Many people have wondered why, after twenty-five centuries, millions of Buddhist monks -- who have been striving hard, sincerely, honestly -- have not been able to produce a single Gautam Buddha. And it is not only true about Gautam Buddha; the same is true about Socrates, the same is true about Kabir, the same is true about Jesus, the same is true about Nanak.

Das Böse lebt nicht in der Welt der Menschen. Es lebt allein im Menschen.

One day Buddha came into his assembly of the monks. His sannyasins were sitting and waiting for him. They were puzzled because this was for the first time that Buddha had come with something in his hand -- a handkerchief. They all looked at the handkerchief What was the matter? There must be something special in it. And Buddha sat on the platform and rather than starting speaking to the assembly he looked at the handkerchief, started tying a few knots in it, five knots in all. The whole assembly watched -- what is going on?
And then he asked the assembly, "Can anybody tell me: is this handkerchief the same as it was before the knots were tied?"
Sariputta said, "This is a tricky question. In a way the handkerchief is the same because nothing has changed, in a way it is not the same because these five knots have appeared which were not there before. But as far as the inner nature of the handkerchief is concerned -- its nature is concerned -- it is the same; but as far as its form is concerned it is no more the same. The form has changed: the substance is the same."
Buddha said, "Right. Now I want to open these knots." And he started stretching both ends of the handkerchief farther away from each other. He asked Sariputta. "What do you think? By stretching farther will I be able to open the knots?"
He said, "You will be making knots even more difficult to open because they will become smaller, more tighter. '
Buddha said, "Right. Then I want to ask the last question: what should I do so that I can open the knots, the tied knots? How I can untie them again?"
Sariputta said, "Bhagwan, I would like first to come close and see how in the first place the knots have been tied. Unless I know how they have been tied it is difficult for me to suggest any solution."
Buddha said, "Right, Sariputta. You are blessed, because that is the most fundamental question to ask. If you are in a certain fix, the first thing is how you got into it rather than trying to get out of it. Without asking the most fundamental and the primary question, you will make things worse."

All the melodies and modes and their modifications are born in the East. These are the extensions of the experiences of the absolute being in the form of sound. Musical compositions, as well as all dance forms, originated in temples and later on developed elsewhere as specific arts. It was only in the temple that a devotee experienced the effects of sound in its innumerable variations -- so many that it is difficult to keep any count. You may wonder if temples can be used today in these changed times. Yes, it is possible, but the conventional orthodox priest who is in the temple today will not be able to explain what was happening and how, in temples in ancient times. He still has the key but he does not have any idea of the hidden secrets behind it. The whole philosophy and science of temples can still be of use today. And we can create better temples now because we have better building materials. We can set up a whole sound system in such a way that sound can be magnified a thousand fold. Walls can be made that are so sensitive that if you chant the mantra "Aum" once, the walls will echo it thousands of times. The new man is an absolute necessity now because the old is utterly rotten. The old is continuously in conflict within himself; he is fighting with himself. Whatsoever he does he feels miserable. If he follows his own inner voice he feels he is going against the society, against the powerful people, against the establishment. And that establishment has created a conscience in you; that conscience is a very tricky procedure, a strategy. It is the policeman inside you, implanted by the society, who goes on condemning you that: "This is wrong, this is not right. You should not do it, you should feel guilty for it -- you are being immoral."
It is a well-known fact that somewhere in the past, one hundred thousand years back, there were huge animals, far bigger than elephants, ten times bigger than elephants. What happened to those huge animals? They suddenly disappeared from the earth; only their skeletons are discovered. What calamity happened? No calamity from the outside, but they became too huge. The burden of their bodies became so much that they could not carry it; they became incapable from inside. Their inner being remained very small and their outer body became too big; it lost balance. The same is happening today with man: his inner soul is too small and his outer technology, his science, has become too huge.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZcJlteffKQ

Reading in the Tao Te Ching is like contemplating clouds passing through mountains or storms pouring down the forest, the moon glowing in autumn or flowers blooming in spring. The evolution of all elements is infinite. Sometimes, the writing is as serene as a shooting star; other times, it is as rousing as tidal waves or earthquakes.
On the other side reading in the Bible:
When Adam and Eve were created and put in Paradise, who was it that ordered them: “Eat not of the Tree”, that they might not distinguish the evil from the good? Another fought against him and made them eat of the Tree. But what sort of God is this? First he envied Adam that he should eat from the tree of knowledge. And secondly he said, “Adam, where are you?” And God does not have foreknowledge, that is, since he did not know this from the beginning. And afterwards he said, “Let us cast him out of this place, lest he eat of the tree of life and live forever.” Surely he has shown himself to be a malicious envier. And what kind of a God is this?”

Die Forderung nach Wunschlosigkeit zeigt, dass der Astralkörper im Zaum gehalten werden muss; dasselbe gilt auch vom Mentalkörper. Darunter ist zu verstehen, dass man sein Gemüt derart beherrschen muss, dass man weder Ärger noch Ungeduld empfindet; dass man ferner seinen Verstand so beherrscht, dass die Gedanken immer ruhig sind und ungestört verlaufen; und endlich, dass man auch die Nerven durch das Denken beherrscht, so dass sie möglichst wenig reizbar sind. Letzteres ist besonders schwierig, weil der Körper in der Vorbereitung für den geistigen Pfad sensibler wird.
Berkeley, the great philosopher of the West used to say: "When you step out of the room the things in the room, disappear in the void. When you step back into the room, the things appear again. And when there is no one in the room, there are no objects in the room." He challenged any one to dispute his statement. No one did, for it is impossible. One has to be within the room, in order to investigate and Berkeley says, "Things appear as long as the seer is present and disappear when the seer is absent. Without the seer, the seen cannot be. If you make a hole and peep in the room, the viewer becomes present and things appear."
On the one hand we give a place of prestige to the Kohinoor diamond and on the other, we condemn the efforts that go on to attain it. Now this Kohinoor is one and people are in millions! And they all hanker after Kohinoor. Everybody cannot have it, so it is impossible to attain it lawfully. Now everyday we see that those who break the law, they alone attain the thing which is otherwise unattainable. The Kohinoor is open to view; people stand in queues. The law-breaker scoffs at them for according to him they are fools who do not know that he who wants to break the queue and get the diamond, exhorts others to respect the queue.

http://potq.cl/

The I CHING is a unique book in more ways than one: at the same time it is a book and a tool. A great of great wisdom about life which consists of achieving harmony of the individual with the changing flow of the universal currents. As an oracle book it provides an instrument to find this possible harmony, to obtain the right orientation. Every man has his TAO and the best for him is to follow it. The oracle puts you in place with the TAO of the universal laws ,and points to you your own tao. All taken from chinese wisdom. The text is from the beginning of the kingdom of the Chou Dynasty 1122 to 221 before our era. A quote from one of the sages (on his death bed) is saying that if he had more time he would spend it studying the I-Ching. There is an organised war going on in science between materialistic theory and anything that could be termed spiritual or metaphysical. For example, Masaru Emoto's research into the energetics of water, although supported by photographic evidence, has been scoffed at by mainstream science because he has asserted that humans affect their surroundings with their thoughts. The materialism or absolute scepticism of the scientific establishment is detrimental to any scientific inquiry that thinks outside the box. This mentality is interested in preserving funding for its own projects, those that will not rock the establishment.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3962070356288160346&ei=mQTQSba1I4Wq2ALT-OXZDQ&q=

