint. Love is a deep understanding. 

You love someone - that does not mean that the other should love you also. It is not a contract. Try to understand the meaning of love. And you will not be able to understand the meaning of love by your so-called love affairs. 

Strangely enough, you will understand the meaning of love by going deep into meditation, by becoming more silent, more together, more at ease. You will start radiating acertain energy. You will become loving, and you will know the beautiful qualities of love. 


Pioneer/Vivacity/Relationships

Would You Patent A Rose?                                                              Back to top
Swami Chaitanya Keerti

Spirituality, a science of inner transformation, is universal in nature. It is nothing but sharing wisdom, consciousness and love with everybody open and receptive. Such spiritual people have been travelling world over to share enlightenment, and raise the level of consciousness of humanity.

Swami Vivekananda and Swami Ramteerth went to USA and shared their wisdom and meditation. They gave it free. But these days Indian yoga teachers go West and sell eastern wisdom and knowledge at a high price. They change little in the West, but the West changes them totally. Just yesterday I saw a news item in various newspapers which was extraordinary:

"Bikram Choudhury, a former weightlifter based in Los Angeles, is being sued over his claim to own the copyright of a series of 26 postures used in Bikram yoga, a fast-growing style in which exercises are repeated in a studio heated to 40°C." The article continued, "Mr Choudhury has sent letters to more than 100 Bikram yoga schools and teachers, accusing them of violating his copyright and trademark by deviating from his strict teachings and employing instructors who were not trained by him.

"In response, a collective of US yoga teachers are suing Mr Choudhury in a San Francisco federal court, arguing that his copyright and trademark claims are unenforceable, because his teachings draw on postures in public use for centuries."

It is stupid to impose a trademark on yoga postures and meditation methods. I wonder why we don't do the same with postures of the Kamasutra! What will happen if a dancer gets the trademark and copyright over postures of Bharatanatyam, Kathak and Odissi dance forms. People have a trademark of Art of Living and Art Of Being - why don't they have trademark over breathing and Vipassana?

Breathing, yogic or otherwise has been happening since eternity. Lord Shiva taught this to his consort Parvati - not only a single technique but 112 methods of meditation. Vipassana is only one. Luckily, Buddha did not get a trademark or copyright, so we could continue doing Vipassana without fear.

But in USA all kinds of stupidities are possible - and it is becoming prevalent in India too. In one discourses on Om Shantih, Shantih Shantih, he says: "Things can be copyrighted, thoughts cannot be copyrighted, and meditations cannot be copyrighted. They are not things of the marketplace. But perhaps the West cannot understand difference between an objective commodity and an inner experience."

Osho says further: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi copyrighted transcendental meditation. Underneath in a small circle you will find the words TM!"

Osho told his secretary Ma Neelam to write to such people, "You don't understand meditation. It is nobody's possession. Perhaps if your country gives trademarks and copyrights on meditation, it will be good to have a copyright on stupidity. Only you will be stupid. Nobody else; it will be illegal."


Hindustan Times
Meditations
19 February,2004

Mystic Ways Of Transformation                                                         Back to top
MEDITATIONS | Swami Chaitanya Keerti

Religion and morality are generally understood to be the same. But, in reality they are a world apart. A religious person may be a moral person, but a moral person may not necessarily be a religious person. Religiousness is above morality. 
Osho says: "A really religious person has no morality imposed upon him. His morality arises out of his consciousness. He is not trying to do the right, he is not trying to avoid the wrong - he simply acts out of his consciousness, and whatever he does is right." 
Osho talks about a great mystic, Nagarjuna, who was a naked fakir. A queen was deeply in love with Nagarjuna. One day she invited him as a guest in her palace. Nagarjuna went. The queen asked him a favour: "I want your begging bowl". Nagarjuna gave it. The queen brought a golden begging bowl, studded with diamonds and gave it to Nagarjuna. She said, "Now you keep this. I will worship your begging bowl." 
Had Nagarjuna been an ordinary mystic, he would have said: "I cannot touch it. I have renounced the world." But for him it was all the same, so he took the bowl. 
When he left the palace, a thief saw him and followed. The thief was very happy: "Soon Nagarjuna will sleep and I will get the bowl." Nagarjuna threw the bowl outside the door, thinking: why make him wait? 
'Such a precious thing! And Nagarjuna has thrown it so easily." The thief could not go without thanking him. He peeked in and he said, "Sir, accept my thanks. I cannot believe that there are people like you too? Can I come in and touch your feet?" Nagarjuna laughed and said: 'Yes, that's why I threw the bowl outside." 
When he touched Nagarjuna's feet, he felt the presence of the divine. He asked Nagarjuna, "How many lives will it take for me to become like you?" Nagarjuna said, "How many lives? It can happen today, it can happen now!" The thief became his disciple. 
These are the mysterious ways real mystics can transform even the hardened criminals.

THE SPEAKING TREE
FEBRUARY 12, 2004

It's Time To Herald A New Humanity                                              Back to top
OSHO

The most important need of humanity today is to be made aware that its past has betrayed it. There is no point in continuing with the past, for doing so will be suicidal. The new humanity will not be a society in the old sense, where individuals are only parts of it. It will be a meeting of individuals, where individuals are the masters and society is to serve them. It will have many different aspects to it. It will not have so many religions, it will have only a religious consciousness. 
The individual, for the first time, will not be programmed; he will be helped to be himself . He will not be given any ideals or discipline, nor any certain pattern. He will be given only tremendous love for freedom, so that he can sacrifice everything, even his own life - but he cannot sacrifice freedom. He will not be repressive; he will be natural, with no inhibitions, expressive of everything that he has, as plants express themselves in different colours and fragrances. 
The new individual will not be under the illusion that all human beings are equal, for they are not. That each individual is unique is a far higher concept than equality. Although the new individuals will not be 'equal', they will have equal opportunity to develop their potential. 
There will be no marriage; love will be the only law. 
The new humanity will have an ecology in which nature is not to be conquered, but lived and loved. We are part of it - how can we conquer it? It will not have any race, nation, state, colour or caste. It will have only a functional world government that will not be chosen by mediocre voters - because they necessarily choose people of their own category. 
The new humanity will have a totally different pattern. Unless everyone is well-educated and has at least a bachelor's degree, he will not be allowed to vote. There will be a no-party system because people will vote directly for individuals. The government, unlike now, won't have any power; it will be simply functional. It will serve society in the real sense, not just in words. 
Life has so many dimensions, but politics has dominated them all. Looking at a newspaper, someone on another planet would find it difficult to conceive what kind of people live on earth - only politicians? Murderers? Rapists? Criminals? Because, the media reports are full of these people, and on top of everything is the politician. 
Every creative dimension of life will be brought to light, and the ugly aspects don't need to be advertised. If somebody has murdered, it should be brought to light - not to say that he was a criminal, but to show how the very psycho-logy of the man, his upbringing, went wrong, and why he had to commit murder. In his place, with the same background, anyone would have done the same. So you are not condemning the person, you are condemning the training, the background, the upbringing; this is absolutely scientific. 
Newspapers should be full of creativity and positivity. Ninety per cent of a newspaper should give coverage to musicians, poets, sculptors, dancers, actors, philosophers and only 10 per cent should be given to the politicians and the negative elements. The negative elements should be analysed so that the indivi-dual is not condemned. And the politicians should only be given space as information, no more. If they are doing something good or not good, it should be reported - but they should not be dominating our entire life. 
(Excerpted from 'The Path of the Mystic')                                               Back to top