16.05.12 11:48
16.05.12 12:24
16.05.12 21:46
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It happened once that a friend of Mark Twain's, a great religious preacher, invited him to come to his talk. He had been inviting him many times down the years and Mark Twain would not go, but that day he said, 'Okay, I am coming.' The priest prepared his talk, as beautiful a talk as he had ever delivered -- and he was a great preacher. Thousands of people listened to him in deep rapture. Mark Twain was just sitting in front of him, and that was his climax. The audience was spell-bound, as if there was nobody... there was such dense silence -- and the speaker was again and again looking from the corner of his eyes at Mark Twain, at what was happening to him -- and he was sitting there, bored! When they were going back in the car, for a few minutes the preacher could not gather courage to ask. Then eventually when Mark Twain was getting out of the car at his house, he asked, 'Can I ask you how it was? Did you like it?' Mark Twain said, 'All nonsense and all borrowed. By chance I have been reading a book these days and all that you said is in that book.' The preacher could not believe, because he had not copied from anywhere. Maybe a few sentences could be found here and there, but the whole speech? And Mark Twain said, 'Word by word, you have simply repeated. It is a robbery.' The preacher said, 'I would like to see the book.' The next day Mark Twain sent him the book. It was a dictionary. Of course, in a dictionary every word is there.
Every poem can be reduced to the alphabet, but poetry is not just alphabet. All Buddha's sayings can be reduced to the alphabet, but those sayings are not just alphabet. That's what Freud has done -- he has reduced all love into sex. Sex is only the alphabet of love, bricks out of which you can make a Taj Mahal. But Taj Mahal is not just bricks. You can pile up bricks; it will not become a Taj Mahal. Taj Mahal is a composition of infinite love, of infinite creativity. Bricks are only the visible part of it. Taj Mahal is something invisible. Bricks have made that invisible visible in a certain way and you can feel it. Bricks help the invisible to be felt, but the bricks are not the invisible. Sex is just like bricks. And if you go on piling sex, one is bound to feel in tears. People look at each other, but they don't look at each other at all. They are just looking for the sex object. A woman passes. Have you ever seen a woman as a being? Sometimes you become interested in a woman, but not as a being. You feel a certain attraction, but not as a being, but as a sex object. Or sometimes you are repelled, that too is sexual. Or sometimes you are not interested -- bored, neither repelled nor attracted, just indifferent -- but that too is sexual.
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the man of God
There are books written against Jesus in which people have tried to prove that he was mad. And of course when Mahavir was walking on the streets, naked, ecstatic, people must have thought him mad. He was driven out of towns, cities; shelter was not given to him. Down the centuries the man of God has always been thought of as mad. The reason is simple: if he is sane then you are all insane, then the majority is insane. The majority cannot accept the fact. It is easier, more comfortable to call him insane.
But remember something George Bernard Shaw once said. Somebody was saying, "Millions of people believe this. How can they be wrong?" And George Bernard Shaw said, "If millions of people believe it, how can they be right?" Millions of people and being in the right? -- impossible. The greater the crowd, the less is the possibility of truth.
Truth has been available to only a few individuals. Why? Because only a few dare to enter into that madness. Only a few dare to put their reasoning, cunningness, argument aside. Life is not logic; it goes beyond it.
And not only the mystics say so; now even the physicists -- who are not mystics at all -- what they are saying is incredible. Let me quote a few things. The physicists are now saying the same old nonsense as the mystics used to in the ancient days. The so-called rationalists have always called those mystics mad. Certainly whatsoever they say does not follow ordinary reason; it is something beyond. Now listen to what physicists are saying; they speak of a universe which is finite but unconfined. They say the universe is expanding, but expanding into nothing. They also tell us that electrons are capable of passing through space without make use of the term "quark" to describe a particle of which taking any time to do it. They are now even proposing to the essential property is that when three of them combine, their collective weight is less than that of any of them by itself, although nothing has been lost by their conjunction.
