Tag: soul

A Constant Civil War

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Don’t be stupid and get drawn into a war with your own self, warns OSHO


OSHOSPEAK
1. No one is divided; every one of us is one harmonious whole. There is just one camp, and that is you
2. Conflicts are created so that one part of you begins to fight with the other. Isn’t that stupid?
3. The body is an illusion; beyond matter is pure energy. Realise inner reality; become conscious

The past has created a constant civil war in every human being. The strategy that has been used is to divide you into two enemy camps: Zorba and the Buddha, the materialist and the spiritualist.
You are not divided in reality, for you are a harmonious whole. But the conditioning in your mind is that you are not whole; you have to fight against your body. If you want to be a spiritual being, the body has to be conquered, defeated, destroyed and tortured in every possible way.

Engineering Divisions
This has been the accepted ideology all over the world. In different cultures, different religions, the formulations may be different, but the basic rule is the same: divide man, create a conflict in him so one part starts feeling higher, becomes holy, and starts condemning the other part as the sinner.
The trouble is that you are one; there is no way to divide you. Every division is going to create misery in you. Up to now, humanity has lived in a schizophrenic (depression) way. Everyone has been cut into pieces, fragments. Your religions, philosophies and ideologies have not been healing processes; they have been the root causes of inner conflict and war.

Soul Versus Body
The west chose to go with Zorba. There was no other way to remain sane — one part had to be completely destroyed, forgotten. The West denied the inner reality of man, his consciousness: man is only a body, there is no soul.
Eat, drink and be merry is the only religion. This was simply a way to find some peace of mind, to get out of the conflict, to come to a decision and a conclusion — by accepting that you are one: just matter, just body.
The East has chosen the other way: you are the soul and the body is an illusion. Matter does not exist, the world is made of the same stuff as dreams are made of, so don’t be bothered about it…. It’s not worth taking note of. On the surface, it seems that East and West are doing different things, but they are not. Essentially, they are trying to find a rational way to be one. To be two, means a constant disease, a conflict.

East And West
Why have East and West chosen differently? The Eastern mind, in search of a unitary being, tried to find out all about inner consciousness. Why call the body illusory? To us the body seems real, and consciousness is just a word. The natural tendency will be to decide in favour of the body, because the body is there; consciousness you have to search for; you have to go into an inner pilgrimage.
People like Gautama Buddha and Mahavira were sincere. Their sincerity was so clear, their presence was so impressive, their words were authoritative. It was impossible to deny. These people were their own argument, their own validity. They were so peaceful and joyful, relaxed and fearless. Certainly, they had found a source within themselves. You cannot just deny it without giving to search. Unless you find that there is no consciousness; you cannot deny it.

All-pervasive Energy
We had people so fragrant…. The fragrance was so much that the East tried to look inside, and found taht the soul is far more real. The body is just an appearance. Modern science has come to the same conclusion — that matter is illusory, that matter does not exist, it only appears — from a very different route. They have found, as they reach deeper into matter, that it is less and less substantial. At a point after the atom there is no matter at all. There are only electrons, which are particles of electricity — which is not matter but energy.
The East moved inwards and found that the body, mater, is relatively non-substantial; the ultimate reality belongs to consciousness. In the East there has been at least ten thousand years of a constant, consistent search into the inner reality of man… all the genius fo the East has been devoted to it.

Beyond Enlightement, Osho International Foundation.

The Speaking Tree, Page No: 04, 3rd, April, 2011
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Winning And Losing

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Winning and losing are a part of life. The are two sides of the same coin. Winning and losing come in cycles; neither is permanent. Today’s victor is tomorrow’s or yesterday’s loser. And today’s loser might well be the champion next year or the next. While we are fully aware of this, we continue to crave for victory and live in dread of losing, although we know in our heart of hearts that one is invariably followed, with the passage of time, by the other.

