The Secret Power: unASLEEP

Being Yourself : Eckhart Tolle

Tips to stay in now

“No yesterdays are ever wasted for those who give themselves to today.” ~Brendan Francis

Anyone can be mindful for a moment or two, but developing your mindfulness muscle means that you have to take things to a higher level.

In today’s world it’s all too easy to get distracted from what’s truly important. Wherever you go, and whatever you do, you see messages designed to get you to perform a specific action and distract you from the fact that you are already whole.

There are no reminders to be mindful unless we create them.

The responsibility is in your hands. Staying in the present moment can dramatically reduce stress, increase your happiness, and give you bursts of insight that might change your life.

Here are a few down-to-earth tips on how to become more mindful:

1. Watch your thoughts.

What kind of thoughts tend to rob you of the now?

These questions will help you become more mindful about what is going on in your head, which in turn leads to mindfulness.

A few examples of tendencies that are very common are:

• anxiety
• worry
• regret
• guilt
• fear
• pleasure seeking

A great tip is to write down your thoughts and how they tease you out of the now. Grab a piece of pen and paper, and just do it.

2. Watch your breath.

Your breath is a powerful and simple way to anchor yourself in the present moment.

Whenever you are having a hard time staying in the now, take deep breaths, and focus on your breathing. 

3. Create watch reminders.

Another great way to stay anchored in the now is to use reminders. 

It can be as simple as tying a white string around your wrist. Each time you look at the white string, you are reminded of the present moment. Are you in the now, or are you somewhere else?

There are no limits to what you can use as a reminder. If you want to take this even further, you can add a new reminder each week. Start using external reminders such as red cars, billboards, and so on. If you keep doing this, you will be astonished at the results.

4. Be determined.

Increasing the time you spend in the present moment can be a lot of work. If you’re serious about becoming more mindful, you have to be determined. There will be times when you feel like you want to throw in the towel. You will face challenges, obstacles, and problems. But if you’re determined, you will get through them. They are nothing but teachers on your path.

When you make becoming more mindful one of your main goals, you simply cannot fail.

5. Follow your passion.

The more you follow your passion the more you'd be able to stay in the now.

Meditation (Osho)

Meditation is simply awareness without any effort, an effortless alertness; it does not need any technique. But your mind is so full of thoughts, so full of dreams, so much of the past, so much of the future – it is not herenow, and awareness has to be herenow. 

The techniques are needed to help you to cut your roots from the past, to cut your dreams from the future, and to keep you in this moment as if only this moment exists. Then there is no need of any technique.

The human mind is effort oriented, action oriented; obsessed with activity, because the more active you are, the more your ego can be fulfilled, the more you can say "I."

All activity is basically food for your egoistic personality.

Meditation is not an effort; it is not an activity. Rather, it is a deep surrender. 

Rather, it is to be in non-activity. Basically, just to be is meditation...not doing anything, not desiring anything, not hankering to go somewhere, just being here and now. 

To be simply here and now – that's what I call meditation.

Difference between awareness and witnessing? (Osho)

There is much difference between awareness and witnessing. Witnessing is still an act; you are doing it; the ego is there. So the phenomenon of witnessing is divided between the subject and the object.

Witnessing is a relationship between subject and object.

Awareness is absolutely devoid of any subjectivity or objectivity. 

There is no one who is witnessing in awareness; there is no one who is being witnessed. Awareness is a total act, integrated; the subject and the object are not related in it; they are dissolved. So awareness doesn't mean that anyone is aware; nor does it mean that anything is being attended to.

Awareness is total – total subjectivity and total objectivity as a single phenomenon – while in witnessing a duality exists between subject and object. Awareness is nondoing; witnessing implies a doer. But through witnessing awareness is possible, because witnessing means that it is a conscious act; it is an act, but conscious. You can do something and be unconscious – our ordinary activity is unconscious activity – but if you become conscious in it, it becomes witnessing.

So from ordinary unconscious activity to awareness there is a gap that can be filled by witnessing.

Witnessing is a technique, a method toward awareness.

It is not awareness but, compared to ordinary activity, unconscious activity, it is a higher step. Something has changed: activity has become conscious, unconsciousness has been replaced by consciousness. But something more still has to be changed. That is, the activity has to be replaced by inactivity. That will be the second step.

It is difficult to jump from ordinary, unconscious action into awareness. It is possible but arduous, so a step in between is helpful. If one begins by witnessing conscious activity, then the jump becomes easier – the jump into awareness without any conscious object, without any conscious subject, without any conscious activity at all.

This doesn't mean that awareness isn't consciousness; it is pure consciousness, but no one is conscious about it.

There is a further difference between consciousness and awareness.

Consciousness is a quality of your mind, but it is not your total mind. Your mind can be both conscious and unconscious; but when you transcend your mind, there is no unconsciousness and no corresponding consciousness. There is awareness.

Awareness means that the total mind has become aware. Now the old mind is not there but there is the quality of being conscious. Awareness has become the totality; the mind itself is now part of the awareness. We cannot say that the mind is aware; we can only meaningfully say that the mind is conscious.

Awareness means transcendence of the mind, so it is not the mind that is aware. It is only through transcendence of the mind, through going beyond mind, that awareness becomes possible.

Consciousness is a quality of the mind, awareness is the transcendence; it is going beyond the mind. Mind, as such, is the medium of duality, so consciousness can never transcend duality. It is always conscious of something, and there is always someone who is conscious. So consciousness is part and parcel of the mind, and mind, as such, is the source of all duality, of all divisions – whether they are between subject and object, activity or inactivity, consciousness or unconsciousness. Every type of duality is mental. Awareness is nondual, so awareness means the state of no mind.

Then what is the relationship between consciousness and witnessing? Witnessing is a state, and consciousness is a means toward witnessing. If you begin to be conscious, you achieve witnessing. If you begin to be conscious of your acts, conscious of your day-to-day happenings, conscious of everything that surrounds you, then you begin to witness.

Witnessing comes as a consequence of consciousness. You cannot practice witnessing; you can only practice consciousness. Witnessing comes as a consequence, as a shadow, as a result, as a byproduct. The more you become conscious, the more you go into witnessing, the more you come to be a witness.

So consciousness is a method to achieve witnessing. And the second step is that witnessing will become a method to achieve awareness.

So these are the three steps: consciousness, witnessing, awareness.

But where we exist is the lowest rank: that is, in unconscious activity. Unconscious activity is the state of our minds.

Through consciousness you can achieve witnessing, and through witnessing you can achieve awareness, and through awareness you can achieve "no achievement." Through awareness you can achieve all that is already achieved. After awareness there is nothing; awareness is the end.

Awareness is the end of spiritual progress.

In awareness you lose the witness and only witnessing remains: you lose the doer, you lose the subjectivity, you lose the egocentric consciousness. Then consciousness remains, without the ego. The circumference remains without the center.

This circumference without the center is awareness. Consciousness without any center, without any source, without any motivation, without any source from which it comes – a "no source" consciousness – is awareness.

So you move from the unaware existence that is matter, prakriti, towards awareness. You may call it the divine, the godly, or whatever you choose to call it. Between matter and the divine, the difference is always of consciousness.

Osho: Meditation: The Art of Ecstasy

Divine Lotus

Dancing Totally and remaining Aware (Osho)

Question: Beloved Osho, Can one be absorbed in doing something – for instance, these dynamic meditation techniques – with absolute total intensity, and at the same time remain a witness who is separate, apart? 

Osho: The same is the problem in many forms. You think that a witness is something apart, separate. It is not. Your intensity, your wholeness, is your witness. So when you are witnessing and doing something you are not two – the doer is the witness. For example, you are dancing here in kirtan. You are dancing: the dancer and the witness are not two, there is no separation. The separation is only in language. The dancer is the witness. And if the dancer is not the witness then you cannot be total in the dance, because the witness will need some energy and you will have to divide yourself.

