Category: Love

Start the Journey from the Heart – Osho

I used to listen to you without understanding and feel perfectly blissful – And I’ve heard you say that this is right listening. Lately I’ve had an intense desire to understand what you say. At first I was sad; it seemed I had taken a wrong turn. But it feels good: my head tingles and feels intensely alive. Is there anything I can do other than enjoy it?

There is no need to do anything else. If you are enjoying it, you have heard me from the heart. It is an overflowing with love, an understanding beyond words. You have not tried to understand; you have never used the mind. It is good, perfectly good – that’s how the journey should begin.

When the heart is completely full of joy, it starts overflowing in all directions; the mind is not kept apart. That’s what is happening: you suddenly started listening with an effort to understand, and you feel your head is full of a strange tingling. That means something is overflowing from the heart, because that tingle cannot be possible by understanding only words. And if you are feeling joyful, enjoying it, then there is no problem: it is simply the heart and mind are getting into tune; their conflict is dissolving, their antagonism is disappearing. Soon they will be one thing.

Then the very hearing is both – it reaches to your heart as a vibe, a thrill, and to the mind as an understanding – and both are connected with you. The problem is only when the head starts the journey. It is a miser. In the first place it cannot understand many things but it pretends to understand them, so it creates a falsity. And it cannot give anything to the heart; it is not even aware of the heart. It does not know giving, it knows only getting; it is greedy.

You will be surprised to know that the English word ‘greed’ comes from a Sanskrit word. In Sanskrit the vulture is called gridha. Gridha and greed come from the same root. The mind is a vulture. It is significant to understand because the vulture is always present if there is a corpse, if somebody is dead.

If you go to Bombay, the Parsee cemetery is something to see. It is one of the most beautiful places, exactly in the middle of Bombay. Parsees exist only in Bombay. Originally they were Persians and from Persian has come the Hindi word parsee. Because they were not willing to be converted to Mohammedanism, they escaped and landed in Bombay. Since then their whole existence in the world has been within the boundaries of Bombay, because the whole of Persia became Mohammedan – forcibly.

When they had first come, the place they chose for their cemetery was outside Bombay. But all Bombay has been growing tremendously and now it is exactly in the middle – a thick forest. The Parsee cemetery has something strange: it has a very big well, and on the top of the well there are iron rods. They put the corpse on the rods so that it cannot fall into the well. Then the vultures eat the corpse, and only the bones fall into the well. The well is full of bones – it is a very big well. And on all the trees you will find thousands of vultures sitting, waiting for somebody to die. They live only on the dead.

Strange it is that the mind also lives on something dead, not on anything living. When the mind starts the journey it thinks it is trying to understand the meaning, but it really kills the meaning. All that was alive in those words is left out; only the dead part is absorbed. That’s what I mean when I say someone is intellectual. That means he has collected many dead bones, but he has not tasted life at all. He is full of words, but he himself gives meaning to them; he does not take meaning from them, so the whole journey goes wrong.

If one starts from the mind, one remains confined to the mind. He collects words, becomes a scholar, an intellectual, but it is not intelligence. His first step, to begin with the mind, is unintelligent.

I have never come up against any intelligent intellectual. That looks absurd because ordinarily we think intellectuals are intelligent people, but that is not true. Intellectuals live only on dead words. Intelligence cannot do that. Intelligence drops the word – that is the corpse – and just takes the living vibe in it.

So it is good to start the journey from the heart. The intelligent man’s way is the way of the heart, because the heart is not interested in words; it is interested only in the juice that comes in the containers of the words. It does not collect containers; it simply drinks the juice and throws away the container. The mind does just the opposite: it throws away the juice and collects the containers. Containers look beautiful, and a great collection of containers makes a man a great intellectual giant.

If you start the journey from the head you will go on round and round and round inside the head. Your head will become swollen; you will become more egoistic.

Hasya was asking me, “Why don’t we invite intellectuals, authors, writers, professors to understand you?” This is the problem: they cannot understand. It is good if they read my books; they may be able to collect some words, some containers, but to be in my presence they will feel awkward, because my whole emphasis is on the juice, not on the containers. I am trying hard so that you throw away the container and you simply take the juice.