It is absurd. It cannot be so according to ordinary logic. But if you ask the physicist he says, "What can we do? We are helpless. It is so. We cannot change the reality. Just to adjust to your logic, we cannot change the reality. And the reality does not believe in your Aristotles. It does not suffer from Aristotle-itis. It does not bother about what your logic says; it goes on its own way." So the physicists say, "What can we do? Change your logic. If it looks mad, maybe the universe is mad."
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I am going to be the last
The story is that Gautam Buddha reaches the door of nirvana -- and once you enter the door you disappear into the universe. The doors are opened, the doorkeeper welcomes him. But Buddha refuses to enter the door and he says, "I will stay here outside the door, because millions of my fellow travellers are groping in the dark. I will try in every possible way to help them. Unless every living being has passed through the door, I will wait. I am going to be the last." This is not just a parable, not just a fictitious story, but something absolutely factual in the world of mysticism. It is not factual in the world of matter; it is factual in the world of the spirit. J. Krishnamurti was prepared by very learned scholars who had found in all the scriptures -- Tibetan, Chinese, Japanese, and Indian -- the promise of Buddha that after twenty-five centuries he would be coming back: "I will find a way. I cannot come through a womb but I can enter into a living being, can merge my soul with his soul." When the theosophists found this, they started searching for somebody who could be prepared -- in purity, in discipline, in meditation, consciously -- so that he can become a vehicle of Lord Maitreya. They worked really hard on J. Krishnamurti. He was not the only one they worked on. They had chosen at least five children of immense intelligence, and they worked on all five. One of the five was Nityananda, Krishnamurti's elder brother. He died; he died because of too much arduous discipline. He was immensely intelligent. He would have become a great scientist, a great philosopher, but he was not meant to become a great mystic -- and perhaps not a vehicle of Gautam Buddha. Training those five -- and when Nityananda died, the four -- slowly it became clear that Krishnamurti was the best out of the four. One was Raj Gopal, who was made personal secretary to J. Krishnamurti. And he betrayed J. Krishnamurti because he carried that resentment for his whole life. He was chosen for the same purpose, and finally he was just made a personal private-secretary. He was angry, resentful, but he didn't show it. He was the managing trustee of all the properties that belonged to the organization which was created for Krishnamurti; its name was "The Star of the East." The royalties for all of Krishnamurti’s books were going to Raj Gopal. And he simply betrayed J. Krishnamurti. He simply said, "You have nothing to do with the organization, the money, the books, the royalties." At the age of eighty-five, Krishnamurti had to begin again from ABC.
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von dichten kreisförmigen Scheiben umgeben
Das Innere des Planeten Jupiter besteht nicht, wie bislang angenommen, aus metallischem Wassereis, sondern aus einer teerartigen Substanz. Zu diesem Schluss kommt jetzt eine Forscherin auf Basis der Messungen der amerikanischen Raumsonde Galileo, die von 1995 bis 2003 den Jupiter umkreist hat. Galileos Messungen hatten gezeigt, dass die Atmosphäre Jupiters weniger Wasser aber mehr Kohlenstoff als erwartet enthält. Bislang waren die Planetenforscher davon ausgegangen, dass Jupiter einen Kern aus gefrorenem Wasser besitzt, das durch den großen Druck im Planeteninneren in einen metallischen Zustand übergeht. Lodders schlägt ein neues Szenario für die Entstehung des Riesenplaneten vor: Demnach hat sich zunächst ein fester Planetenkern aus teerartigen organischen Substanzen und Felsbrocken gebildet. Nachdem dieser Proto-Planet genügend angewachsen