A part will remain a witness and the remaining will move in the dance. It cannot be total, it will be divided. And this is not what is meant, because really this is the state of a schizophrenic patient – divided, split. It is pathological. If you become two you are ill. You must remain one. You must move totally into the dance, and your totality will become the witness. It is not going to be something set apart, your wholeness is aware. This happens. So don’t try to divide yourself. While dancing become the dance.

Just remain alert; don’t fall asleep, don’t be unconscious. You are not under a drug, you are alert, fully alert. But this alertness is not a part standing aloof; it is your totality, it is your whole being. But this is again the same thing as whether two lovers are two or one. Only on the surface are they two, deep inside they are one. Only in language will you appear two, the dancer and the witness, but deep down you are the one. The whole dancer is alert. Then only peace, equilibrium, silence, will happen to you.

If you are divided there will be tension, and that tension will not allow you to be totally here and now, to merge into existence. So remember that, don’t try to divide. Become the dancer and still be aware. This happens. This I am saying through my experience. This I am saying through many others’ experience who have been working with me. This will happen to you also. This may have happened to many already. But remember this: don’t get split. Remain one and yet aware.

My Whole Life is Full of Jokes (Osho)

Zen

Zen means waking up to the present moment. 

That is, perceiving this moment exactly as it is, rather than through the filter of our ideas, opinions, etc.  One way to practice this is to ask yourself a Big Question, such as "What am I?" If you ask such a question strongly and sincerely, what appears is "Don't Know." This don't-know is before thinking. If you keep it moment to moment, then everything is clear. Then, each moment, whatever you're doing, just do it. When you're sitting, just sit; when you're eating, just eat; and so on. 

According to Zen, existence is found in the silence of the mind (no-mind), beyond the chatter of our internal dialog. Existence, from the Zen perspective is something that is only happening spontaneously, and it is not just our thoughts. All of life that we perceive is constantly in a state of change. Every atom in the universe is somewhere different every millionth of a second. 

What then is existence? Zen says that it is instantaneous. Since the earth is constantly moving, and our thoughts and our bodies are constantly in a process of fluctuation, then what we really are, can only be experienced in each moment. 

Think of a view. Is it what it was a second ago, or what it is now? In fact the moment we say the word “view",  the view has already changed into something new. 

In fact, anything that we can explain, according to this viewpoint, must be past-tense. Even if it’s about our most immediate feelings and thoughts, it is not the same experience the second after it passes through our minds. Researchers estimate that our minds perceive 12,000 separate impressions every second. This is in terms of everything that we see, hear, smell, taste, and feel. 

So, what is our reality really? Isn’t it always a very limited view of what we are even actually experiencing around us? And that which we are aware of, is only our own minute impression of the world itself. Are any of our views then actually true in the absolute sense of the word, or are they all just our subjective impressions, based on an individual experience of what we are perceiving? 

Zen says that if we entertain no personal version of what we think existence is, in other words, if we hold no subjective interpretation of what existence is, at the moment we are free of any notion at all, we will experience existence instantaneously, spontaneously. 

Do you see this point? Zen says that we don’t really experience existence, because we are too busy experiencing our own subjective, version of existence. 

How then can we experience existence itself? If we don’t create existence, then existence simply IS. The problem is, that we are usually trying to create our own model of the world. Whatever existence we create, it will be an extremely limited view, and that isn’t existence itself. 

In Zen a less subjective awareness is cultivated through silent meditation, and contemplating on certain sentences, known as Koans. A koan is defined in "The Three Pillars Of Zen" as, "Formulation, in baffling language, pointing to ultimate Truth. Koans cannot be solved by recourse to a logical reasoning, but only awakening a deeper level of the mind beyond the discursive intellect."

An example of a Koan would be, “The sound of one hand clapping”, or perhaps you remember this one from grade school, “Does a tree that falls in the forest make a sound if there isn’t anyone there to hear it?," and so on. 

Through these more abstract thoughts, the Zen student may find that they gradually suspend with their reasoning altogether (this is called no-mind), and this clears the way for an actual experience of existence itself. 

Unanticipated, spontaneously, without warning, the student may suddenly experience that 'Peace' beyond thought, words, or description. All that anyone can really say who has experienced this is, “All is one, and one is all”. This is what Zen calls the experience of Nirvana, or Enlightenment. 

Parable of Rabia Al. Adawia (Osho)

One evening, the sun was setting and the neighbourhood found her searching for something on the street -- an old woman, everybody loved her; of course everybody thought her a little crazy, but she was a beautiful person -- so they all rushed to help her and they asked, What has been lost? What are you searching for? She said: My needle. I was doing some needlework and I have lost my needle. Help me! You are so kind! So they all engaged in the search.

Then one man, seeing the fact that the street was so big and the needle was such a small tiny thing and that unless they exactly knew where it had been dropped it would be almost impossible to find it, came to Rabia and said: Tell us exactly the spot. Rabia said: Don't ask that because in fact I have not lost it outside my house, I lost it inside.

They all stopped searching and said: Crazy woman! Then why are you searching here outside in the street when you have lost it inside the house?

Rabia said: THERE is much darkness. Here is a little light, how can you seek when there is darkness? And you know I am poor, not even a lamp with me. How can you seek when there is darkness? So I am seeking here because still a little sunlight is left, and still something can be done to search.

The people started laughing. They said: You are really crazy! We know that in darkness it is difficult to search, but then the only way is to borrow a lamp from somebody and search for it there.

Rabia said: I never thought you people were so wise. Then why do you always SEEK outside? I was just following your ways. If you are so understanding why don't you borrow a lamp from me and search inside? I know there is darkness...

This parable is meaningful. You search outside: there is a reason -- because inside everything is so dark. You close your eyes and there is dark night, you cannot see anything; even if something is seen it is nothing but a part of the outside reflected in the inner lake -- thoughts floating which you have gathered in the marketplace, faces coming and going, but they belong to the outside world. Just reflections of the outside, and vast darkness One becomes afraid. Then one thinks it is better to seek outside, there at least there is light.

But that is not the point. Where have you lost your truth? Where have you lost your being? Where have you lost your God? Where have you lost your happiness, your bliss? Better it will be before you go to the infinte maze of the outside world, better it will be to first look within. If you cannot find there then it is all right -- you go and search outside. But that has never happened. Whoever has looked within has always found -- because it is already there -- only a look is needed, a conversion, a returning of consciousness. Just a deep look.

The Awakening By Mevlana Rumi

Why do you stay in prison, when the door is so wide open

All night, a man called “Allah”

Until his lips were bleeding.
Then the Devil said, “Hey! Mr Gullible!
How comes you’ve been calling all night
And never once heard Allah say, “Here, I am”?
You call out so earnestly and, in reply, what?
I’ll tell you what. Nothing!”

The man suddenly felt empty and abandoned.
Depressed, he threw himself on the ground
And fell into a deep sleep.
In a dream, he met Abraham, who asked,
“Why are you regretting praising Allah?”

The man said, “ I called and called
But Allah never replied, “Here I am.”
Abraham explained, “Allah has said,
“Your calling my name is My reply.
Your longing for Me is My message to you.
All your attempts to reach Me
Are in reality My attempts to reach you.
Your fear and love are a noose to catch Me.
In the silence surrounding every call of “Allah”
Waits a thousand replies of “Here I am.”

Sufi Mystic Story on Awareness

One Sufi mystic, Bayazid, used to talk to his disciples about awareness, and they would ask, ”But what is awareness? You go on talking about it.” One day he took them to the river. On this side there was a small hill, and on the other side there was a small hill. He said, ”We are going to put up a long wooden bridge – just one foot wide – from this end to the other, and you will have to walk on it. And then you will know what awareness is.”