The heart knows how to become drunk, and the heart knows how to give, how to share. It is willing to share even with the mind. And when the heart shares with the mind then there is a difference because the heart has no containers; it can share only the juice. If the mind is willing to take, it will have to take the juice. That’s why you are feeling the tingling sensation. Soon the heart will also fill the mind with the same juice. It will fill your whole body with the same tingling sensation. It is a dance of each cell in your being.

So what is happening is perfectly good – and it is happening; you are not doing. Doing is always suspicious; happening is never suspicious. So whenever something is happening, go with it – go with it totally, with no reservations at all, and you will always be getting into deeper benediction, into deeper blessings.

-Osho

Taken from The Path of the Mystic, Discourse #2

Copyright© OSHO International Foundation

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The New Humanity – Meher Baba

The New Humanity

As in all great critical periods of human history, humanity is now going through the agonizing travail of spiritual rebirth. Great forces of destruction are afoot and seem to be dominant at the moment, but constructive and creative forces that will redeem humanity are also being released through several channels. Although the working of these forces of light is chiefly silent, they are eventually bound to bring about those transformations that will make the further spiritual advance of humanity safe and steady. It is all a part of the divine plan, which is to give to the hungry and weary world a fresh dispensation of the eternal and only Truth.

At present the urgent problem facing humanity is to devise ways and means of eliminating competition, conflict, and rivalry in all the subtle and gross forms that they assume in the various spheres of life. Military wars are, of course, the most obvious sources of chaos and destruction. However, wars in themselves do not constitute the central problem for humanity but are rather the external symptoms of something graver at their root. Wars and the suffering they bring cannot be completely avoided by mere propaganda against war; if they are to disappear from human history, it will be necessary to tackle their root cause. Even when military wars are not being waged, individuals or groups of individuals are constantly engaged in economic or some other subtle form of warfare. Military wars, with all the cruelty they involve, arise only when these underlying causes are aggravated.

The cause of the chaos that precipitates itself in wars is that most persons are in the grip of egoism and selfish considerations, and they express their egoism and self-interest individually as well as collectively. This is the life of illusory values in which man is caught. To face the truth is to realize that life is one, in and through its manifold manifestations. To have this understanding is to forget the limiting self in the realization of the unity of life.

With the dawn of true understanding, the problem of wars would immediately disappear. Wars have to be so clearly seen as both unnecessary and unreasonable that the immediate problem would not be how to stop wars but to wage them spiritually against the attitude of mind responsible for such a cruel and painful state of things. In the light of the truth of the unity of all life, cooperative and harmonious action becomes natural and inevitable. Hence, the chief task before those who are deeply concerned with the rebuilding of humanity is to do their utmost to dispel the spiritual ignorance that envelops humanity.

Wars do not arise merely to secure material adjustment. They are often the product of uncritical identification with narrow interests, which through association come to be included in that part of the world regarded as “mine.” Material adjustment is only part of the wider problem of establishing spiritual adjustment. Spiritual adjustment requires the elimination of self, not only from the material aspects of life, but also from those spheres that affect the intellectual, emotional, and cultural life of man.

To understand the problem of humanity as merely a problem of bread is to reduce humanity to the level of animality. But even when man sets himself the limited task of securing purely material adjustment, he can only succeed in this attempt if he has spiritual understanding. Economic adjustment is impossible unless people realize that there can be no planned and cooperative action in economic matters until self-interest gives way to self-giving love. Otherwise, with the best of equipment and efficiency in the material spheres, humanity cannot avoid conflict and insufficiency.

The New Humanity that emerges from the travail of the present struggle and suffering will not ignore science or its practical attainments. It is a mistake to look upon science as anti-spiritual. Science is a help or hindrance to spirituality according to the use to which it is put. Just as true art expresses spirituality, science, when properly handled, can be the expression and fulfillment of the spirit. Scientific truths concerning the physical body and its life in the gross world can become mediums for the soul to know itself; but to serve this purpose they must be properly fitted into larger spiritual understanding. This includes a steady perception of true and lasting values. In the absence of such spiritual understanding, scientific truths and attainments are liable to be used for mutual destruction and for a life that will tend to strengthen the chains that bind the spirit. All-sided progress of humanity can be assured only if science and religion proceed hand in hand.

