The Sound of Silence

A friend shared this with me, it's an excerpt from the teachings of Osho, who, as I understand, is a... professor of philosophy who spread his alternate views on religion, spirituality, socialism, religion, sexuality and more. I am neither believer nor follower - but the excerpt below has some very interesting view points on 'living in the present' and meditation. Take what you can from it.

In the East we call this state meditation: no belief, no thought, no desire, no prejudice, no conditioning – in fact, no mind at all. A state of no-mind is meditation. When you can look without any mind interfering, distorting, interpreting, then you see the truth. The truth is already all around; just you have to put your mind aside.

The seeker has to fulfill only one basic thing: he has to drop his mind. The moment the mind is dropped, a great silence arises – because the mind carries your whole past; all the memories of the past go on hankering for your attention, they go on crowding upon you, they don't leave any space within you.

And the mind also means future. Out of the past you star t fantasizing about the future. It is a projection out of the past. You have lived a certain life in the past: there have been a few moments of joy and many many dark nights. You would not like to have those dark nights; you would have your future to be full of those joyous moments. So you sort out from your past: you choose few things and you project them in the future, and you choose a few other things and you try to avoid them in the future. Your future is only nothing but a refined past – a little bit modified here and there, but it is still the past because that's all that you know.

And one thing very significant to be remembered: those few moments of joy that you had in the past were basically par t of those long dark nights, so if you choose those moments those dark nights will come automatically; you cannot avoid them. The silver linings in the dark clouds cannot be chosen separately from the dark clouds. In the dark night you see the sky full of stars; in the day those stars disappear. Do you think they evaporate? They are still there, but the context is missing. They need darkness; only then you can see them. In the night, you will be able to see them again. Darker the night, the more shining are the stars.

In life everything is inter twined with each other. Your pleasures are inter twined with your pains, your ecstasies mixed inevitably, inseparably with your agonies. So your whole idea of the future is sheer nonsense. You cannot manage it, nobody has ever been able to manage it, because you are trying to do something which cannot be done in the very nature of things. It will be simply a repetition of your past.

Whatsoever you desire is not going to make any difference. It will be again and again a repetition of your past, the same past, maybe a little bit different, but not because of your expectations – a little bit different because life goes on changing, people go on changing, existence goes on changing. So there will be few differences but not basic differences, only in the non-essential par ts. Essentially it will be the same tragedy.

Dropping the mind means dropping the past, and with it of course the future disappears. Dropping the mind means you are suddenly awakened into the present, and the present is the only reality there is. Past is non-existential, so is future. Past is no more, future is not yet, only the present is. It is always now – only the now exists. And the meditator starts merging and melting with the now. And that's what silence is. It can be conveyed, Gotz Hagmuller, to your radio listeners. Just these pauses... these wordless moments... when you star t feeling the now, the here... when suddenly you become aware that five thousand people are sitting here, but as if there is nobody at all. The Buddha Hall is absolutely empty. When we are in the present... silence descends. You can hear the birds chirping, but they don't disturb the silence – they enhance it, they beautify it.

Take my message to your people. First: freedom is the ultimate goal and socialism goes against it, hence I favor a state of laissez-faire. Secondly: nobody can practice religion. Religion really means your spontaneity, your nature. You cannot practice it, you have to allow it. You have to remove all the barriers that prevent the flow of your nature. It is like a stream prevented by rocks: remove the rocks. There is no question of practicing; it is already there. It is your nature! When the hindrances are no more there you star t flowing, just like a river moving towards the ocean.

Each consciousness moving towards God, towards the ultimate ocean, is religious. Religion is neither Christian nor Hindu nor Mohammedan. These are all political games played in the name of religion. A religious person is simply religious, natural, spontaneous, living out of his own light.Buddha said to his disciples, and this was his last message on the ear th: "Be a light unto yourself " – live according to your own light, not following and practicing somebody else's light, because that will make you only a carbon copy, and howsoever beautiful the carbon copy is it is still a carbon copy. Discover your originality, and it cannot be done by practicing. Practicing means imposing some ideas from others, trying to act as others would like you to act. Act as you would like to act. Take the risk – it is dangerous.

To be religious is to live in danger – it is not security. To live in religion means constantly exploring the unknown and ultimately the unknowable. And thirdly: be a seeker, never be a believer. If you cannot say, "I know God," please don't say, "I believe in God," because that is falsifying. That is even not being true about God, not even being sincere with God. With whom you are going to be sincere then? If you don't know, say, "I don't know." At least that is true. Don't pretend that you know because pretensions are dangerous. They will deceive others and they can deceive yourself too.

And only a seeker can become a meditator. Meditation means absolute silence. It is only in silence that one comes to know, one comes to love, one comes to dance in tune with existence.

~Osho~

Candles

Candles are a paradox.

Bombs are going off all around the city, seasons are changing all around the world. People are dying every day and the bombs are coming closer and closer every day. And somehow the common careless statements of disdain that say 'he should be shot.hung.castrated!' are just becoming bad tasteless jokes. Inappropriate.

Two people lost their lives less than two hours ago, and ten more families are tense with worry - for loved ones clinging on to life or clinging on to the hope of recovery. In another town, the 90-something year old woman lies in her coma-induced stupor as her system shuts down... one by one by one... people say it's a matter of time. Somehow, I do see her making it. God doesn't tell us with so much certainty that it's time to prepare for the end of the road. That it's a coming, so be with her in her last moments. Those two people did not know as they held on the sour-metal railings of the bus, or as they were crossing the road, or as they were doing their groceries thinking 'costs have gone up again, hm, what's for dinner tonight', or whatever was going through their minds less than two hours ago, it wasn't death. God didn't tell them, did He. Or did He? I wouldn't know. What is it like to die, really? Does one feel a sense of calm? Does instinct take over and does one remember the best moments of life before the shrapenl hits, before the darkness closes in? Or does it come and encase you like a sudden blanket of cold fog that smothers the life out of you and you are powerless to do anything about?

Are you ready to meet death, if he comes a-knocking this very next moment? Will you greet him with open arms? Or will you shy away from him, afraid because you have not atoned for your sins? Because you have not told that one person, two people, ten people that you love them? That you haven't made peace with your family? Regret those careless words and famiyl squabbles that u didn't really intend? Will they ever know? But then if you're dead, you don't have to live with remorse, do you. Or do you, in the next life/world?

Remorse. Remorseful. Remorse-ridden. Regret. Regretful. Regret-ridden. The dullness in your eyes, the absence of that spark. So may ways to say it. Just one powerful emotion.

In that same other town, a farewell party was planned. Rain and all, it was expected to still go down in a blaze of glory, a final salute to a departing soldier. A soldier armed with words and opinions, values and beliefs. The alcohol flowed and the laughter rang rich and clear, memories were recounted, stories were polaroid-pictured, frozen in time. With one celebration, another candle died.

It's funny about candles, you know. People light candles and say, 'oh if it stays alight, it's a sign of good things'. Don't they know if it stays alight, its going to melt to the ground anyway?

Seasons are changing and the waves are crashing and the world goes round and round and round and round and round.

They ask me, are you done writing. I dont know if i have even begun.

...

Originally Written
9:04pm Monday, Nov 5, 2007

i need to throw up.