 They said, ”But we have been walking our whole life, and we have never come to know.” He said, ”Wait,” and he did the experiment. Many of them started feeling very afraid, and they said, ”We cannot walk. Just one foot wide?” ”But how much do you need to walk on? When you are walking on the earth, you can walk on a one-foot-wide strip easily. Why, why can’t you walk on a one-foot-wide strip hanging between two hills? Why can’t you walk on it?”

 A few people tried. Just two, three feet they went, and they came back, and they said, ”It is dangerous.” Then Bayazid walked and a few followed, and when they reached the other shore, those few who had followed, they fell at his feet  and they said, ”Master, now we know what awareness is. The danger was so much that we could not afford to walk in slumber. We had to be alert. Any moment and we would have been gone forever, so we had to keep alert.”

 In some rare, dangerous moments you become aware; otherwise not. Awareness means an intensity, such an intensity of wakefulness that no thought interferes. You are simply conscious without any thought. Try it. You can try it anywhere. Walking on the road, walk as if each moment there is danger.

And there is danger! because any moment you can die, any moment death is there. If you become a little more understanding you will understand. It is impossible not to be aware if you see that death is possible any moment. Then you cannot live like drunkards.

Sufi Mystic Story

There is a Sufi story...

Junaid was going through the market-place of the town with his disciples. And it was his way to take any situation and use it. A man was dragging his cow by a rope, and Junaid said ’Wait’ to the man, and told his disciples ’Surround this man and the cow. I am going to teach you something.’

The man stopped – Junaid was a famous mystic – and he was also interested in what he was going to teach these disciples and how he was going to use him and the cow. And Junaid asked his disciples ’I ask you one thing: who is bound to whom? Is the cow bound to this man or is this man bound to this cow?’ Of course, the disciples said ’The cow is bound to the man. The man is the master, he is holding the rope, the cow has to follow him wherever he goes. He is the master and the cow is the slave.’

And Junaid said ’Now, see.’ He took out his scissors and cut the rope – and the cow escaped.

The man ran after the cow, and Junaid said ’Now look what is happening! Now you see who is the master; the cow is not interested at all in this man – in fact, she is escaping.’ And the man was very angry, he said ’What kind of experiment is this ?’ But Junaid said to his disciples ’And this is the case with your mind.

All the nonsense that you are carrying inside is not interested in you. You are interested in it, you are keeping it together somehow – you are becoming mad in keeping it together somehow. But you are interested IN it. The moment you lose interest, the moment you understand the futility of it, it will start disappearing; like the cow it will escape.’

People come to me and ask ’How to stop this mad mind?’ I say ’There is no need to stop, all that is needed is that you become disinterested in it and the rope is cut.’ That is the meaning of sannyas: become disinterested in the mind. That is the meaning of real vairagya, detachment.

It has nothing to do with renouncing the world, but it certainly has something to do with cutting the rope to the mind. Just become disinterested in the rubbish and slowly slowly you will see a gap arising. The cloud that used to surround you always is getting farther and farther away and, one day, suddenly it is no more there.

And when you are left without mind, that is the state of spiritual perception, that is the state of darshan, that is the state when you can see, you have eyes; otherwise your eyes are so full of smoke you cannot see.

Source:
http://zoya-thewayofasufi.blogspot.com/

Fanaa (Sufism)

Enlightenment equals ego death.

For millennia this equation has held true. While the term "ego," meaning "I" in Latin, is obviously a relatively recent addition to the English lexicon, just about every major enlightenment teaching in the world has long held that the highest goal of spiritual and indeed human life lies in the renunciation, rejection and, ultimately, the death of the need to hold on to a separate, self-centered existence. 

From Shankara's rantings against the ego as a "strong and deadly serpent" to Prophet Muhammad's declaration of a "holy war against the nafs [ego]" to the Zen masters' fierce determination to use any means necessary to break the ego's grip on their students.

In sufi path Bayazid Bastami was one of the first to speak of "annihilation of the self in God" (fana fi 'Allah') and "subsistence through God" (baqa' bi 'Allah).

FANAA: EGO DEATH;

Fanaa is the Sufi term for extinction. It means to annihilate the self, while remaining physically alive. Persons having entered this state are said to have no existence outside of, and be in complete unity with, Allah. Fanaa is equivalent to the concept of nirvana in Buddhism and Hinduism or moksha inHinduism which also aim for annihilation of the self.

Abu Yazid al-Bistami approached the Divine Presence and “knocked on the gate”. He was asked, “Who is there?” “I have come, Oh my Lord”, replied Abu Yazid. He was told: “There isn’t any place here for two. Leave your ego behind and come”. When Abu Yazid once again approached the Divine Presence and was asked who it was, he said: “You, oh Lord”.

The "annihilation of the self" (fana fi 'Allah') refers to disregarding everything in this world because of one's love towards God. When a person enters the state of fana it is believed that one is closest to God. 

The Qalaba( heart) is sandwiched between the nafs( EGO) and the Rooh(SOUL) The entire objective of annihilation is to destroy the nafs to that Heart can recognise the soul.Sudi's say soul has the spark of divine as in Quran, its mentioned" all souls come rom God".

The nature of fanaa consists of the elimination of evil deeds and lowly attributes of the flesh. In other words, fanaa is abstention from sin and the expulsion from the heart of all love other than the Divine Love; expulsion of greed, lust, desire, vanity, show, etc. In the state of fanaa the reality of the true and only relationship asserts itself in the mind. One realizes and feeds that the only real relationship is with Allah Ta'ala fanaa means to destroy your self. if you destroy your self in the love of Allah then that fanaa will convert into entire life means abdi zindgi. and for that one you have to destroy your will and yourself on the will of Allah.

In the death of the ego love is born, God is born, light is born. In the death of the ego you are transformed; all misery disappears as if it had never existed. Your life right now is a nightmare. When the ego dies nightmares disappear and a great sweetness arises in your being, and a subtle joy, for no reason at all. Beyond this is the stage of intimacy (uns) at which the immanence of the Lord is perceived:

“And I am closer to man than his jugular vein” QURAN;

Source:

http://zoya-thewayofasufi.blogspot.com/

Ascending...Transcending, Breaking free of Mind

Leave the shore, off to the blue depths!

Don't do anything: Mooji

Simply Stop Looking: Gangaji

The Power of Silence : Isira

I stand in wonder o nature!

Awakening Signs

Salvation, Enlightenment, Nirvana

The extinction of self is Salvation,
The annihilation of self is condition of Enlightenment,
The blotting out of self is NIRVANA

Happy is he who has ceased to live,
for pleasure, and rests in the truth

Verily his composure and tranquility
of mind are the highest bliss

-Buddha

Me dancing, unaware, may be!

The Power of Now!

You used the word Being. Can you explain what you mean by that?

Being is the eternal, ever-present One Life beyond the myriad forms of life that are subject to birth and death. However, Being is not only beyond but also deep within every form as its innermost invisible and indestructible essence. This means that it is accessible to you now as your own deepest self, your true nature. But don't seek to grasp it with your mind. Don't try to understand it. You can know it only when the mind is still. When you are present, when your attention is fully and intensely in the Now, Being can be felt, but it can never be understood mentally. To regain awareness of Being and to abide in that state of "feelingrealization" is enlightenment.

What is the greatest obstacle to experiencing this reality?

Identification with your mind, which causes thought to become compulsive. Not to be able to stop thinking is a dreadful affliction, but we don't realize this because almost everybodyis suffering from it, so it is considered normal. This incessant mental noise prevents you from finding that realm of inner stillness that is inseparable from Being. It also creates a false mind-made self that casts a shadow of fear and suffering. 

Enlightenment is a state of wholeness, of being "at one" and therefore at peace. At one with life in its manifested aspect, the world, as well as with your deepest self and life unmanifested - at one with Being. Enlightenment is not only the end of suffering and of continuous conflict within and without, but also the end of the dreadful enslavement to incessant thinking. What an incredible liberation this is!