The coming civilization of the New Humanity shall be ensouled not by dry intellectual doctrines but by living spiritual experience. Spiritual experience has a hold on the deeper truths that are inaccessible to mere intellect; it cannot be born of unaided intellect. Spiritual truth can often be stated and expressed through the intellect, and the intellect surely is of some help for the communication of spiritual experience. But by itself, the intellect is insufficient to enable man to have spiritual experience or to communicate it to others. If two persons have had headaches, they can cooperatively examine their experience of headaches and make it explicit to themselves through the work of the intellect. If a person has never experienced a headache, no amount of intellectual explanation will suffice for making him understand what a headache is. Intellectual explanation can never be a substitute for spiritual experience; it can at best prepare the ground for it.

Spiritual experience involves more than can be grasped by mere intellect. This is often emphasized by calling it a mystical experience. Mysticism is often regarded as something anti-intellectual, obscure and confused, or impractical and unconnected with experience. In fact, true mysticism is none of these. There is nothing irrational in true mysticism when it is, as it should be, a vision of Reality. It is a form of perception that is absolutely unclouded, and it is so practical that it can be lived every moment of life and expressed in everyday duties. Its connection with experience is so deep that, in one sense, it is the final understanding of all experience.

When spiritual experience is described as mystical, one should not assume that it is something supernatural or entirely beyond the grasp of human consciousness. All that is meant is that it is not accessible to the limited human intellect until the intellect transcends its limits and is illumined by direct realization of the Infinite. Jesus Christ pointed out the way to spiritual experience when He said, “Leave all and follow me.” This means that man must leave limitations and establish himself in the infinite life of God. A real spiritual experience involves not only realization of the nature of the soul while traversing the higher planes of consciousness but also a right attitude toward worldly duties. If it loses its connection with the different phases of life, what we have is a neurotic reaction that is far from being a spiritual experience.

The spiritual experience that is to enliven and energize the New Humanity cannot be a reaction to the stern and uncompromising demands made by the realities of life. Those without the capacity for adjustment to the flow of life have a tendency to recoil from the realities of life and to seek shelter and protection in a self-created fortress of illusions. Such a reaction is an attempt to perpetuate one’s separate existence by protecting it from the demands made by life. It can only give a pseudo solution to the problems of life by providing a false sense of security and self-completeness. It is not even an advance toward the real and lasting solution; on the contrary, it is a sidetrack from the true spiritual path. Man will be dislodged again and again from his illusory shelters by fresh and irresistible waves of life, and will invite upon himself fresh forms of suffering by seeking to protect his separative existence through escape.

Just as a person may seek to hold on to his separative experience through escape, he may also seek to hold on to it through uncritical identification with forms, ceremonies and rituals, or with traditions and conventions. Forms, ceremonies and rituals, traditions and conventions, are in most cases fetters to the release of infinite life. If they were pliant mediums for the expression of unlimited life, they would be an asset rather than a handicap for securing the fulfillment of divine life on earth. But they mostly have a tendency to gather prestige and claims in their own right, independently of the life they might express. When this happens, any attachment to them must eventually lead to a drastic curtailment and restriction of life. The New Humanity will be freed from a life of limitations, allowing unhampered scope for the creative life of the spirit; and it will break the attachment to external forms and learn to subordinate them to the claims of the spirit. The limited life of illusions and false values will then be replaced by unlimited life in the Truth; and the limitations, through which the separative self lives, will wither away at the touch of true understanding.

Just as a person may seek to hold on to his separative existence through escape or identification with external forms, he may seek to hold on to it through identification with some narrow class, creed, sect, or religion, or with the divisions based upon sex. Here the individual may seem to have lost his separative existence through identification with a larger whole. But, in fact, he is often expressing his separative existence through such an identification, which enables him to delight in his feeling of being separate from others who belong to another class, nationality, creed, sect, religion, or sex.

Separative existence derives its being and strength from identifying itself with one of the opposites and contrasting itself with the others. An individual may seek to protect his separate existence through identification with one ideology rather than another or with his conception of good as contrasted with his idea of evil. What results from identification with narrow groups or limited ideals is not a real merging of the separative self but only a semblance of it. A real merging of the limited self in the ocean of universal life involves complete surrender of separative existence in all its forms.

The large mass of humanity is caught up in the clutches of separative and assertive tendencies. For one who is overpowered by the spectacle of these fetters of humanity, there is bound to be nothing but unrelieved despair about its future. One must look deeper into the realities of the day if one is to get a correct perspective on the present distress of humanity. The real possibilities of the New Humanity are hidden to those who look only at the surface of the world situation, but they exist and only need the spark of spiritual understanding to come into full play and effect. The forces of lust, hate, and greed produce incalculable suffering and chaos. However, the one redeeming feature about human nature is that even in the midst of disruptive forces there invariably exists some form of love.

Even wars require cooperative functioning, but the scope of this cooperative functioning is artificially restricted by identification with a limited group or ideal. Wars often are carried on by a form of love, though it is a love that has not been understood properly. In order that love should come into its own, it must be untrammeled and unlimited. Love does exist in all phases of human life; but it is latent or is limited and poisoned by personal ambition, racial pride, narrow loyalties and rivalries, and attachment to sex, nationality, sect, caste, or religion. If there is to be a resurrection of humanity, the heart of man will have to be unlocked so that a new love is born into it-a love that knows no corruption and is entirely free from individual or collective greed.

The New Humanity will come into existence through a release of love in measureless abundance, and this release of love can come through the spiritual awakening brought about by the Perfect Masters[1]. Love cannot be born of mere determination; through the exercise of will one can at best be dutiful. Through struggle and effort, one may succeed in assuring that one’s external action is in conformity with one’s concept of what is right; but such action is spiritually barren because it lacks the inward beauty of spontaneous love.

Love has to spring spontaneously from within; it is in no way amenable to any form of inner or outer force. Love and coercion can never go together; but while love cannot be forced upon anyone, it can be awakened through love itself. Love is essentially self-communicative; those who do not have it catch it from those who have it. Those who receive love from others cannot be its recipients without giving a response that, in itself, is the nature of love. True love is unconquerable and irresistible. It goes on gathering power and spreading itself until eventually it transforms everyone it touches. Humanity will attain a new mode of being and life through the free and unhampered interplay of pure love from heart to heart.

When it is recognized that there are no claims greater than the claims of the universal Divine Life-which, without exception, includes everyone and everything-love will not only establish peace, harmony, and happiness in social, national, and international spheres but it will shine in its own purity and beauty. Divine love is unassailable to the onslaughts of duality and is an expression of divinity itself. It is through divine love that the New Humanity will tune in to the divine plan. Divine love will not only introduce imperishable sweetness and infinite bliss into personal life but it will also make possible an era of New Humanity. Through divine love the New Humanity will learn the art of cooperative and harmonious life. It will free itself from the tyranny of dead forms and release the creative life of spiritual wisdom; it will shed all illusions and get established in the Truth; it will enjoy peace and abiding happiness; it will be initiated in the life of Eternity.

-Meher Baba

Taken from Discourses

[1] Sadguru

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Divine Love – Meher Baba

Love

The functioning of love and reason is of three types. In the first type, the sphere of thought and the sphere of love are kept as separate as possible, i.e., the sphere of love is practically inaccessible to the operation of reason; and love is allowed little or no access to the objects of thought. Complete separation between these two aspects of the spirit is of course never possible; but when there is an alternate functioning of love and reason (with both oscillating in their predominance) we have a love which is un-illumined by reason or a reason which is unenlivened by love. In the second type, love and reason are both simultaneously operative but they do not work in harmony with each other. But though this conflict creates confusion it is a necessary phase in the evolution of the higher state where there is a real synthesis of love and reason. In the third type of love this synthesis between love and reason is an accomplished fact with the result that both love as well as reason are so completely transformed that they precipitate the emergence of a new level of con-sciousness which (in comparison with the normal human consciousness) is best described as super-consciousness.