The more you know the less you understand. In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities but in the expert's mind there are few!!!! That is what is happening all over the world. That is what is happening in science. The whole misery of science is that mind is using its energy. But mind is a negative force; it cannot use anything creatively, it needs a master. Mind is a servant. Do you have a master? There is an old Chinese story. Because of the story a proverb has come into existence -- that when the musician becomes perfect, he burns his instruments; they become not only useless, they become a nuisance because they only create noise. Only between the noise are there a few moments of music -- why not have it all? Watchfulness is a simple step. There is no alphabet in it. There are no beginners in it; there are no amateurs in it and no experts in it. Everybody is in the middle, always in the middle.
You have to get out of the mind slowly, slowly; you have to learn ways of getting out of it. And that's what meditation is all about: it is slipping out of the mind. The mind is a mechanism. There is no need to get identified with it. Use it, but remain aloof, remain separate. Know perfectly well that you are a witness. Just as you are a witness of the outside world -- the trees, the moon and the people -- exactly like that you are a witness to the inside world -- the dreams, the imagination, the anger, love, hate, jealousy, possessiveness, and all that. But you are always a witness, and the witness is always clear. The mind is always confusion, the witness is always clear. Become more and more of a witness. Don't get identified with the mind. It is very close but still it is not you. So there is no point in working on the mind. The whole work now has to be not on the mind but on you. Disconnect yourself from the mind more and more. When anger comes, sit silently and watch it. You are a watcher on the hills and anger is there just like a cloud passing by. There is the hate and there is the jealousy, but you remain aloof; you just see them. Don't judge them, don't be against them, because the moment you judge you become entangled. That's what Jesus means when he says 'Judge ye not'. That is the secret key to no-mind. Don't say 'This is good', don't say 'This is bad'; just don't say anything. Silently see it, take note of it: anger is there -- it is neutral, neither good nor bad. And you will be surprised that it comes, it surrounds you and then it goes away.
Problems are very limited. There are not many problems in the world; there are few problems, very few. If you reduce them, they can be counted on your fingers. One moves in a circle and comes again and again to the same problem. Maybe the situation is different and the problem takes a different shape and form and colour, but that is just the difference in the dress. Just look at the naked problem and it is the same problem you have been struggling with your whole life. Things are perfect... they have never been otherwise. It is just that sometimes you cannot allow things to remain perfect; then you create some kind of negativity. That's your creation, and you can create negativity. But it is a created thing -- bogus.

http://www.truveo.com/2-Public-Service-Announcement-part-Two-The/id/3226779066

The Tao-te Ching, as we have it, cannot be the work of a single man; some of its sayings may date from the time of Confucius; others are certainly later. The Taoist model referenced in Section XLII of the Tao Te Ching states: “Out of Tao, One is born; out One, Two; out of Two, Three; out of Three, the created universe. The created universe is backed by yin and faced by yang, and harmonized by the immaterial Breath [ch’i].” Like the great logic and reason principles vigorously sought by the Greeks, and those principles for knowledge of innerness devotedly cultivated by the Indians, the successes of the Chinese with twoness principles came about because of the simultaneous convergence of several key elements. Symmetry is twoness, and can be observed manifesting in characteristics ranging from the balance of forces concentrated in an atom to the relationship between gravity and the expansion of the universe. Another type of symmetry permeating the universe is rhythm. In addition to the rhythmic oscillation of atoms and light, in nature the rhythms of celestial cycles, tides, seasons, etc. seem to govern the overall changes of creation, while life processes such as reproduction, waking/sleeping, feeding and so on also yield to rhythm. And interestingly, higher consciousness is very much attuned to rhythm in music, movement, speech and even visual appreciation (as in symmetrical form). We don't have the language to talk about things without time. Actually the sequence of events and the space between events, which with or without time can be different. Without the scales we use based on the physical time of this universe, there is no scale we can rely on to describe change rates, so we just lapse into relying on what everyone is familiar with.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aGVHyHfWA0

A burglar broke into a small factory and noticed a sign on the safe: "Don't waste dynamite. This safe is open. Just turn the knob."
He did so. At once the place was flooded with light and a bell rang loudly.
As he was taken to the police station he said, "My faith in human nature has been shattered!"

"Why do you look so sad?" Johnny asks his friend.
"Well," his friend replies, "my wife drove herself over a cliff!" "That's horrible!" exclaims Johnny.
"But that's not the worst of it," continues the friend. "It was a brand new Mercedes!"

He was despondent. "The woman I love has just turned me down," he told his friend. "She won't marry me."
"Don't be so disheartened," said his friend, trying to ease his misery. "Don't you realize a woman's no often means yes?"
"But she didn't say no," he answered. "She said phooey!"