war, begann er mit seiner Schwerkraft, das Gas in seiner Umgebung "einzusammeln" - so entstand schließlich der heutige Gasriese Jupiter. Im bisherigen Szenario dagegen bildete sich zunächst ein Kern aus gefrorenem Wasser. Lodders ist jedoch davon überzeugt, dass die Entstehungsregion des Jupiters zu warm dafür war. Kosmische Gaswolken, Meteoriten und Kometen enthalten aber viele organische Substanzen - komplexe Moleküle auf der Basis von Kohlenstoff. Es gibt reichlich organische Stoffe im Weltall und Jupiter ist reich an Kohlenstoff, es ist also sinnvoll anzunehmen, dass diese organischen Stoffe und nicht Wassereis den `Klebstoff´ für die schnelle Entstehung des Proto-Jupiter bildeten. In der Frühzeit des Sonnensystems veränderten sich nach und nach die Planetenbahnen von Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus und Neptun. Die vier Riesenplaneten waren nach ihrer Geburt von dichten kreisförmigen Scheiben aus Staub, Eispartikeln und kleinen Gesteinsbrocken umgeben. Im Lauf der Zeit lenkten die Schwerefelder der Planeten diese Bruchstücke von ihrer ursprünglichen Bahn ab, so dass sie sowohl in Richtung Sonne als auch von ihr weg gestreut wurden. Diese Wechselwirkung beeinflusste gleichzeitig auch die Planetenbahnen: Jupiter bewegte sich etwas nach innen, während die anderen Riesenplaneten etwas nach außen abgelenkt wurden. Anfänglich war das ein sehr langsamer Prozess. Das änderte sich jedoch, als der Saturn eine Sonnenumlaufbahn erreichte, die genau doppelt so lang war wie die des Jupiters.
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the sacrificial offering of candles
Dating back almost 2,000 years, Taoism has enjoyed a tremendous world-wide renaissance over the last several decades. People everywhere have accepted Taoism into their homes with Feng Shui, into their athletic lives with taijiquan, into their medical and health care with acupuncture, qigong, and even into their religious lives.
Candles are used almost universally in religious ritual, and Taoist ritual is no exception. Taoists have long made the sacrificial offering of candles - with their light, fire, warmth, and illumination - a central part of Taoist practice. Many Temples continuously burn a supply of candles, resulting in an "eternal flame" much like the ones the West uses at the Olympics, in cemeteries, etc. No Taoist ritual is complete without a candle offering to the God.
Singing is another of their methods. They have chosen very aesthetic methods, not hard, but very soft methods, feminine methods, Taoist methods. They sing and they are lost completely in their singing. If you are lost in your singing, you are lost in 'the soundless sound'. And their singing and dancing is not a ritualized thing. There is no ritual. They don't follow any ritual. This has to be understood, because this is very, very fundamental for them.
This earth is filled with the darkness of blind belief. And blind belief is so ancient that it seems that blind belief is life itself. Do you believe in god? Then you are a blind believer. God is to be known, nothing will happen through believing. Belief is very cheap. Belief is not worth two cents. One who believes is irreligious. He has to be known. Anything less than knowing will not do. But for knowing one must gather courage. For knowing the moth must become a burning candle. And for knowing one must give ones life as an offering. For knowing life has to be put at stake. Religion is not for the curious, religion is not merely an itch on the skin -- religion is gambling with life. This is why only a few courageous people have become religious. Religion is not for the fearful, it is not for cowards. Cowards become escapists. Religion is for those who in the war of life, accept the challenges of life in their totality. Who live life, live life completely. Who don't escape, who don't become afraid, and who are not shaking. Those who brace their feet and take on the struggles of life. From this very struggle the soul is born. In these very challenges the soul ripens, the being is strengthened.