Infatuation, lust and greed might be looked upon as perverted and lower forms of love. In infatuation a person gets enamoured of a sensual object; in lust he develops a craving for sensations in relation to it; and in greed he desires to possess it.

In infatuation, the person is a passive victim of the spell of conceived attraction of the object; but in love there is an active appreciation of the intrinsic worth of the object of love.

Love is also different from lust. In lust, there is a reliance upon the object of sense and consequent spiritual subordination of the soul in relation to it; but love puts the soul into direct and coordinate relation with the Reality which is behind the form. Therefore, lust is experienced as being heavy and love is ex-perienced as being light. In lust, there is a narrowing down of life and in love there is an expansion in being. To have loved one soul is like adding its life to your own, your life is, as it were multiplied and you virtually live in two centres. If you love the whole world, you vicariously live in the whole world. But in lust there is the ebbing down of life and the general sense of hopeless dependence upon a form which is regarded as another. Thus, in lust there is the accentuation of separateness and suffering; but in love—there is the feeling of unity and joy. Lust is dissipation; love is recreation. Lust is a craving of the senses; love is the expression of the spirit. Lust seeks fulfilment but love experiences fulfilment. In lust, there is excitement; but in love there is tranquility.

Love is equally different from greed. Greed is possess-iveness in all its gross and subtle forms. It seeks to appropriate gross things and persons as well as the abstract and intangible things like fame and power. In love the annexation of the other person to your individual life is out of the question and there is a free and creative outpouring that enlivens and replenishes the psychic being of the beloved independ-ently of any expectation for the self. And we have the paradox, that greed which seeks for the self the appropriation of another object does in fact lead to the opposite result of bringing the self under the tutelage of the object; and love which aims at giving away the self to the object does in fact lead to a spiritual incorporation of the beloved in the very being of the lover. In greed the self tries to possess the object, but is itself spiritually possessed by the object; and in love the self offers itself to the beloved without any reservations, but in that very act it finds that it has included the beloved in its own being.

Pure love, which is awakened through the Grace of the Master is more valuable than any other method which may be adopted by the aspirant. Such love not only combines in itself the merits of all the discipline but excels them all in its efficacy to lead the aspirant to his Goal. When this love is born the aspirant has only one desire; and that one desire is to be united with the Divine Beloved. Such withdrawal of consciousness from all other desires leads to infinite purity; nothing purifies the aspirant more completely than this love. The aspirant is ever willing to offer everything for the Divine Beloved; and no sacrifice is too difficult for him. All his thoughts are turned away from the self and come to be exclusively centered on the Divine Beloved. And through the intensity of this ever-growing love he eventually breaks through the shackles of the self and becomes united with the Beloved. This is the consummation of love. When love has thus found its fruition it has become Divine.

Divine Love is qualitatively different from human love. Human love is for the many in the One and Divine Love is for the One in the many. Human Love leads to innumerable complications and tangles; but Divine Love leads to integration and freedom. In human love the duality of the lover and the Beloved persists; but in Divine Love the lover and the Beloved become one. At this stage, the aspirant has stepped out of the domain of duality and become one with God; for Divine Love is God. When the lover and the Beloved are one, that is the end and the beginning.

It is because of love that the contacts and relations between individual souls become significant; and it is love which gives meaning and value to all the happenings in the world of duality. But, while love gives meaning to the world of duality, it is at the same time, a standing challenge to duality. As love gathers strength, it generates creative restlessness and becomes the main driving power of that spiritual dynamic which ultimately succeeds in restoring to consciousness the original Unity of Being.

From Discourses

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The Nectar of Immortality – Nisargadatta Maharaj

nisargadatta_250Maharaj:

If one obtains and relishes the nectar of the Lord’s feet, the charan-amrita, the mind can be conquered. This means that the mind will no longer hold sway over us; its mastery imposed from childhood will no longer oppress us. This is called manojaya—victory over the mind. But this is made possible only with His Grace. Without Grace, we cannot relish the nectar.

However, only a true devotee, a bhakta, a god, can obtain the charan-amrita. But who and what is this devotee? It is nothing else but the consciousness, the sense of being, the knowledge that “we are,” which has appeared unknowingly and spontaneously in us. The consciousness is the charan-amrita, the nectar of the Lord’s feet.

The entire cosmos in its vibrant, stirring movement is represented by the consciousness, the feet of the Lord, and the whole universe is the body of the consciousness. But what is its relationship with all beings? It dwells in the core of all beings as the knowledge “I am,” the love “to be,” the charan-amrita.

One who drinks the nectar of the Lord’s feet is a true devotee. He abides in the knowledge “I am.” He is godly. Thus, when one sips continuously this nectar by witnessing the consciousness or the sense of being, one’s mind, which assesses and differentiates persons observed as males and females, gradually removes itself from the focus of attention, leaving the consciousness in its innate glory.

But how can such a state be attained? Only if one totally accepts the knowledge “I am” as oneself with full conviction and faith and firmly believes in the dictum “I am that by which I know ‘I am’.” This knowledge “I am” is the charan-amrita. Why is it called amrita--the nectar? Because, it is said, by drinking nectar one becomes immortal. Thus, a true devotee, by abiding in the knowledge “I am” transcends the experience of death and attains immortality. But so long as the mind remains unconquered, the experience of death is inevitable.

Although my talks go on and on with many visitors, my standpoint remains unchanged. Why? Because my standpoint is stabilized at the charan-amrita. It stays put in the consciousness, the source of concepts and language. Out of it emanates the language from its subtlest formation to the grossest vocal expression, as para, pashyanti, madhyama, and vaikhari.

If you could just give up all other spiritual efforts and disciplines and absorb yourself in relishing the charan-amrita, by abidance in the consciousness, the mind will release you from its clutches. At present, you meekly accept whatever the mind dictates as your own. If the mind goes into silence, where and what are you?

Once you subside into the consciousness, the factual state of Reality shall be revealed to you with the knowledge that will emanate out of you intuitively. like spring water. This will enable you to discern not what is real and unreal, but most importantly, to realize what “I am.”

What am I for myself alone? What is this life? Once these questions are resolved intuitively and the Reality emerges, the mind cannot predominate any longer. However, functioning of the mind will go on, but the quality of its functioning will be totally different. One who has attained such a state of the mind remains unaffected by any happenings, since the blabberings of the mind can have no effect. And who could be that one? Surely not an individual who is trapped in the mind-shell. But that one is the knowledge “I am”–the consciousness.

It is said that we should break off the shackles that attach us to the body and the world. What does that mean? Whatever is seen and perceived is at the bodily or worldly level. An attachment is developed with objects perceived, and then we identify with a body as ourselves and claim the objects as our own. Attachment is the nature of the mind, and it obstinately persists in these attachments. But if you drink the charan-amrita by stabilizing in the consciousness, everything will be resolved and you will be enlightened. You need not go to anybody to clear your doubts.

While doing my normal chores and singing bhajans in praise of God and so on, to you I appear to be deeply involved in these activities. But actually I remain apart from myself, bereft of the body and mind sense, and then witnessing of the activities happens to Me. I wonder if you have marked this! Many persons are related to me in some way or another. Although seemingly I hobnob with them, I am apart from them. For myself, I have fully realized what “I am,” and right now it is absolutely clear to me what and how ‘I am.” But what these persons think “they are,” only they know. They presume to have acquired knowledge, to have reached a spiritual status higher than others…and so forth. This is bound to be, because they are still slaves to their mind. In my case, it cannot happen. I have totally imbibed the nectar of the Lord’s feet–the  consciousness.

At present, all communications and functionings happen through the medium of the nectar–the consciousness. And what is this medium? It is the knowledge “I am.” It is represented by Lord Vishnu, the highest god who reclines blissfully on the coils of the serpent, sheshashayi, and hence is known as sheshashayi-Bhagavan.

