Do you follow it? First you make a condition. You say, "Unless I get this woman I am not going to be happy. I can be happy only with this woman." Now you start striving to get this woman. The more difficult it is the more you become enthusiastic, feverish. The more difficult it is the more you are challenged. The more difficult it is the more you put all your being at stake; you are ready to gamble. And of course more hope arises and more desire to possess the woman. It is so hard, it is so difficult. It must be something great, that's why it is so hard, that's why it is so difficult. You chase and chase and chase and one day you get the woman. The day you get the woman the condition is removed: "If I get the woman then I will be happy." You had put that condition in the first place. Now you get the woman, you feel relief. Now there is no more chasing, you have arrived, the result is in your hands, you feel good -- good because of the relief.
One day Mulla Nasruddin was walking, swearing and in great pain. A friend asked him, "What is the matter? Is your stomach aching or do you have a headache or something? What is the matter? You look in such agony." He said, "Nothing. The shoes that I am wearing are too small." "But then why are you wearing them?" He said, "This is the only relief that I get at the end of the day -- when I take my shoes off. God, it is such... then I enjoy. But this is the only joy I have, so I cannot drop these shoes. They are one size too small. It is really hell, but in the evening it gives heaven. When I go home and I take my shoes off and I fall on my sofa, I say I have arrived. It's so beautiful!"
That's what you are doing. You create pain, you create anguish, chasing, fever, and then one day you come home and take the shoes off and you say, "Great, this is great. So I have arrived!" But how long can it last? The relief lasts only a few moments. Then again you are hankering. Now this woman is useless because you have got her. You cannot make a condition again. You can never say again, "If I get this woman I will be happy," because she is already with you. Now you start looking around at somebody else's woman, "If I get that woman..." Now you know one trick -- that first you have to put a condition on your happiness, then you have to follow the condition desperately, then one day relief comes. Now this is futile. A man of understanding will see that there is no need to put any condition, you can be unconditionally happy. Why go on walking in small shoes and suffer just to get relief in the end? Why not have the relief all the time? But then you will not feel it, that is the problem. To feel it you need contrast. You will be happy but you will not feel it.
One day Mulla Nasruddin was walking, swearing and in great pain. A friend asked him, "What is the matter? Is your stomach aching or do you have a headache or something? What is the matter? You look in such agony." He said, "Nothing. The shoes that I am wearing are too small." "But then why are you wearing them?" He said, "This is the only relief that I get at the end of the day -- when I take my shoes off. God, it is such... then I enjoy. But this is the only joy I have, so I cannot drop these shoes. They are one size too small. It is really hell, but in the evening it gives heaven. When I go home and I take my shoes off and I fall on my sofa, I say I have arrived. It's so beautiful!"
That's what you are doing. You create pain, you create anguish, chasing, fever, and then one day you come home and take the shoes off and you say, "Great, this is great. So I have arrived!" But how long can it last? The relief lasts only a few moments. Then again you are hankering. Now this woman is useless because you have got her. You cannot make a condition again. You can never say again, "If I get this woman I will be happy," because she is already with you. Now you start looking around at somebody else's woman, "If I get that woman..." Now you know one trick -- that first you have to put a condition on your happiness, then you have to follow the condition desperately, then one day relief comes. Now this is futile. A man of understanding will see that there is no need to put any condition, you can be unconditionally happy. Why go on walking in small shoes and suffer just to get relief in the end? Why not have the relief all the time? But then you will not feel it, that is the problem. To feel it you need contrast. You will be happy but you will not feel it.
hans-wolfgang - am Samstag, 9. Dezember 2006, 15:06
A man went to see his psychiatrist and said that every night he was visited by a ten-foot monster with two heads. And he was suffering tremendously, sleep was not possible, he was becoming more and more miserable and any day he could collapse. He had even thought about committing suicide. 'Well, I think I might be able to cure you,' said the psychiatrist, ‘but I am afraid it will be a lengthy process and it will cost you about three hundred dollars.' 'Three hundred dollars?' said the man. ‘Forget it! I will just go home and make friends with it.'
That's how to be intelligent is so difficult and it costs so much. You have to put at stake whatsoever you have. It is a cross. In fact, you have to die to be intelligent because only when you are reborn will you be intelligent, not before it. And the cross has to be carried on one's own shoulders; nobody else can carry your cross. You will have to carry your cross to your own Golgotha, there is no other way. Many times you will stumble on the road; many times you will be so tired and exhausted that you will have to rest. Many times you will think that people who have never desired intelligence, awareness, are blessed. ‘What have I chosen?' Many times doubt and suspicion will arise in your mind: 'Is there any goal or am I simply carrying a cross and wasting my life?' Many times you would like to go back to the world, many will be the temptations. But if you can stick to it, if you can remain on the path against all odds, one day intelligence flowers. It is almost like a seed: the seed cannot know what is going to happen, the seed has never known the flower. And the seed cannot even believe that he has the potentiality to become a beautiful flower. Long is the journey, and it is always safer not to go on that journey because unknown is the path, nothing is guaranteed. Nothing can be guaranteed. Thousand and one are the hazards of the journey, many are the pitfalls -- and the seed is secure, hidden inside a hard core. But the seed tries, it makes an effort, it drops the hard shell which is its security, it starts moving. Immediately the fight starts: the struggle with the soil, with the stones, with the rocks. And the seed was very hard and the sprout will be very, very soft and dangers will be many. There was no danger for the seed, the seed could have survived for millennia, but for the sprout many are the dangers. But the sprout starts: towards the unknown, towards the sun, towards the source of light, not knowing where, not knowing why. Great is the cross to be carried but a dream possesses the seed and the seed moves. One day.... And there is much competition: other trees are there, other plants are there, and he has to cross all of them because only then will the sun and the sky be available. And then, no one knows. But one day it flowers, it happens.
That's how to be intelligent is so difficult and it costs so much. You have to put at stake whatsoever you have. It is a cross. In fact, you have to die to be intelligent because only when you are reborn will you be intelligent, not before it. And the cross has to be carried on one's own shoulders; nobody else can carry your cross. You will have to carry your cross to your own Golgotha, there is no other way. Many times you will stumble on the road; many times you will be so tired and exhausted that you will have to rest. Many times you will think that people who have never desired intelligence, awareness, are blessed. ‘What have I chosen?' Many times doubt and suspicion will arise in your mind: 'Is there any goal or am I simply carrying a cross and wasting my life?' Many times you would like to go back to the world, many will be the temptations. But if you can stick to it, if you can remain on the path against all odds, one day intelligence flowers. It is almost like a seed: the seed cannot know what is going to happen, the seed has never known the flower. And the seed cannot even believe that he has the potentiality to become a beautiful flower. Long is the journey, and it is always safer not to go on that journey because unknown is the path, nothing is guaranteed. Nothing can be guaranteed. Thousand and one are the hazards of the journey, many are the pitfalls -- and the seed is secure, hidden inside a hard core. But the seed tries, it makes an effort, it drops the hard shell which is its security, it starts moving. Immediately the fight starts: the struggle with the soil, with the stones, with the rocks. And the seed was very hard and the sprout will be very, very soft and dangers will be many. There was no danger for the seed, the seed could have survived for millennia, but for the sprout many are the dangers. But the sprout starts: towards the unknown, towards the sun, towards the source of light, not knowing where, not knowing why. Great is the cross to be carried but a dream possesses the seed and the seed moves. One day.... And there is much competition: other trees are there, other plants are there, and he has to cross all of them because only then will the sun and the sky be available. And then, no one knows. But one day it flowers, it happens.
hans-wolfgang - am Donnerstag, 7. Dezember 2006, 23:59
Everybody lives in hell and dreams of heaven. That dream helps you to live in hell. That dream makes it comfortable to live in hell. That dream becomes like a buffer, a shock-absorber, so that the pain is not too much. That dream functions as a tranquilliser. It helps you -- you can tolerate the pain because you know that tomorrow there will be happiness. You can hope. Heaven is nothing but hope -- and hell is reality.
These are the two ordinary states of the human mind -- both go on changing; nothing is ultimate about them.
The third state is bliss. The first is hell; the second is heaven. In India they have a special name -- which cannot be translated -- for the third. They call it moksha, nirvana.
In the western religions there are only two things talked about -- hell and heaven. That's why Christianity, Judaism, Islam, are poor in a way. They miss the ultimate.
There is a state of your consciousness where pleasure disappears, pain disappears... where nothing -- no excitement -- exists... neither pain nor pleasure... just pure awareness and tremendous peace. That state is called bliss, anand -- and that is the goal. That is your destiny, and unless you attain it, nothing is attained. You can attain the whole world and you can possess the whole world, and nothing is possessed. You will always remain in a limbo -- never certain where you are -- and you will remain unaware of your being.