Identification with your mind creates an opaque screen of concepts, labels, images, words, judgments, and definitions that blocks all true relationship. It comes between you and yourself, between you and your fellow man and woman, between you and nature, between you and God. It is this screen of thought that creates the illusion of separateness, the illusion that there is you and a totally separate "other." You then forget the essential fact that, underneath the level of physical appearances and separate forms, you are one with all that is. By "forget," I mean that you can no longer feel this oneness as self-evident reality. You may believe it to be true, but you no longer know it to be true. A belief may be comforting. Only through your own experience, however, does it become liberating.

Then the mind is using you. You are unconsciously identified with it, so you don't even know that you are its slave. It’s almost as if you were possessed without knowing it, and so you take the possessing entity to be yourself. The beginning of freedom is the realization that you are not the possessing entity - the thinker. Knowing this enables you to observe the entity.The moment you start watching the thinker, a higher level of consciousness becomes activated. You then begin to realize that there is a vast realm of intelligence beyond thought, that thought is only a tiny aspect of that intelligence. You also realize that all the things that truly matter - beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace - arise from beyond the mind. You begin to awaken.

FREEING YOURSELF FROM YOUR MIND

What exactly do you mean by "watching the thinker"?

You can take the first step right now. Start listening to the voice in your head as often as you can. Pay particular attention to any repetitive thought patterns, those old gramophone records that have been playing in your head perhaps for many years. This is what I mean by "watching the thinker," which is another way of saying: listen to the voice in your head, be there as the witnessing presence. When you listen to that voice, listen to it impartially. That is to say, do not judge. Do not judge or condemn what you hear, for doing so would mean that the same voice has come in again through the back door. You'll soon realize: there is the voice, and here I am listening to it, watching it. This I am realization, this sense of your own presence, is not a thought. It arises from beyond the mind.

§

So when you listen to a thought, you are aware not only of the thought but also ofyourself as the witness of the thought. A new dimension of consciousness has come in. As you listen to the thought, you feel a conscious presence - your deeper self - behind or underneath the thought, as it were. The thought then loses its power over you and quickly subsides, because you are no longer energizing the mind through identification with it. This is the beginning of the end of involuntary and compulsive thinking. When a thought subsides, you experience a discontinuity in the mental stream - a gap of "no-mind." At first, the gaps will be short, a few seconds perhaps, but gradually they will become longer. When these gaps occur, you feel a certain stillness and peace inside you. This is the beginning of your natural state of felt oneness with Being, which is usually obscured by the mind. With practice, the sense of stillness and peace will deepen. In fact, there is no end to its depth. You will also feel a subtle emanation of joy arising from deep within: the joy of Being. It is not a trancelike state. Not at all. There is no loss of consciousness here. The opposite is the case. If the price of peace were a lowering of your consciousness, and the price of stillness a lack of vitality and alertness, then they would not be worth having. In this state of inner connectedness, you are much more alert, more awake than in the mind-identified state. You are fully present. It also raises the vibrational frequency of the energy field that gives life to the physical body.

As you go more deeply into this realm of no-mind, as it is sometimes called in the East, you realize the state of pure consciousness. In that state, you feel your own presence with such intensity and such joy that all thinking, all emotions, your physical body, as well as the whole external world become relatively insignificant in comparison to it. And yet this is not a selfish but a selfless state. It takes you beyond what you previously thought of as "your self." That presence is essentially you and at the same time inconceivably greater than you. What I am trying to convey here may sound paradoxical or even contradictory, but there is no other way that I can express it.

§

Instead of "watching the thinker," you can also create a gap in the mind stream simply by directing the focus of your attention into the Now. Just become intensely conscious of the present moment. This is a deeply satisfying thing to do. In this way, you draw consciousness away from mind activity and create a gap of no-mind in which you are highly alert and aware but not thinking. This is the essence of meditation. In your everyday life, you can practice this by taking any routine activity that normally is only a means to an end and giving it your fullest attention, so that it becomes an end in itself. For example, every time you walk up and down the stairs in your house or place of work, pay close attention to every step, every movement, even your breathing. Be totally present. Or when you wash your hands, pay attention to all the sense perceptions associated with the activity the sound and feel of the water, the movement of your hands, the scent of the soap, and so on. Or when you get into your car, after you close the door, pause for a few seconds and observe the flow of your breath. Become aware of a silent but powerful sense of presence. There is one certain criterion by which you can measure your success in this practice: the degree of peace that you feel within.

§

So the single most vital step on your journey toward enlightenment is this: learn to disidentify from your mind. Every time you create a gap in the stream of mind, the light of your consciousness grows stronger.One day you may catch yourself smiling at the voice in your head, as you would smile at the antics of a child. This means that you no longer take the content of your mind all that seriously, as your sense of self does not depend on it.

The Lotus Flower and its Divine Beauty

The lotus flower has indeed acquired a special significance over the centuries. Be it in Greek mythology, ancient Hindu scriptures and pictography, or Buddhist lore—the lotus flower signifies a flawless and timeless divine beauty. The lotus flower’s opening petals symbolize the potential for the soul to expand and blossom into beauty and divinity. They symbolize the surrender of the mind to the powers above. They symbolize an openness and submissiveness even as the roots are mired in the muddy worldliness and sin.

Look at pictures of the Buddha. He is seen meditating on a lotus flower. He is also seen holding a lotus flower in each hand. Or, look at paintings of the Hindu gods. You see the Goddess Lakshmi, patron of wealth and good fortune, sitting on a fully-bloomed pink lotus flower, a lotus in her right hand.

Go to the annals of Greek mythology. And you read about Ra, the sun god, emerging from lotus petals from the very depths of Nun, or watery chaos.

The stories are many. The significance of the lotus flower is divinely profound. That so many ancient and even contemporary cultures respect and worship the lotus flower with such fervor is indeed a wonder to behold.

Unasleep, Awakened!

Perspectives from someone who is awakened...

http://unasleep.com/FlashX/index.htm

The Sound of Birds

Om Mani Padme Hum

Satsang with Isira: Witnessing

Eckhart Tolle, Not Reacting To Content

"There are three words that convey the secret of the art of living, the secret of all success and happiness: One With Life. Being one with life is being one with Now. You then realise that you don't live your life, but life lives you. Life is the dancer, and you are the dance"

"You do not become good by trying to be good, but by finding the goodness that is already within you, and allowing that goodness to emerge. But it can only emerge if something fundamental changes in your state of consciousness"

"In the normal, mind-identified or unenlightened state of consciousness, the power and creative potential that lie concealed in the Now are completely obscured by psychological time. You cannot find yourself by going into the past. You can find yourself by coming into the present. Life is now. There was never a time when your life was not now, nor will there ever be" !

Tantra Kundalini

http://www.tantra-kundalini.com/

According to the philosophy of Tantra, the entire universe is a manifestation of pure consciousness. In manifesting the universe, this pure consciousness seems to become divided into two poles or aspects, neither of which can exist without the other. Each requires the other in order to manifest its total nature.

One aspect, Shiva, is masculine, retains a static quality and remains identified with unmanifested consciousness. Shiva has the power to be but not the power to become or change.

The other aspect, Shakti, is feminine, dynamic, energetic and creative. Shakti is the Great Mother of the universe, for it is from her that all form is born.

According to Tantra, the human being is a miniature universe. All that is found in the cosmos can be found within each individual, and the same principles that apply to the universe apply in the case of the individual being.

In human beings, Shakti, the feminine aspect is called Kundalini. This potential energy is said to rest at the base of the spinal cord. The object of the Tantric practice of Kundalini-yoga is to awaken this cosmic energy and make it ascend through the psychic centers, the chakras, that lie along the axis of the spine as consciousness potentials. She will then unite above the crown of the head with Shiva the pure consciousness. This union is the aim of Kundalini-yoga: a resolution of duality into unity again, a fusion with the Absolute. By this union the adept attains liberation while living which is considered in Indian life to be the highest experience: an union of the individual with the universe. Once Kundalini Shakti has ascended to above the crown of the head and merged with Shiva, it is made to reverse its course and return to rest at the base of the spine.

In Tantrism the state of ultimate bliss is a transcendence of dualities male-female, energy-consciousness, Shiva-Shakti...

Link to interesting blogs!

http://psychedelicadventure.blogspot.com/

Who am I Enquiry (Mahararishi Ramana)

For all thoughts the source is the 'I' thought. 

The mind will merge only by Self-enquiry 'Who am I?' 

The thought 'Who am l?' will destroy all other thoughts and finally kill itself also. 

If other thoughts arise, without trying to complete them, one must enquire to whom did this thought arise. 

What does it matter how many thoughts arise? As each thought arises one must be WATCHFUL and ask to whom is this thought occurring. The answer will be 'to me'. If you enquire 'Who am I?' the mind will return to its source (or where it issued from). The thought which arose will also submerge. As you practise like this more and more, the power of the mind to remain as its source is increased.

From being mechanical to being master (Osho)

The first thing to be understood: mechanicalness is a necessity of life -- and your body has an inner mechanism. Colin Wilson has called it the inner robot, you have a robot within you. Once trained, once you are trained in anything, that training is passed to the robot. You can call it memory, you can call it mind, -- anything -- but the word robot is good because it is absolutely mechanical, automatic. 

I am not against the robot. Go and give unto the robot whatsoever you learn, but remain the master. Do not allow the robot to become the master. This is the problem: the robot will try to be the master, because the robot is more efficient than you. Sooner or later the robot will say to you, "Be completely retired. You are not needed. I can do things more efficiently."

Remain the master. What can be done in order for you to remain the master of the robot? Only one thing is possible, and that is: sometimes, without any danger, take the reins into your hands. Tell the robot to relax, come into the seat, and drive the car -- without any danger, because in danger it is again automatic, the jerk, the replacement of the robot by you is automatic. You are driving: suddenly, without any necessity, tell the robot to relax. You come into the seat and drive the car. You are walking: suddenly remember and tell the body that "Now I will walk consciously. The robot is not allowed. I am the master and I will move the body consciously." You are hearing me: it is the robot part which is hearing me. Suddenly give a jerk to it; do not allow the mind to come in. Hear me directly, consciously. 

What do I mean when I say hear consciously? When you are hearing unconsciously, you are just focused on me and you have forgotten yourself completely. I exist, the speaker exists, but the listener is unconscious. You are not aware of yourself as the listener. When I say take the reins in your hands, I mean be aware of the two points: the speaker and the listener. And if you are aware of the two points, the speaker and the listener, you have become the third -- the witness.

This witnessing will help you to remain the master. And if you are the master, your robot cannot disturb your life. It IS disturbing your life. Your total life has become a mess because of this robot. It helps, it is efficient, but it goes on taking everything from you -- even those things which should not be given to it. 

You say, "I am not going to be angry again," but your saying it is meaningless because the robot is trained. And the training has been long, so just a sentence in the mind that "I am not going to be angry again," will not have any effect. This robot has been long trained. So next time when someone insults you, your decision not to be angry will be of no help. The robot will take charge immediately and the robot will do whatsoever it is trained to do. And then in the end, when the robot has done it, you will repent. But the difficulty, the deep difficulty is this, that even this repentance is done by the robot, because you have always done that -- after the anger you have repented. The robot has learned that trick also; it will repent, and again you will do the same thing. That is why many times you feel that you have done something, said something, behaved in a certain way, in spite of yourself.

What does this expression, `in spite of yourself,' mean? It means that there is another self within you which can act, which can do something in spite of you. Who is that self? The robot! What to do? Do not take vows that "I will not be angry again." They are self-defeating; they will not lead you anywhere. Rather, on the contrary, whatsoever you are doing, do it consciously. Take charge from the robot -- with any ordinary thing. When eating, eat consciously. Do not do it mechanically, as you have done every day. When smoking, smoke consciously. Do not allow your hand to move to the packet unconsciously, do not bring the cigarette out unconsciously. Be conscious, alert -- and there is a difference. I can raise my hand mechanically, just without any awareness; I can raise my hand with full awareness flowing in my hand. Try it! You will feel the difference. When you are aware, your hand will be raised very slowly, very silently, and you will feel that the hand is filled with the awareness. And when the hand is filled with the awareness, your mind will be thoughtless, because your whole awareness will have moved to the hand. Now no energy is left to think. 

When you raise your hand automatically, mechanically, you go on thinking and your hand goes on moving. Who is moving that hand? Your robot. Move it yourself! Do it in the day at any time, any moment, while doing anything.

Take charge from the robot. Soon you will be able to have a mastery over the robot. But do not try it with difficult situations -- that is suicidal. We always try with difficult situations, but because of the difficulty you never win. Start with simple situations, where even if you are not so efficient no harm is going to result. 

Try! Start with simple things such as walking. Try with this; there is no harm. You can say to the robot that "There is not going to be any harm. I am just walking, taking a walk, and I am not going anywhere -- just walking. So there is no need of you; I can be non-efficient." 

And then be aware and walk slowly. Be filled with awareness throughout your whole body. When one foot moves, move with it. When one foot leaves the ground, leave the ground with it. When the other foot touches the ground, touch the ground with it. Be perfectly aware. Do not do anything else with the mind; just turn the whole mind into awareness. 

It will be difficult because the robot will interfere continuously. Every moment the robot will try and will say, "What are you doing? I can do it better than you." And he CAN do it better. So try it with non-serious things, with non-complex things, simple things. 

Buddha has told his disciples to walk, eat and sleep with awareness. If you can do these simple things, then you will also know how to enter into difficult things with awareness. Then you can try.

But we always try with difficult things; then we are defeated. Then the defeated feeling gives you a deep pessimism about yourself. You start thinking that you cannot do anything. That is very helpful for the robot. The robot will always help you to do something when you are in difficulty because then you are defeated. Then the robot can say to you, "Leave it to me. I can always do it better than you can do it."

Start with simple things. Zen Buddhists, Zen monks, have been so many times reported to have been doing this. When Bosho was asked, "What is your meditation? What is your SADHANA, spiritual practice?" he said, "When I feel hungry I eat and when I feel sleepy I go to sleep. This is all." 

If you are a person -- alive, alert, aware -- you can have an authentic existence. If you are just a mechanical device, you cannot have any authentic existence. Each moment will change you; each situation will change you. You will be just a floating thing with no inner core, with no inner being. Awareness gives you the inner presence. Without it you feel that you are, but you are not. 

Someone asked Buddha, "I want to serve humanity. Tell me how I can serve." Buddha looked at the man very deeply, penetratingly, with deep compassion, and then he said, "But where are YOU? WHO will serve humanity? You are not yet. First be, and when you are, you need not ask me. When you are, you will do something which just happens to you which is worth doing."

Gurdjieff noted that everyone comes with the notion that he is, that he already is. Someone came to Gurdjieff and asked, "I am very insane inside. My mind goes on in conflicts, in contradictions, so tell me what I can do to dissolve this mind, to have mental peace, inner calm." Gurdjieff said, "Do not think about the mind, you cannot do anything about it. The first thing is to be present. First YOU have to be; then you can do something. YOU are not."

What is meant by this "You are not?" It means that you are a robot, a mechanical thing,  working according to mechanical laws. Start being alert. Join awareness with anything  you are doing -- and start with simple things. 

Pure Watching (Osho)

The greatest meditator the world has ever known, Gautam Buddha, insisted that no ideology is needed, no philosophy is needed, no concepts about life are needed. Whether God is or is not is meaningless, irrelevant. Whether MOKSHA, liberation, exists or not is meaningless. Whether your soul is immortal or not is meaningless. 

Buddha was so much anti-philosophy not because HE was anti-philosophy, but because anti-philosophy can become the basic ground for a meditator to jump into the unknown. Philosophy means knowing something about the unknown without knowing it. It is just preconceptions, hypotheses, man-constructed ideologies.

This is to be remembered as a very foundational fact: do not judge, let the mind flow easily. As the river flows, let the mind flow easily; just sit on the bank watching. And this watching should be pure -- without any interpretations. Sooner or later, when the water has flown, when the repressed ideas have moved, you will find gaps coming. A thought will go, and another thought will not be coming, and there will be a gap -- an interval. In that interval, nothingness happens. 

Tibetan Buddhist Monks-OM Mantra Chant

Deep Sky Meditation - Relaxation Music

Shiva

Gayatri Mantra - Deva Premal

Oh God, the Protector, the basis of all life, Who is self-existent, Who is free from all pains and Whose contact frees the soul from all troubles, Who pervades the Universe and sustains all, the Creator and Energizer of the whole Universe, the Giver of happiness, Who is worthy of acceptance, the most excellent, Who is Pure and the Purifier of all, let us embrace that very God, so that He may direct our mental faculties in the right direction.

Lao Tz Teachings

 

What is Lao Tz's central teaching?

The most important thing people can do in life, Laozi asserts in the Tao Te Ching and other works attributed to him, is to gain a state of silent awareness — to open the mind to its source:

Become totally empty
Quiet the restlessness of the mind
Only then will you witness everything
unfolding from emptiness
See all things flourish and dance
in endless variation
And once again merge back into perfect emptiness—
Their true repose
Their true nature
Emerging, flourishing, dissolving back again
This is the eternal process of return

To know this process brings enlightenment
To miss this process brings disaster

Be still
Stillness reveals the secrets of eternity
Eternity embraces the all-possible
The all-possible leads to a vision of oneness
A vision of oneness brings about universal love
Universal love supports the great truth of Nature
The great truth of Nature is Tao

Whoever knows this truth lives forever
The body may perish, deeds may be forgotten
But he who has Tao has all eternity 

Source: https://www.tm.org/blog/meditation/laozi-and-the-tao-te-ching-the-ancient-wisdom-of-china/

Tantra Drums

Agori Dance ~ Al Gromer Khan

Total Effort and Total Relaxation (Osho)

Question: Beloved Osho,  Are there really discrete stages on the way to the ultimate happening, as  this Upanishad seems to suggest, or does this happening occur suddenly  and unexpectedly? Is it a matter of long Conscious effort, or of a sudden  total Surrender to Existence?

Osho : It is both. You have to make all effort that is possible, that you can do. No stone should be left unturned, no energies should be left unused. You must get totally involved. You are required to work as a unit, only then the flowering, the happening, will become possible. But that doesn’t mean that it is an outcome of your effort; just by your effort it is not going to happen. This is a little delicate and you will have to be very penetrating about it, then only will you understand.

Look at it in this way. You see a person walking on the street. Suddenly you have a feeling that you remember the face or you feel that you even know the name, and you say it is just on the tip of your tongue, but it is not coming. The more effort you make the more frustrated you feel – it is not coming. But you cannot leave it at that, because you have the feeling that you know this face, you know the name. And there is even this feeling that somewhere, just in the corner of the mind, the name is waiting, you have only to recall it.

You make all effort, you try in every way. You close your eyes, you contemplate, you ponder over it, you try to associate, you go into the past, you start feeling for some key, some clue, but nothing happens. You get frustrated, bored; you leave the whole effort, and you go into the garden and start working, or you start smoking, or you take a cup of tea. Suddenly the name is there, suddenly the memory has come, suddenly you have recognized.

Now two things are happening. One: you are making every effort possible, but it is not coming through the effort. Then you leave all the effort, and then it comes. Effort is needed but is not enough. If you don’t make any effort it will not come when you go to the garden or when you take a cup of tea. If you have not made total effort it is not going to come. And if you make just the effort – total even – then too it is not going to come. So total effort is needed, then total relaxation also – then it will bubble up.

Many Nobel prizes have been given for certain discoveries which happened in this way. One Nobel prize winner was working on the inner structure of the human cell, the lymph cell. He was working for years, contemplating, brooding, making many experiments, and nothing was happening, every effort was a failure. After many years of research, effort, failure, one night suddenly he had a dream, and in the dream he saw the structure, the very structure he was looking for, the structure of the human cell, just as if a magnified picture was there.

He got up. Immediately he drew the drawing and then he worked on it, and it proved that the dream was true. But remember, you are not going to have this dream, it cannot happen to you. It happened after so many years of effort. The conscious was exhausted. The conscious did everything that could be done and then the conscious was tired, the conscious mind was finished, the conscious accepted the failure. When the conscious is exhausted the unconscious comes into focus and starts working – but it comes only when the conscious is exhausted.

If the conscious is still hoping, if the conscious is still trying, then the unconscious will not function. And this is one of the basic laws of the human psyche: that if you want the unconscious to function, exhaust the conscious completely. Effort will not lead you to enlightenment, but without effort no one has ever achieved it. This may look like a paradox. It is not, it is a simple law.

Buddha tried for six years continuously, and no man has tried as totally as Buddha did. He made every effort possible, he went to every master available. There was not a single master Buddha did not go to. He surrendered to every master, and whatsoever was said he did so perfectly that even the master started feeling jealous. And every master finally had to say to Buddha, ”This is all I can teach. And if nothing is happening I cannot blame you, because you are doing everything so perfectly. I am helpless. You will have to move to some other teacher.”

This rarely happens because disciples never do everything so perfectly, so the master can always say, ”Because you are not doing well, that’s why nothing is happening.” But Buddha was doing so well, so absolutely well, that no master could say to him, ”You are not doing well.” So they had to accept defeat. They had to say, ”This is all we can teach, and you have done it and nothing is happening, so it is better you move to some other master. You don’t belong to me.”

Buddha moved for six years, and he followed even absurd techniques when they were taught to him. Somebody said ”Fast,” so for months he fasted. For six months he was continuously fasting, just taking a very small quantity of food every fifteen days, only twice a month. He became so weak that he was simply a skeleton. All flesh disappeared, he looked like a dead man. He became so weak that he couldn’t even walk. He finally became so weak that he would close his eyes to meditate and he would fall down in a fit.

One day he was taking a bath in the river Niranjana, just near Bodhgaya, and he was so weak that he couldn’t cross the river. He fell down in the river and he thought that he was going to be drowned; it was the last moment, death had come. He was so weak he couldn’t swim. Then suddenly he caught hold of a branch of a tree and remained there.

And there for the first time the thought came to his mind, ”If I have become so weak that I cannot cross this ordinary small river in summertime when the water has gone completely, when there is no more water and it is very small, just a little stream – if I cannot cross this little stream, how can I cross this big ocean of the world, bhavasagar? How can I transcend this world? It seems impossible. I am doing something stupid. What to do?”

He came out of the river in the evening and sat under a tree, which became the bodhi tree, and that evening when the moon was coming up – it was a fullmoon night – he realized that every effort is useless. He realized that nothing can be achieved, the very idea of achievement is nonsense. He had done everything. He was finished with the world, with the world of desires. He was a king and he had known every desire, he had lived every desire. He was finished with them, there was nothing to be achieved, there was nothing worthwhile.

And then for six years he had been trying all austerities, all efforts, all meditations, yoga, everything, and nothing was happening. So he said, ”Now there is nothing more except to die. There is nothing to be achieved, and every concept of achievement is nonsense; human desire is but futile.”