Well it is nice to have such talks, but to imbibe and realize their essence is very difficult indeed. Why? Because you firmly believe that you are the body and live accordingly, while entertaining fond wishes that you will achieve something good in the world, and later still better. These expectations are primarily based on the misconceived notion that you are the body. This wrong identification, however, dissolves in the nectar of the Lord’s feet, when you totally subside in the consciousness and lose your individuality.

Dissolution of individuality is not possible without devotion to the Master–guru-bhakti–which in other words is again the consciousness, the guru-charan-amrita. Abidance in the consciousness removes all past and future problems, and stabilizes one in the present–Here and Now.

Consciousness is the sense of knowingness “I am” without words, and it appeared unknowingly and unsolicited. It is the manifest universal life force and, therefore, cannot be individualistic. It extends inside and outside, like the brilliance of a diamond. You see a dream-world inside you and a perceptible world outside you, provided the consciousness prevails. From the body level, you may say inside and outside the body, but from the standpoint of consciousness, where and what is inside and outside? Only in the realm of knowingness “I am”–the consciousness–can a world be, and so also an experience.

Hold on to this knowingness “I am,” and the fount of knowledge will well up within you, revealing the mystery of the Universe; of your body and psyche; of the play of the five elements, the three gunas and prakriti–purush; and of everything else. In the process of this revelation, your individualistic personality confined to the body shall expand into the manifested universe, and it will be realized that you permeate and embrace the entire cosmos as your “body” only. This is known as the “Pure Superknowledge”–shuddhavijnana.

Nevertheless, even in the sublime shuddhavijnana state, the mind refuses to believe that it is a non-entity. But as one subsides in the consciousness, one develops a firm conviction that the knowledge “you are”–the sense of your being–is the very source of your world. This knowledge alone makes you feel “you are” and the world is. Actually, this manifest knowledge, having occupied and permeated the cosmos, dwells in you as the knowledge “you are.” Hold on to this knowledge. Do not try to give it a name or a title.

Now coming to a very subtle situation, what is it in you that understands this knowledge “you are”–or from your standpoint “I am,” without a name, title or word? Subside in that innermost centre and witness the knowledge ” I am” and just be. This is the “bliss of being”–the svarupananda.

You derive pleasure and happiness through various external aids and processes. Some like to enjoy good food, some like to see a picture, some get absorbed in music…and so on. For all these enjoyments some outside factors are essential. But to abide in the “bliss of being” no external aids are required at all. To understand this, take the example of deep sleep. Once you are in deep sleep, no aids or treatments are called for and you enjoy a quiet happiness. Why? Because in that state identity with a body as male or female is totally forgotten.

Some visitors ask me, “Please show us a path that will lead to Reality.” How can I? All paths lead to unreality. Paths are creations within the scope of knowledge. Therefore, paths and movements cannot transport you into Reality, because their function is to enmesh you within the dimension of knowledge, while the Reality prevails prior to it. To apprehend this, you must stay put at the source of your creation, at the beginning of the knowledge “I am.” So long as you do not achieve this, you will be entangled in the chains forged by your mind and get enmeshed in those of others.

Therefore, I repeat, you stabilize at the source of your being and then all the chains will snap asunder and you will be liberated. You will transcend time, with the result that you will be beyond the reach of its tentacles and you shall prevail in Eternity. And this sublime state can be attained only by drinking ceaselessly the nectar of the guru’s sacred feet–the guru-charan-amrita. It is a state of ecstatic beatitude–the self subsiding blissfully in the Self. This ecstasy is beyond words; it is also awareness in total quietude.

The quintessence of the talk is clear. Your most important asset is the “knowledge” that “you are” prior to emanation of mind. Hold on to this “knowledge” and meditate. Nothing is superior to this, not even devotion to a guru–guru-bhakti–or devotion to God-Ishwara-bhakti.