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die Bausteine des Steinkreises von Stonehenge
Am 13. Juni diesen Jahres, um 11:00 Uhr am Morgen, waren sechs junge Leute auf dem Weg zum Tempelberg, in der Nähe der Stadt Obrowiec, um einem Freund aus Deutschland diesen Ort zu zeigen. Ein Augenzeuge: "Wir waren auf dem Weg und meine Schwester, die am Ende der Reihe lief, machte Fotos mit einem Handy. Als wir uns die Fotos ansahen, bemerkten wir, dass auf einem der Bilder eine mysteriöse, leuchtende Gestalt zu sehen war. Wir dachten zuerst, dass die Sonne einen von uns so beleuchtet hat, aber zu dieser Zeit war da niemand von uns. Einige dachten, dass uns jemand einen Streich spielen wollte. Das Foto verblüffte uns. Da war diese leuchtende Figur eines Mannes zwischen zwei von den Jungen." Der Tempelberg ist von alten Bäumen umgeben und im 13. bis 14. Jahrhundert war dort ein Sitz des Templerordens. Der Berg hat einen schlechten Ruf und er wird als Ort beschrieben, wo Gespenster umgehen. Es ranken sich viele Legenden um den Tempelberg. So wird erzählt, dass es in früheren Zeiten nur eine Kirche in der Umgebung gegeben hat, das Kloster von St. Anna. Kurz vor Ostern machte sich ein Mönch auf den Weg in Richtung der Ortschaften Zuzela, Brozec und Stradunia um dort zu predigen. Auf seinem Rückweg wurde er von Rittern der Templer überfallen und beraubt. Der Mönch verfluchte den Ort des Verbrechens und die Templerburg brach zusammen. Seit dieser Zeit gibt es von der Festung nur noch einen Wall und einen Graben und die Geheimnisse um den Ort. Ein anderes Erlebnis geschah im Jahr 1994 oder 1995. Eine Gruppe Touristen wanderte entlang der Oder. In der Nähe des Tempelbergs schlugen sie ihr Lager auf. In der Nacht um 2:00 Uhr klopften sie an die Tür eines, in der Nähe gelegenen, Hauses und schrieen dass etwas Weißes an ihre Zelte klopfen würde. Sie wurden von dem Wesen berührt und es rannte um ihre Zelte herum. Die Touristen sollen nach diesem Vorfall sehr verängstigt gewesen sein.
Bisher galt es als gesichert, dass die Bausteine des Steinkreises von Stonehenge, aus den 240 Meilen entfernten Preseli Bergen in Wales, mittels Menschenkraft herantransportiert wurden. Was bisher als gigantische Arbeits-, Organisations- und Koordinationsleistung galt, wird jetzt von einer neuen Theorie in Frage gestellt. Forscher glauben nun, dass die tonnenschweren Blausteine durch Gletscherbewegung während der Eiszeit in die Salisbury Plains gebracht und dann bearbeitet wurden. Dies wollen die Wissenschaftler aus geochemischen Analysen erkannt haben. Dennoch wird die Debatte um die Frage, wie die riesigen Steinblöcke, aus denen die Monolithe für den Steinkreis geformt wurden, nach Stonehenge kamen, weitergehen - ebenso die Frage nach dem Warum.
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the West has not developed the master/ disciple relationship yet
The true will is not yours. It is the whole speaking through you, functioning through you. The false gives you the idea of great ego -- "I am somebody" -- and the true takes all ego away. It makes you a nothingness, a nobody. Only through your nobodiness the whole can function unhindered.
Taoism is a device to surrender the false. Tao means you surrender your ego.
And the man of tao is one who has surrendered his will already, who exists no more as a person, who is only a presence, a window into Tao. And when you surrender to the window you are surrendering to the sky beyond. The window will only make the sky available.
The West has not developed the technique of the master/ disciple relationship yet. A few rare individuals tried, but they failed. Socrates was trying in Athens but he failed; he was not listened to. Jesus was trying again; he failed. The West has remained concerned, concentratedly focused on the false. It believes in the ego. The East believes in egolessness.
The Western psychology says to make the ego stronger. It is a psychology of the false -- rooted in the false, supporting the false. The East says: Let the ego melt, disappear, and evaporate. It is the psychology of egolessness. This is a totally different standpoint.
Gurdjieff was again trying to bring the East to the West. He also failed. It is very difficult; centuries are against it, and the hypnosis and the conditioning of the society is against it. Even his own chief disciple, P.D. Ouspensky, could not understand him, misunderstood him. He betrayed him, just as Judas betrayed Jesus.
And do you know? -- Judas was the most cultured, educated person amongst Jesus' disciples; hence he must have had the most polished ego. He was an intellectual. The other followers were simple people: fishermen, carpenters, tax collectors, gamblers, drunkards, prostitutes -- simple people. The only person who was not simple was Judas; he was complex. He could have been a professor in Oxford or Cambridge or Harvard and he would have done perfectly well as a professor -- he was a good arguer. There are a few moments when he even argues with Jesus. And if you listen to the argument you will agree with Judas, you will not agree with Jesus.
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it is so much just to live
The priests are happy with the miserable world. They were very unhappy with pagans, so unhappy with pagans that the very word "pagan" became condemnatory. Christianity, Judaism, the whole West, uses the word in a very derogatory sense. The word has to be freed from these criminals and their hands. They have destroyed a beautiful word. Once the pagan existed on the earth and he was as happy as any other animal; he knew nothing of misery. He loved, he lived, never bothering about ultimate questions and problems. He enjoyed eating, drinking -- the simple things of life, not making everything a problem. The pagans have disappeared from the world. Religions destroyed them everywhere, all over the world. All the religions have been against the pagans because if pagans exist then there is no possibility for religions. They cannot coexist because the pagan is not interested in what happens after death. He is not interested in what happened before birth. He says, "Between birth and death, it is so much just to live. First let me finish this -- don't bring in unnecessary things to waste my time. Right now I am in the middle of life, let me live it. When I am in death I will try to live it too, but why should I bother about death now? -- because I don't remember ever bothering about life before. Right now life is in my hands, and I want to squeeze the whole juice out of it." Lao Tzu is a pagan. That's why in his writings you will not find God mentioned, or heaven and hell talked about. He is solely concerned with here and now. He lived that way. Once Confucius had asked him, "People ask me about death but I don't know anything about death. Perhaps -- you are older and wiser, and you love to move into dangerous spaces of consciousness -- perhaps you have some idea about death." Lao Tzu said, "Without dying, there is no way to know death. Commit suicide; go and jump from the hill and you will know what death is. The only way to know is to live it. Asking about death, trying to find an answer about death, is silly. Right now try to live; otherwise you will miss this too. And mind my advice that you are not going to live forever; soon you will be dead. Then, Lying in your grave, meditate upon death as long as you want -- nobody will disturb you. But don't waste your lifetime thinking about death, because those are the people who, when they are dying, will be thinking of life. That's how their mind functions. They are never where they are.”
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food is given at the right time every day
 Freedom brings more responsibility than slavery. Slavery has no responsibility. It seems most of the people in the world are happier with slavery than with freedom, because in slavery they have to do something. Somebody is goading them continuously to do it! In freedom, nobody is there to force them.
A strict discipline, order -- good names for slavery.
In the French revolution there was one central jail, which was only for people with lifelong imprisonment. Their chains had no keys, because the locks were never to be opened. When they died, then their hands would be broken and the chains taken off. The revolutionaries thought that all those people, almost two thousand, who had been living in the jail for their whole life -- somebody had lived there for fifty years, somebody for forty years, somebody for thirty years -- should be released. But do you know what those prisoners said? "We don't want to be released." The man who had been there for fifty years -- he was caught when he was twenty -- said, "I have completely forgotten the outside world, and here life is more comfortable. Food is given at the right time every day; we don't have to bother about it. And my eyes have become accustomed to this dark cell in which I have lived for fifty years. And these heavy chains on my hands and on my feet have become almost part of my body. Without them I will feel something is missing. I don't think I can even sleep without them." But revolutionaries are revolutionaries -- they forced them. They cut their chains and forced them to get out of the prison. But by the evening almost everybody was coming back. They said, "Outside, our eyes hurt; that much sun we cannot tolerate. Who is going to give us food? For fifty years, getting food without any trouble -- now we don't know any skill to earn our livelihood. Who is going to give us clothes? And the greatest problem is: we cannot sleep without the chains. Please give us our chains back! And we want to sleep in our dark cells." The revolutionaries could not believe it. But this is a reality of all human beings.
Why should anybody else take your responsibility? You have to be responsible for yourself.
But that is possible only if you accept your responsibility.
And your freedom will be only in proportion to your responsibility -- neither less nor more.