So let it be a conscious effort. Pain has to be dropped -- so has pleasure. If you hanker for pleasure, pain will never be dropped -- they go together. They are two aspects of the same coin. If you hanker for pleasure you will remain in pain. Sometimes, rarely, you will have a glimpse of pleasure and again you will be thrown in pain.
Don't hanker for pleasure because it creates only pain and nothing else. Don't desire happiness because it creates only unhappiness and nothing else. Don't desire success because it brings only failure and nothing else.
Once you have seen this game -- that success brings failure and pleasure brings pain in its wake -- you start on a totally different journey. Now you want to be just yourself -- neither in pain nor in pleasure.
That's what Taoism is all about: an effort to drop pain and pleasure, the conflict and the duality, and to go deeper into oneself... just to be there without any desire for anything. In that moment of no-desire, the ultimate happens.
These are the two ordinary states of the human mind -- both go on changing; nothing is ultimate about them.
The third state is bliss. The first is hell; the second is heaven. In India they have a special name -- which cannot be translated -- for the third. They call it moksha, nirvana.
In the western religions there are only two things talked about -- hell and heaven. That's why Christianity, Judaism, Islam, are poor in a way. They miss the ultimate.
There is a state of your consciousness where pleasure disappears, pain disappears... where nothing -- no excitement -- exists... neither pain nor pleasure... just pure awareness and tremendous peace. That state is called bliss, anand -- and that is the goal. That is your destiny, and unless you attain it, nothing is attained. You can attain the whole world and you can possess the whole world, and nothing is possessed. You will always remain in a limbo -- never certain where you are -- and you will remain unaware of your being.
So let it be a conscious effort. Pain has to be dropped -- so has pleasure. If you hanker for pleasure, pain will never be dropped -- they go together. They are two aspects of the same coin. If you hanker for pleasure you will remain in pain. Sometimes, rarely, you will have a glimpse of pleasure and again you will be thrown in pain.
Don't hanker for pleasure because it creates only pain and nothing else. Don't desire happiness because it creates only unhappiness and nothing else. Don't desire success because it brings only failure and nothing else.
Once you have seen this game -- that success brings failure and pleasure brings pain in its wake -- you start on a totally different journey. Now you want to be just yourself -- neither in pain nor in pleasure.
That's what Taoism is all about: an effort to drop pain and pleasure, the conflict and the duality, and to go deeper into oneself... just to be there without any desire for anything. In that moment of no-desire, the ultimate happens.
hans-wolfgang - am Sonntag, 1. Oktober 2006, 22:51
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Not that anything is to be done. In fact the yogi never does anything. He simply remains in his being and things go on happening. In fact he avoids, but still, sometimes, things happen. Miracles follow. There are no miracles, but miracles follow one who has attained to Samadhi; they go on happening. Like a shadow they follow the man who has attained to inner space.
This is the science of religion. Patanjali has laid the foundation. Much has to be done. He has just given the bare structure -- much has to be filled in the gaps. It is just a concrete structure. The walls have to be raised, rooms have to be made. You cannot live in a bare, concrete structure. It has yet to be made into a house, but he has given the basic structure.
Five thousand years and the basic structure has remained basic: it has not yet become the abode of man. Man is not ready yet.
Man goes on playing with toys and the real goes on waiting -- waiting that whenever you become mature enough you will use it. Nobody else is responsible for it; we are responsible. Each human being is responsible for this vast sleepiness that surrounds earth. It is like a fog surrounding the whole earth, and man is fast asleep.
One day it happened:
One very diligent reformist inquired of a man who was staggering blindly drunk along the road, "You poor man, what drives you to drink this way?"
The happy drunk slurred, "No one drives me, lady. I am a volunteer."
Voluntarily, man is in the darkness. Voluntarily, you are in the darkness. Nobody has forced you to be there. This is your responsibility to come out of it. Don't go on blaming Satan and the devil that they have been corrupting you. There is nobody who is corrupting you. It is you. And once you are sleepy everything that you see is distorted -- everything that you touch is distorted everything that comes in your hands becomes dirty.
Two drunks were walking home along a railway line, stepping unsteadily from sleeper to sleeper. Suddenly the one in front said. "Ah, Trevor, damn it if these aren't the longest flight of stairs I ever did crawl up."
His friend called back. "I don't mind the stairs, George, but the low banisters are hell."
