SPARE A THOUGHT.....

At the end of winning a rat race, we are still a rat.

February 06, 2006

Master quotes....

It is good that the desire for enlightenment seems far away, because the desire for enlightenment is the greatest barrier in attaining it.It is one of the eternal questions for the seekers of truth. On the one hand the masters go on saying, "Attain enlightenment," and on the other hand they go on saying, "Don't desire it." And it has been a great puzzle for the poor disciple. The master is saying both things: desire it, and don't desire it. Desire it because it is the only thing desirable; don't desire it because desire becomes a barrier.Not to create that puzzle for you, my way of working has been different. Just being with you, talking or not talking, just giving my whole heart to you and creating a situation in which you can taste something of enlightenment... even that small taste of enlightenment will be enough for you to stop here and now in this moment. You will forget all desires, enlightenment included.If a situation can be created in which you are so blissful, so contented, that just for a moment there is no desire in your mind, you have learned a great lesson – that if this state of no-desire can continue every moment, you need not bother about enlightenment: it will come to you. You have not to go to it. It is not an object sitting somewhere that you have to desire and find and work hard and go to it. It is simply your own state when there is no desire.This desirelessness is the most blissful state possible, and enlightenment is another name for it. Knowing it even for one moment is enough, because you are never given by life two moments together; it is always one moment. And if you know the secret, the alchemy of transforming this moment, you know the whole secret of transforming life, because the next moment will also be the same. You can do to it what you have done before; you can continue in desirelessness.Being in my presence... I am using it as a device to avoid any confusion and puzzle in your mind. I can give you the taste, and then the taste will take care of you. First, the desire for enlightenment will look so far away, and by and by you will forget all about it because you will be in it; it will be within you. And certainly in the beginning it looks like a beautiful dream, because we are accustomed to reality and its ugliness. We know beauty only in dreams.So whenever something like this happens to you even while you are fully awake, it feels as if it is a dream. Reality cannot be so nourishing, so tremendously beautiful, so magnificent: reality cannot have this magic. But I tell you, reality is more magical than any dream. It is more beautiful than any dream; it is more poetic than the greatest poetries of the world.The reality that we know is not the true reality; it is the reality seen through an ugly mind which projects itself on reality. We don't see the real; we always see it colored with our own prejudices, ideas, our whole mind. And even that we see only while running. We never relax. We are always constantly on the run, knowing not where we are going. It is just that something seems to be missing, and we are trying to find it everywhere, in all directions. And we will not find it anywhere, because this mind will always be between you and the real, distorting the real.If you are receptive in my presence, if you are loving, your mind leaves you for a moment – it has to leave you. Something more important than your mind is happening. That's what love means. You can even sacrifice yourself – in trust you sacrifice the mind, and the moment the mind is put aside and you see eye to eye with reality, it is so beautiful, indescribably beautiful. And certainly in those moments you will feel that you don't even want to be enlightened. If this reality can go on and on forever, then what more can enlightenment give you?And you are right, because this is the beginning of enlightenment. You have got just a glimpse, and even the glimpse makes you drop the desire for enlightenment – and dropping the desire makes enlightenment easily possible. It simply happens. One day suddenly you wake up in the morning and you are not the same person, and with your change the whole existence has changed. And then it is not a question of doing something to keep it; it remains with you.In fact, even if you want to drop it, you cannot drop it. You cannot go back; you can only go forward. And one day, that day also comes in your life when enlightenment becomes so natural to you – just like breathing, just like the heartbeat, just like the blood running through your veins – that you don't even feel it. And the blood is going really fast, round and round from feet to head, but we don't feel it; we are born with it, we are accustomed to it.When enlightenment becomes just a natural phenomenon, then the last mystery opens its door: one goes even beyond enlightenment. Going beyond enlightenment means one becomes just ordinary, part of this vast universe – without any claim, without any superiority, without any ego. One simply dissolves in the ocean of reality, just like a dewdrop in the morning sun slipping from the lotus leaf into the ocean. That is the last... Then there is nothing else left to happen; you have become the ocean.Enlightenment still keeps something of you... very fragile, but there is still some idea of "I." And because of enlightenment, not knowingly, you are superior and you feel superior. That's why the last step, when even that smallest part of "I" also dissolves... now you are neither superior nor inferior: you are not. Existence is. Buddha calls it nirvana. He has chosen the best word for it.
-Osho,quoted from The Path of the Mystic

No comments: