mind – Technoserene

Temper Tantrums

There once was a little boy who had a bad temper. His father gave him a bag of nails and told him that every time he lost his temper, he must hammer a nail into the fence. The first day, the boy had driven 37 nails into the fence. Over the next few weeks, as he learned to control his anger, the number of nails hammered daily, gradually became fewer. He discovered it was easier to hold his temper than to drive those nails into the fence. Finally, the day came when the boy didn’t lose his temper at all. He told his father about it and the father suggested that the boy now pull out one nail for each day that he was able to hold his temper.

Days passed and the young boy was finally able to tell his father that all the nails were gone. The father took his son by the hand and led him to the fence. He said, “You have done well, my son, but look at the holes in the fence. The fence will never be the same. When you say things in anger, they have a scar just like these.” You can put knife in a man and draw it out. It won’t matter how many times you say I’m sorry, the wound will always be there.

The Speaking Tree, Page: 06, 1, May, 2011

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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It’s All About Feeling

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Is it possible to increase your happiness or success by pushing your “energypendulum” in the direction you want it to go – towards more possessions, greater fame, and more intense pleasure? Doesn’t the pendulum always swing back in the opposite directioin?

There are times in this ceaseless cycle of hope and disappointment when we feel repelled by the sheer monotony of it all. Finding ourselves no longer attracted by the excitement of a meaningless chase, we long for rest. But only if rest is sought within can lasting peace be really ours. Any rest we find outwardly – in retirement, let us say, to a quit cottage by the sea – is as temporary as our emotional joys and sorrows. That “peace” ends when we come to experience it as boredom. When this happens, we set out once again on our former quest for excitement. And so – interminably – it goes on.

Everything in existence is balanced by its polar opposite. Heat is balanced by cold, light by darkness, and positive by negative. In humankind, duality is found in the opposites of male and female, joy and sorrow, love and hatred. Wherever one quality exists, its complementary opposite will also be found.

The overall level of an ocean is not altered by the height of the waves at its surface. The higher the wave, the deeper is its trough. Our essential consciousness, similarly, remains unaffected by our emotional ups and downs. Pleasure and pain, success and failure, fulfilment and disappointment – these are but waves on the surface of calm, intutive feeling.

The Law of Duality is present in our lives, too. Because our emotions are tied to the post of egoconsciousness, every joy that we experience emotionally must be balanced in our own emotions by an equal and opposite sorrow. Every personal success must be balanced by an equally personal failure; every personal fulfilment must be balanced by a corresponding personal disappointmet.

The only state in which joy and other positive feelings are not balanced by opposites is in the state of superconsciousness. There, waves of emotion subside in calm, intuitive feeling. Joy, love and peace are realised, then, as absolutes, not as relativities, for they are attributes of Pure Consciousness.

Calm feeling is intution. When that calm feeling is disturbed, it becomes emotion. Until clarity of feeling is achieved, the one who meditates will be forever vacillating in purpose. Without devotion, indeed, in the form of deep yearning for the truth, you will not feel the incentive even to try to meditate deeply. Wisdom without devotion is like knowing that there is a good restaurant next door, and even committing its entire menu to memory, but not being hungry enough to go there and eat. The feeling quality is what makes it possible to commit oneself to the spiritual search.

When people think of the pure consciousness of God, they usually visualise an abstract mental state. Feeling is absent. Yet there is nothing inspiring, surely, about such abstractions. For, without love, how can we identify the fog with God? Feeling is as intrinsic to awareness as heat is to fire.

The Speaking Tree, Page: 16, 1, April, 2011

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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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Open Heart, Open Mind

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Shed your bias if you want to lead a life of bliss, writes STUTI MALHOTRA

You will agree that life dishes out different kinds of challenges to different people. Everyone has to face difficulties, problems, setbacks at some point or the other. My life appear to be one long-drawn out struggle. Like most people, everytime I faced at yet another problem that sapped my patience and forbearance, I asked myself in despair: Why me? Why can’t life ever be smooth and hassle-free? These questions seemed to have no answers.
Being a religious person in the traditional sense of the word, I concluded that God was unhappy with me. So I made every effort to please Him. But I got no response. Was I dialling a wrong number?
As time passed, I began to lose faith in someone who could not answer my questions and lead me to a more meaningful life. I resolved to find the answer myself. To set my mind at rest, I became a seeker.

Life Is A Test
In the course of my journey as a seeker, I discovered the Creation Plan of God. According to the plan, life is a test and its many problems are part of that test. Once the test comes to an end marked by death, we are either rewarded or punished, in accordance with our deeds.
This world is like an examination hall where a student, with all the freedom to write whatever he wants, takes tests. It is only the result which determines his future. The student is made to confront pleasant and unplesant situations — all meant only to test him. His response determines the life to come.
This was a logic to which my mind yielded without questioning. Everything fell into place. In the framework based on this ideology, I discovered that all phenomena of life were well-explained. To an explanation-seeking entity called man, only true reasoning can initiate him into the process that will eventually help him to discover his Creator.

God Is Generous
I desired little, but God gave me much; for what can be greater in this world than a satisfied mind? It is said, ‘Ask God not for a specific thing but pray to Him to bestow upon you what He deems best’. It is possible that while you might be praying for a small car, God may wish to bless you with a luxury vehicle such as a Rolls Royce!

Looking back, I want to thank God for having granted me the ability to understand and acknoweldge the answers that were presented to me.

I have come to realise that you become receptive to the wisdom of life only when you free yourself of biases. If you are unable to shed your bias, you become a dwarf thinker. It is important to live with an open heart and mind, so that you can think beyond your conditioning and discard inhibition and fear. When you discover the meaning of life, God Himself undergoes a transformation. This metamorphosis develops your personality and helps you to grow spiritually. It also helps you achieve material success.

The Speaking Tree, Page: 05, 6, Feb, 2011,

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