The feeling of happiness and joy that any victory brings is basically felt and enjoyed by our ego. Our true Self knows neither victory nor loss. The atman or soul is beyond the duality of good an bad, right and wrong, winning and losing. But the human mind and ego exult when it can do something better than the other person or other team. And sometimes it becomes difficult to conclude whether our win or their loss causes greater satisfaction.
Just as victory brings extreme emotions, so does defeat. How often we have seen that today’s heroes become tomorrow’s non-heroes or villains? Today’s idols are smashed tomorrow, when they fail to perform. Such is the price of celebrity status; such is the price of victory.

What about the loser? We owe a great deal to the loser, for withuot a loser, there cannot be a winner. Imagine if all other teams from other parts of the world stopped playing cricket, then where would we be? There would be no contests and no victories to celebrate or defeats to ponder over. A good performance is inspired by competition and from learning from the experience of others.

Swami Vivekananda used to say “Let not the giver feel proud, for he can give only when there is someone to receive. Let the giver kneel down and let the receiver stand erect, during the act of giving and receiving. For the giver is blessed to find a receiver”. In the same vein, let the winner have respect for the loser, for without the loser, the winner too disappears.

When someone loses, there are enough people to ridicule, criticise and berate the losing team members. It is ironical that the seeds of defeat are actually sown during the act of winning, whether it is a sporting encounter or a personal feud, because the losers are already getting together and planning their next move, their come-back, so that they can regain their lost glory. It is only a matter of time before the tables are turned, before the tide is reversed, and the winner is on the losing side.

While giving full credit to the winners, one question that comes up is: “Is it possible to play, enjoy the game, have fun, but not have losers and winners?” This is true for all examinations and competitions. That would really be something to look forward to . Because if we are going to win at someone else’e cost, it is only a partial victory.

For a total or abslute victory, everyone should be a winner, something that is of course not routinely possible, but something we can think about for the future, where encounters are not only winners, no loser. And ther is still the possibility of feeling excited and elated.

The Speaking Tree, Page: 20, 2, April, 2010

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YOUR MIND YOUR BODY

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As we move deeper and deeper to the straight in the meditatioin, we will pass through our inner bodies i.e. physical body, subtle body, causal body and the super causal body.

Swami Vivekananda rightly says in his lecture. “There is the soul, and inside this soul is all powers will be unfold. all knowledge in the soul, to lessen the misery…. all unhappines is caused by our not having mastery over the body…”

Swami Vivekananda, Sanfrancisco, April 5, 1900

The world of the mind seems very different from the one inhabited by our bodies. The psychic space inside our heads in infinite and ethereal; it seems obvious that it must be made of different stuff than all the other organs. Cut into the body, and blood pours forth. But slice into the brain, and thoughts and emotions don’t spill out onto the operating table. Love and anger can’t be collected in a test tube to be weighed and measured.

The brain is just another organ, albeit more intricate than the rest. The thoughts and emotions that seem to color our reality are the result of complex electro chemical interactions within and between nerve cells. The disembodi voices of schizophrenia and the feelings of worthlessness and self hatered that accompany depression, although they seem to be based on reality, are no more than distortions in brain electrochemistry. Researchers are learning how these distortions arise, how to lessen their severity and , in some cases, how to correct them.

Scientists are also learning something else. Not only is the mind like the rest of the body, but the well-being of one is intimately interwined with that of the other. This makes sense because they share the same systems-nervous circulatory, endocrine and immune. What happens in the pancreas or liver can directly affect brain function. Disorders of the brain, conversely, can send out biochemical shock waves that disturb the rest of the body.

MEDITATION MEANS

~ Becoming detached from the Mind

~ Becoming a witness of the Mind

~ Looking at the Mind as separate from you

~ That’s what actually it is

~ You can see through passing by

~ You can see the whole traffic that goes on in the mind

~  The memories, the fantasies, the past, the future all kinds of things are passing

~ You can just stand by the side of the road.

The Story of Life, Page: 44, Jan-March 2011

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