We go on drunk, drunk with the ego, drunk with possessions, drunk with things, ignorant of the reality; and whatsoever we see is distorted. This distortion creates the world of illusion. The world is not illusory. It is because of our drunken minds the world is illusory. Once our drunkenness disappears, the world shines forth as a tremendously beautiful phenomenon, as Tao.
This is the science of religion. Patanjali has laid the foundation. Much has to be done. He has just given the bare structure -- much has to be filled in the gaps. It is just a concrete structure. The walls have to be raised, rooms have to be made. You cannot live in a bare, concrete structure. It has yet to be made into a house, but he has given the basic structure.
Five thousand years and the basic structure has remained basic: it has not yet become the abode of man. Man is not ready yet.
Man goes on playing with toys and the real goes on waiting -- waiting that whenever you become mature enough you will use it. Nobody else is responsible for it; we are responsible. Each human being is responsible for this vast sleepiness that surrounds earth. It is like a fog surrounding the whole earth, and man is fast asleep.
One day it happened:
One very diligent reformist inquired of a man who was staggering blindly drunk along the road, "You poor man, what drives you to drink this way?"
The happy drunk slurred, "No one drives me, lady. I am a volunteer."
Voluntarily, man is in the darkness. Voluntarily, you are in the darkness. Nobody has forced you to be there. This is your responsibility to come out of it. Don't go on blaming Satan and the devil that they have been corrupting you. There is nobody who is corrupting you. It is you. And once you are sleepy everything that you see is distorted -- everything that you touch is distorted everything that comes in your hands becomes dirty.
Two drunks were walking home along a railway line, stepping unsteadily from sleeper to sleeper. Suddenly the one in front said. "Ah, Trevor, damn it if these aren't the longest flight of stairs I ever did crawl up."
His friend called back. "I don't mind the stairs, George, but the low banisters are hell."
We go on drunk, drunk with the ego, drunk with possessions, drunk with things, ignorant of the reality; and whatsoever we see is distorted. This distortion creates the world of illusion. The world is not illusory. It is because of our drunken minds the world is illusory. Once our drunkenness disappears, the world shines forth as a tremendously beautiful phenomenon, as Tao.
hans-wolfgang - am Freitag, 29. September 2006, 23:30
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There are three hundred religions on the earth, and each claims that it is the only ultimate truth, all others are false. Now, anybody who has a little intelligence can see the point that there can be only one kind of religiousness, unnamed -- just like science. You don't call it Jewish science, Mohammedan science, Hindu science, Christian Science. Just to call it science is enough; its rules are universal. Religion is the science of the inner world. Its rules also are universal. But these three hundred religions have been teaching you just the opposite. They have been teaching you rituals which don't lead you inside. They have been teaching you about a God who lives above the clouds; nobody has seen him. They have been teaching you commandments written three thousand years ago, written five thousand years ago -- written, and you have to live according to them. They have encaged you. In every possible way you are chained -- not only your body, but your spirit. Hence, everywhere atrocities are surfacing. They have been surfacing down the ages, but the media to inform you about the reality that is happening all around the earth was missing. Education was missing. Now you are educated, whether you are a Jew or a Christian or a Hindu or a Buddhist, in the same way, in the same science, the same laws. In every way science has made the whole humanity one. But religions go on carrying the hangover of the past, dividing man against man. The violence that they have repressed for centuries has come to a climax. The people want to take revenge, because they have been mistreated, they have been deceived by the people they have trusted -- by their prophets, their messiahs, and their incarnations of God. These people have been the greatest criminals. They divided humanity. They divided you, split you into body and soul: you have to torture your body if you want to know the soul. So for thousands of years people have been torturing their bodies; that was the only way to become saintly. But now it is difficult to convince people that by torturing their bodies they will become holy. There seems to be no sense in it. Man has been divided into man and woman. Half of humanity consists of women, and they have lived a life of slavery, torture, indignity. They are rebelling. Man is rebelling against the past unconsciously. He is enraged by the whole human history. And he is so full of anger, violence, that any small thing brings it up, and it starts spreading like a wildfire. Secondly, man is tremendously frustrated because the leaders of mankind in the past have been giving him hope, hope of a paradise beyond death. Not a single person has returned after death and given his eyewitness evidence that there is a paradise, that there is a God, that your acts will be judged -- you will be thrown into eternal hell or into the eternal blissfulness of paradise.
hans-wolfgang - am Dienstag, 26. September 2006, 00:00
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