-Nisargadatta Maharaj – January 25, 1980

From The Nectar of Immortality. 1987 Joseph Nauwelaerts

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Love is Being – Osho

We have been taught continually that love is a relationship, so we have become accustomed to that idea. But that is not true. That is the lowest kind – very polluted.

Love is a state of Being.

– Osho

from Gold Nuggets

Copyright© OSHO International Foundation

Love is All-one-ness

Love is the language of All-one-ness

Love means one, only one. No other. Not two. All Oneness. Aloneness.

Love is Oneness. Not a relationship. A relationship can only be with more than one.

Two people can be In love, but cannot love each other. To love another implies separateness.

Love is not separateness – it is oneness.

It is not that I Love – I Am love.

Love is all there is.

Love

-purushottama

This is from the collection of stories, essays, poems and insights that is compiled to form the book From Lemurs to Lamas: Confessions of a Bodhisattva. Order the book Here.

 

Witnessing and the Heart – Osho

Would you please speak a little on witnessing and the heart. Can they be experienced simultaneously?

Witnessing and the heart are one and the same thing. Witnessing is not of the mind. Mind can never be a witness. When you start witnessing, mind becomes the witnessed not the witness. It is the observed not the observer. You see your thoughts moving, your desires, your fantasies, your memories, your dreams, just as you see things moving on the screen of a film. But you are not identified with them. That non-identification is what is meant by witnessing. Then who is the witness? Mind is being seen then who is the seer? It is the heart.

So heart and witnessing are not two things. If you witness, you will be centered in the heart, or if you are centered in the heart, you will become the witness. These are two processes to reach to the same goal. The lover, the devotee never thinks of witnessing. He simply tries to reach to the heart, to the source of his being. Once he has reached the heart, witnessing comes on its own accord. The meditator never thinks of love and the heart. He starts by witnessing, but once witnessing is there, the heart opens. Because there is no other place from where to witness.

The path of the meditator and the path of the devotee are different, but they culminate into one experience. At the ultimate point, they reach to the same peak. You can choose the path, but you cannot choose the goal. Because there are not two goals, there is only one goal. Of course, if you have followed the path of a devotee, you will not talk of witnessing when you have arrived. You will talk of love. If you have followed the path of meditation, you will not talk of love when you have arrived. You will talk of witnessing. But the difference is only of words, language, expression. But that which is expressed is the one and the same reality.

-Osho

From The Fish in the Sea is not Thirsty, Discourse #2

Copyright © OSHO International Foundation

Here you can listen to the discourse excerpt Witnessing and the Heart.

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Infinite Individuality Asserts Indivisible Oneness – Meher Baba

There is no scope for separateness in the vastness of the Infinite Ocean of Oneness. How then can there be any room for individuality in indivisibility? In the indivisible unlimited Ocean of Reality, how can there be scope for each drop that has fully awakened to Reality to individually proclaim: I am the Ocean!

The moment the drop has been stirred to consciousness, it isolates itself into a separate entity and acquires an individuality, a false I-Am-ness. This awakened ‘I’ is enveloped in falseness that grows with every step of its increased consciousness in proportion to its field of impressions and expression. This falseness that at first helps the drop to establish in individuality in the Indivisible Ocean, becomes the perpetual hindrance that keeps the drop from knowing itself as the Ocean. The ‘I’ has to get rid of the falseness before it can realize Who it is in reality.

At the end of the journey, when at long last the Goal is reached by the grace of the Perfect Master, this falseness is entirely removed and the ‘I’ alone remains with its supreme Self-knowledge – saying, my falseness is gone – I am God!

Thus, when each individual drop sheds its false awareness of being other than the Ocean, it proclaims itself as being the Infinite Indivisible Ocean. At the instant its falseness, its very own falseness is removed, the drop asserts its Infinite Individuality. It then consciously and continuously experiences  for all time as being without a second: the Almighty, Infinite and indivisible Paramatma. This is the I-am-God state. This is how every Atma, from the instant its consciousness is unburdened of falseness (i.e., impressions) for all time, asserts itself as Paramatma, God Absolute.

-Meher Baba

From The Everything and the Nothing

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