So he dropped all effort that evening. He sat under the tree, relaxed, with no effort, no goal, nowhere to go, nothing to be achieved, nothing worth achieving. When you are in such a state of mind, mind relaxes – no future, no desire, no goal, nowhere to go, so what to do? He simply sat, he became just like the tree. The whole night he slept, and later on Buddha said that for the first time he really slept that night – because when effort is there it continues in sleep also.

A person who is earning money and who is after money goes on counting even in his dreams, a person who is after power and prestige and politics goes on fighting elections in his dreams. You all know that when you are sitting for an examination in the university or college, in sleep also you go on doing the examination; again and again you are in the examination hall answering questions. So whatsoever effort is there it continues in sleep – and there is always some effort for something or other.

That night there was no effort. Buddha said, ”I slept for the first time in millions of lives. That was the first night that I slept.” Such a sleep becomes samadhi. And in the morning when he awoke he saw the last star disappear. He looked. His eyes for the first time must have been mirrorlike, with no content, just vacant, empty, nothing to project. The last star was disappearing, and Buddha said, ”With that disappearing star I also disappeared. The star was disappearing and I also disappeared”

– because the ego can exist only with effort. If you make some effort ego is fed – you are doing something, you are reaching somewhere, you are achieving something. When there is no effort how can you exist? The last star disappeared, ”And,” Buddha said, ”I also disappeared. And then I looked, the sky was vacant; then I looked within, there was nothing – anatta, no self, there was no one.”

It is said Buddha laughed at the whole absurdity. There was no one who could reach. There was no one who could reach the goal, there was no one who could achieve liberation – there was no one at all, no entity. Space was without, space was within. ”And,” he said, ”at that moment of total effortlessness I achieved, I realized.” But don’t go to relax under a tree, and don’t wait for the last star to disappear. And don’t wait thinking that with the last star disappearing you will disappear.

Those six years must precede. So this is the problem: without effort no one has ever achieved, with only effort no one has ever achieved. With effort coming to a point where it becomes effortlessness, realization has always been possible. This is what I go on emphasizing for you to do: make as much effort as you can, and don’t withhold any energy. Bring your total energy into it so you get exhausted, so the conscious mind cannot make any more effort. When the conscious cannot do anything, suddenly the unconscious reveals.

And it reveals only when the conscious has become a total failure, only then it is needed – otherwise it goes on sleeping inside. It is just like this. Every human body has three layers of energies. The first layer is only for day-to-day work: eating, sleeping, walking to the office, working in the office, coming home, fighting, making love, anger – routine. The first layer. It has not got very much energy, just routine energy. The second layer is for emergency situations. Unless the first is exhausted the second is not available. You are tired.

You have come from the office, the boss has been very insulting. You come home and the wife is very bad-tempered, the children are creating noise, and the whole house is a mess. You feel tired and dead, and suddenly you find that the house has caught fire, it is on fire. Tiredness disappears immediately. You need not do anything, you don’t even have to take a cup of coffee. Tiredness is no more. The house is on fire, and you have got so much energy that you can work the whole night. From where is this energy coming?

The first layer is exhausted, and an emergency is there – the second layer becomes available. And there is a third layer which is the real source, the source of all energy. You may call it the infinite source, the elan vital. When the second layer is also exhausted, only then the third becomes available. And when the third is available you are totally different: you have become divine, because now the source is infinite, you cannot exhaust it.

We live on the first layer and only sometimes in emergencies, accidents, in some dangerous situations where life is at stake, does the second become available. The third remains almost unavailable. All the effort in spiritual sadhana, discipline, is to exhaust the first. Then austerities, arduous efforts, are to exhaust the second. When the second is exhausted you fall into the ocean, and it can never be exhausted. And from that source, the original source – you may call it God, or whatsoever you like – from that original source, once a contact is made, you are totally different.

This is what liberation means, this is what becoming infinite means, this is what Jesus used to call the kingdom of God. But remember, you cannot just slip into it, it is not available. You have to exhaust the first layer and the second layer, only then it becomes available. Effort is needed to exhaust these layers, and then effortlessness is needed to enter the original source.

So the first thing to be understood: effort is needed, but effort alone is not enough – effort and then effortlessness, effort plus effortlessness. Effort precedes, and then effortlessness follows. Effortlessness is the peak of effort, it comes only when you have reached the peak. And this is so difficult to conceive that there are many misunderstandings.

In Japan, Zen, which is an offshoot of the Indian dhyana, says no effort is needed. And it is right. Because of this Zen has become very influential in the West. And the West has created its own Zen writers – they are Zen writers, not Zen masters. And it has much appeal; no effort is needed, you can become enlightened without any effort. So in the West there are many Zen writers, Zen painters, Zen haiku poets – and they are all bogus, because they have taken this idea. This idea is very appealing, that there is no need of any effort.

If there is no need of any effort, then as you are you are a master, you are enlightened, you have become a siddha. But then look at the Zen monasteries in Japan. If you read Zen scriptures, there it is written that there is no need of effort. But then go to the Zen monastery and look: for twenty years, thirty years, a seeker has to make all the efforts. Then the moment comes when that scripture becomes applicable – then, no effort.

Effort will lead you to no effort, and this is a basic law. You can understand if you try to observe your own life. For example, if in the day you have been working hard, sleep will be deep in the night. If you have been working hard, exerting hard, then sleep will be good. If you have slept well in the night, then in the morning you will be capable of doing much hard work again. Hard work is against relaxation, it is the opposite.

This would be more logical – that you sleep the whole day, rest, and then in the night you fall into deeper sleep because you have been practicing sleep the whole day. This should be the logic – that a man who has been practicing sleep the whole day must sleep better in the night than others who have not been practicing so much.

Mulla Nasruddin once went to his doctor. He had a cold and had been coughing for many days. As he was entering his doctor’s office he coughed. The doctor heard and said, ”Nasruddin, it sounds better.” Nasruddin said, ”Of course it must because I have been practicing for three months.”

But logic is not life. If you sleep and rest the whole day you will not be able to rest at all in the night. That’s what is happening with rich people in affluent societies. Insomnia is a luxury, not everybody can afford it. To attain insomnia you have to rest for the whole day. If you can afford that much rest, only then is insomnia possible. A poor man cannot afford it. He has to fall in deep sleep, he is helpless. He has been working hard the whole day. But work is against rest, so it is not logical – but this is the logic of life.

Life depends on opposites, life depends on opposite polarities. Logic is linear, life is polar. Logic moves in a line, life moves in a circle. So a person who has been relaxing will not be able to relax in the night, a person who has been working hard the whole day will be able to relax. Or look at it from another angle. A person who is always loving, never angry, really cannot be loving. Ordinary logic will say that a person can be loving in the morning, loving in the noon, loving in the evening, loving in the night; always loving in summer, always loving in winter – every season, every moment loving. This love is not humanly possible, because the opposite is needed.

He must sometimes become angry. That anger relaxes, that anger becomes the valley and then peaks of love can arise again. If you want only peaks and no valleys, you are mad. Only peaks cannot exist. With every peak at least two valleys will be needed, and only between two valleys is one peak possible. So a person who is always loving is possible only in two ways. One is that he is not human. That means he must be a buddha, who can be always loving. But then his love cannot have any intensity, his love will be very silent.

His love will not be like a peak, it will be just plain straight ground. That’s why a buddha’s love can only be called compassion, it cannot be called love. There is no passion in it, it is compassion. There can be no intensity in it, because intensity comes from the opposite. A buddha is never angry, so from where can the intensity come? In ordinary life you have to be angry, then you regain love. In marriage there is no need for the final divorce if every day you can divorce a little.

In the morning divorce, in the evening remarriage, then things move beautifully. And if you go on postponing this everyday divorce then finally you will have to break, then separation is a must. Life is polarity, and this applies to everything. Effort plus effortlessness – they are the polar opposites. The ultimate is reached through effort and effortlessness, so don’t cling to one – remember both.

Both the parties exist; there are a few persons who go on clinging to the method, effort, and then they go on making effort. Even if nirvana has been reached they cannot be stopped. They will go on breathing, they will say, ”We cannot stop. Effort is needed.” So even if God is standing before them they will go on doing chaotic breathing; they will not look, they will not look and see what has happened. They are too much attached to the method and the effort. And then there is the other polar opposite party.

They say, ”If no effort is needed then why breathe at all?” So they are sitting just waiting for the last star to disappear so that they can become buddhas. Both are wrong. You have to breathe and you have to stop also. You have to make all efforts and then relax also. If these are both possible, only then will you create the rhythm through which every growth becomes possible. The second thing: ”Are there really discrete stages on the way to the ultimate happening, as this Upanishad seems to suggest?”

There are no stages. Life cannot be divided. But without division there is no possibility for you to understand. I call this part of my body my hand; this part of my body my head – but can they be divided? Where my head begins and where it ends – can you draw the line? Nowhere can the line be drawn. Where my legs end, where my hand ends – can you draw a line? No line can be drawn, because inside I am one – my hands, my legs, my head, they are one. But we have to divide to understand. Division is just to help understanding, it is not actual fact.

So this Upanishad is dividing, not because divisions are there, but because you will not be able to understand the whole. The whole will be too much, too complex. The whole will be incomprehensible, and understanding will not be possible. That’s why the division into seven stages, and that’s why there are so many divisions. You can divide in fourteen, you can divide in seventeen – you can divide into as many as you like. And theologicians go on fighting about these divisions. They are workable, utilitarian – not existential.

Just feel your body, close your eyes and feel. Where are the divisions? It is one. But if your eyes are not functioning well you will go to the eye specialist. And you know that eyes are not separate, they are one with the body, so then why go to the eye specialist? You can go to any doctor. The eye specialist has tried to understand eyes... because eyes in themselves are such a big, such a complex phenomenon, that just to understand those eyes medical science has divided the body in parts.

There are millions of parts in the body, and as science grows more divisions have to be made. But those divisions are just workable, utilitarian – you are not divided.

I have heard one story. Once it happened, one master had two disciples and they both were always competing. Who was the head, who was the chief disciple, was always the competition and the problem. And they were always competing with each other to gain the master’s heart. One summer afternoon the master was tired and was sleeping. The disciples wanted to serve him, to massage his body, so the master said, ”Okay. Number one, you take my left side. Number two, you take my right side and massage.” The master fell asleep.

They drew a line with chalk on his body, because one should not enter into the other’s territory. But it happened the master was not aware that he had been divided. He was fast asleep, and he didn’t know that now he was not one, but two. So he moved in his sleep, and put his right leg on his left. The disciple to whom the left leg belonged said, ”Take away your right leg. Remove it immediately! You are interfering with my work. This is a transgression ”But the other said, ”I cannot remove it. I have not put it on your leg.

And if you have any courage, then remove it yourself and see what happens!” Now they were standing with two sticks, and they were almost going to beat the master. Suddenly the master became aware that something was wrong, so he asked, ”What is happening?” Both said, ”You need not interfere. Remain silent and go to sleep. We will decide by ourselves.” All divisions are workable, life remains one. The path and the goal and the stages, they are just to help you, so don’t take them dogmatically and don’t take them literally.

These seven stages are just to help you, to give you a view of the whole path. When you have understood forget that they are seven. But until you have understood follow the division. When you have understood forget the division – it is one progression, one flow.

And thirdly: ”Does this happening occur suddenly and unexpectedly?” Both things can be said. It cannot be predicted, so it happens suddenly. Nobody can say when it will happen. My own disciples go on asking me, ”When? Give the date, the day, the month, the year!” And I have to go on lying to them. I go on saying, ”Soon!” Soon doesn’t mean anything. And soon is a beautiful word, because I need never change it. Whenever you ask I will say, ”Soon!” The happening is unpredictable because it is so vast a phenomenon.

And it is not mechanical, it is not mathematical, so you cannot conclude about it. And it is very mysterious; when it has happened, only then you know that it has happened. So in a sense, because it is unpredictable it is always sudden. Even you don’t know when it will happen. Suddenly one day when it has happened you become aware that it has happened. Not even a single moment before will you be aware that this is going to happen. You will become aware only when it has happened already.

Then you will feel that you are no more the same, the man who was there has disappeared and a new man is there in his place – somebody new. You are unacquainted, you cannot recognize yourself. There has been a gap, the old continuity has been broken and something new has come into its place. Even your master cannot predict it. He may become aware that something is going to happen, but he cannot predict it. There are problems – because even the prediction will change the whole situation.

This is the problem, even the prediction will change it. If I become aware that something is going to happen to you tomorrow morning, I cannot say it because that will change the whole situation. If I say, ”Tomorrow morning this is going to happen,” you will become tense and you will start expecting and you will start waiting. You will not be able to sleep in the night. Then the whole thing is finished, then it is not going to happen tomorrow morning.

Even if your master becomes aware... because there are signs that show that something is going to happen. Your master can see that you are pregnant, he can feel, but it is not such a fixed affair that within nine months the child will be born. You may take nine years, you may take nine lives, you may not take even nine days; even nine moments may be enough. It depends, and it depends on such multidimensional things that nothing can be said. And if something is said, the very assertion will change the whole situation.

So the master has to wait, just watch and not say anything. In this sense it is sudden, but in another sense it is not sudden, because you have to make efforts for it, you have to prepare. You have to prepare the ground, you have to open the doors. The guest may come suddenly, but if your doors are closed he may come and go back. So you have to open the doors, you have to clean the house, you have to prepare food for the guest – you have to be ready. You have to watch and wait at the door – any moment the guest can come.

Jesus goes on telling one anecdote many times. Once it happened, a great landlord went on a journey. He told all his slaves and servants, ”Be alert constantly. Even in the night the house must be ready because I can come any moment. In the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening, at midnight – any moment I can come, and my house must be ready, waiting for me. So twenty-four hours you have to watch and wait. Don’t go to sleep!”

And so the servants had to wait and watch. There was no difference between day and night – the master could come any moment. Jesus used to say, ”Your master also can come any moment – you have to be ready. And if you are ready, your readiness also becomes a factor for his coming soon. If you are completely ready he may come back from midjourney. If your whole being is calling him, inviting him, he may come this very moment.”

The happening can happen any moment if you are ready. It is sudden because unpredictable; it is sudden because you cannot plan, calculate; it is sudden because it is not mechanical. But still you have to prepare for it, you have to be ready for it, and you have to do much before it can happen. It is just as if you sow a seed in the ground. You prepare the ground and sow the seed – the right seed in the right season in a right place – and then wait. The sprouting will be sudden, you cannot determine it.

You cannot say that on Monday morning the sprout will be there. It may not be, it may be, because millions of factors are working. Now scientists say that even music helps. If somebody is dancing and singing near that ground where you have sown the seed, it may help the seed to sprout quickly. If the moon is rising it will help the seed to sprout soon. If the moon is declining it will take more time.

You may not be aware that fullmoon night is different from any other night. More children are born on fullmoon night, more than on any other night. The highest number of children born is on the fullmoon night, and the lowest number is on the no-moon night. That factor goes on working; the whole constellation goes on working – every star is a factor. Even a beggar sitting there near your house and singing will help. If somebody passes, sad, miserable, the seed is affected; that sadness hinders.

There are millions of factors, unpredictable, complex, mysterious – but still you have to prepare everything. So don’t wait for the sudden. ”Sudden” doesn’t mean that you need not do anything and it will happen any moment, suddenly. You will have to prepare, and then too it will happen suddenly. Your preparation will help, but it cannot plan, it cannot force.