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from objectivity to subjectivity
Religion tries to look at man from the innermost core -- not as an object but as a subjectivity. That's why religion can declare that man is god. Psychology cannot declare that. Psychology is still struggling with the stupid idea of objectivity, that man has to be observed as an object. Then you will miss the real thing. As an object, man is only a body, at the most a brain. You can watch his behavior just as you watch the behavior of rats. And they are the same, as far as behavior is concerned there is not much difference. The difference is somewhere else, in the subjectivity. Meditation is the one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn from objectivity to subjectivity. You stop looking at man from the outside. First you start looking at yourself from your innermost core; you stand there and you look at yourself from there, and you become as big as the universe. In that moment great freedom descends. That moment is the moment of nirvana, enlightenment. Unbounded, without any boundaries. That's our reality. All boundaries are illusory. Ordinarily we think that our boundary is our body. The sun is far away but if the sun dies we will die immediately. There are millions of miles distance, but the sun is somehow part of our body. Otherwise, why should we die? The sun may live, may die, it should be irrelevant to us. It is not. We continuously breathe air in and out. Not for a single moment are we in a state of non-communication with existence -- although we are not continuously aware of it. Buddha tried very much to emphasise breathing, for the simple reason that if you become aware of breathing you will become aware of your unboundedness. The breath that is in me was part of somebody else, now it is part of me. And soon it will be part of somebody else. We absorb oxygen and release carbon dioxide; the trees absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen. Without trees we cannot exist, without us trees cannot exist. So we are related, joined. Even the smallest blade of grass is part of the greatest star, and the greatest star is part of the smallest blade of grass. Existence is one. To understand this is to experience god. God is not somebody, god is not a person, but this experience of oneness, this experience of unboundedness. Jesus says that god is love. It is a tremendously important statement. Nobody before him has said that. In fact before him the Judaic god was a very angry god, a very jealous god. In the Old Testament he declares, I am a very jealous god. With jealousy love is impossible. And the very idea of god being jealous and angry is ugly. It has nothing to do with god because it is simply ungodly to be angry, to be jealous. Jesus brings a great revelation to the world; god is love. But taoism doesn't say god is love, it says love is god. The difference may not appear immediately, but the difference is great and very significant. God is love, that means that love is only a quality of god, there can be other qualities too. Love is only one of the qualities, along with other qualities. 
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I should look around a little bit more
It happened in a Sufi mystic's house that by mistake a thief entered. He was thinking that it was some rich man's house. The house was beautiful and big; some rich follower had presented it to the Sufi mystic. Seeing the house, the thief could easily calculate how much treasure must be inside it. But when he went in for the first time, he was shocked to see that the doors were open. In such a beautiful mansion, there was not even a guard, and the doors were open. He felt a little shaky and afraid too -- perhaps this was some kind of a trap. But his greed was greater than his fear. He said, "I should look around a little bit more. Perhaps they have forgotten to lock the door. Perhaps the guard is on vacation, away for the weekend." He went in and there he found the Sufi.... It was hot summer but Sufis use only wool. That's why they are called Sufis -- suf in Arabic means wool. They use only woollen clothes -- it does not matter whether it is winter or summer or rain. And in Arabia it is almost always summer, hot summer, the sun is burning -- and the Sufis use wool. So the Sufi was lying down on a woollen blanket. And there was nothing in the whole house, not a single thing, because the Sufi used the blanket in the day to cover himself and in the night to lie on. The thief was of course very much disappointed. He looked into other rooms, and when he came back to the front of the house where the Sufi was lying he saw that the Sufi had moved to the bare floor and had left the blanket. The thief could not understand what had happened, but he thought, "Whatsoever has happened, at least I can take this blanket." But he was feeling a little sorry too, "This man will not have anything tomorrow even to wear. I have looked in the house, there is nothing to eat. Such a beautiful mansion, so utterly empty! The only belonging is the blanket." Even the thief felt compassionate. Just out of habit, first he took the blanket and was going to run away, but on second thoughts he spread the blanket again in its place. The Sufi was awake. He said, "What are you doing? I rolled out of the blanket just so that you could take it. The house is empty and I am very sorry. I never thought that a thief would come here; otherwise I would have arranged a few things. "Next time when you come, just inform me two or three days ahead. I have many followers, I can collect things. They are always giving and I am not taking because I don't need. But please don't reject this blanket; otherwise I will always feel wounded that a man had come to find something and I am so utterly poor that I could not offer him anything." The thief was in a great difficulty: what to do? Nobody before has begged him to steal. And not a single word of condemnation -- on the contrary, the Sufi is feeling guilty that the house is empty. Just not to wound the beautiful man, with whom he had almost fallen in love... he had never seen such a man who could be so loving, so trusting, so helpful even to a thief in his own house. So he took away the blanket, but could not go far. It was ugly to distrust such a man who trusts you so totally, who respects your humanity so totally without any condition. He came back, and what he saw he could not believe. The Sufi was sitting outside the mansion. It was a full-moon night and he was singing a song. The song meant: "I am so poor. If I possessed the full moon I would have given it to that poor man." He was crying because he did not possess the moon; otherwise he would have given the moon to the poor man. The thief listened to his song -- it was so beautiful.... He came and fell at the Sufi's feet and told him, "Just accept me. You have already a big mansion; accept me as your disciple, as your servant -- in any way. And please take this blanket back, I cannot take it. And I promise you, I will never steal because, who knows, sometimes one may be stealing in the house of a man like you. I am not dropping stealing because stealing is bad, I am dropping stealing because there are people like you who can trust even a thief."
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banish from your mind the thought
WHEN YANG CHU WAS PASSING THROUGH SUNG HE SPENT THE NIGHT AT AN INN.
THE INNKEEPER HAD TWO CONCUBINES -- ONE BEAUTIFUL, AND THE OTHER UGLY.
THE UGLY ONE HE VALUED, AND THE BEAUTIFUL ONE HE NEGLECTED. WHEN YANG CHU ASKED THE REASON, THE FELLOW ANSWERED: THE BEAUTIFUL ONE THINKS HERSELF BEAUTIFUL, AND I DO NOT NOTICE HER BEAUTY; THE UGLY ONE THINKS HERSELF UGLY, AND I DO NOT NOTICE HER UGLINESS.
YANG CHU SAID TO HIS DISCIPLES: REMEMBER THIS -- IF YOU ACT NOBLY AND BANISH FROM YOUR MIND THE THOUGHT THAT YOU ARE NOBLE, WHERE CAN YOU GO AND NOT BE LOVED?
The beautiful one would like it to be noticed. Whatsoever you want that people should notice, nobody will notice. You will be a constant drainage of their energy -- you will drain them of their energy, you will be a burden, a bore. And everybody will escape from you; nobody will like being near you. A self-conscious person is like a heavy burden: you come near him and suddenly you feel a fever because he is demanding something.
And the ugly thinks herself ugly.... She is humble, she doesn't claim anything, she doesn't ask, she doesn't demand any notice. She doesn't say that she is this or that, she simply knows that she is ugly. So if you lover her she feels grateful. If somebody notices her she feels thankful. And when you feel thankful and grateful, you become beautiful. Whatsoever somebody says to her, she feels it is too much: I was not in any way worthy of it. I am ugly. She is not expecting anything, so whatsoever happens is a bliss, a happiness. If you expect you will be frustrated; if you don't expect you will be fulfilled.
You are destroying yourself by claiming things: you claim that you are wise and then life proves you to be fool; you claim yourself to be very attractive and life doesn't take any notice of you; you try to prove that you are beautiful and everything proves that you are ugly. Because there is nothing more ugly than the ego, and all claims are egoistic. Drop claims and simply remain with the fact. Don't claim anything don't ask anything, don't demand. Don't think that you are very, very worthy and then much will happen to you -- the whole existence will accept you. When you accept existence, existence accepts you. When you claim, in every claim you are complaining: I was more worthy. You are destroying yourself by claiming things: you claim that you are wise and then life proves you to be fool; you claim yourself to be very attractive and life doesn't take any notice of you; you try to prove that you are beautiful and everything proves that you are ugly. Because there is nothing more ugly than the ego, and all claims are egoistic.
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people around Krishnamurti
J. Krishnamurti has been for his whole life a teacher of thousands of people, telling them to disobey, to be rebellious, not to follow anyone. But he has forgotten one thing: these people will follow their egos, these people will not rebel against their egos, these people will not be disobedient to their egos. So a strange phenomenon has happened: the people who have been around Krishnamurti, all have become firm egoists. They cannot surrender; surrender is wrong. They cannot trust, they cannot become a disciple. The whole teaching has backfired. Krishnamurti completely forgot that what he is saying is satisfying to the ego of the people. What taoism is saying to you is absolutely against you! You have to disappear for your real being to appear and function. Surrender, trust, are just devices. If you can do it without those devices, they are not needed. If you can drop your ego... it is very simple; there is no reason to go to a master. The master is only a device. Because he is so humble, so wise, so insightful, it is easy to put your ego at his feet. The master is only a device. Sometimes it has happened that the master was not himself enlightened, but the disciple became enlightened -- a very strange phenomenon. One cannot even conceive how an unenlightened master could help somebody to become enlightened; he has not been able to help himself. But the reason is that he cannot help anybody to be enlightened, or to remain unenlightened; he is only a device. The question is of totality on the part of the disciple. Marpa, one of Tibet's great mystics, went to a master who was well-known for his learning, his scholarship. Marpa was a very humble and simple person, very clear as to what he knows and what he does not know, never pretending, "I know it," when he knew perfectly well that he did not know. He surrendered to the master. Seeing his great knowledge, learning, so many thousands of disciples, he surrendered totally. After a few days the disciples became upset with Marpa, because he was walking on water, flying in the air, jumping from the high peaks of Himalayan mountains into the valleys without any trouble. They reported to the master, "This man seems to be very strange. He must be a magician or perhaps the devil incarnate." And they were all jealous of him. The master inquired of Marpa, "What is your secret? How do you walk on water?" Marpa said, "you are asking me? I just use your name; and I am surrendered to you, and you make me walk on water. Just your name is enough, and I can fly in the air. Your name is enough, and I can jump from the highest mountain peak!" The master was not an enlightened person, but certainly a great scholar. He thought to himself -- which was logical -- "If my name has so much magic in it, I should try it." But the first step in the water -- and he started to drown. He was shouting his name loudly, but nothing happened. His disciples saved him. And Marpa said, "This is strange. But now I understand what has happened: It is not the master; it is my surrender, it is my egolessness. The master was only a device. It does not matter to me whether he is enlightened or not -- I am grateful to him. His name helped me. I suspect that now I cannot walk on the water with his name, and I am not going to do that anymore. "But perhaps now there is no need. I can walk without any name, because I know the secret. The secret is egolessness. The master was only a device that helped."
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These are the two boats
One foot is in the boat of hope. You always say that all will be well in a little while. One woman fails to give you happiness, you change to another. One son disappoints you, perhaps the other won't. One business is not profitable, perhaps another will be. You are forever changing things around you. If one house has not brought you happiness, perhaps another might. Your strong-box small; a bigger one would do better. You keep doing this everything around you -- you are keep only changing the screen! The story within you is just the same, so the same story is projected on the screen outside again and again.
Everywhere you meet sorrow. Your experience is of sorrow; your hope is for happiness. These are the two boats. If you hear Buddha or Mahavir or Krishna, they talk of experience. They urge you to get off the boat of hope and climb aboard the boat of experience. And you listen to them. You cannot deny them completely. In their presence you feel that they have attained something which you have not. It seems that the rat-race has ended for them, but you are not one hundred percent sure; they might be frauds. Who knows whether they have really attained. They might only be pretending. And, who knows? -- We too might attain! The wise ones might just be saying that the grapes are sour and not worth having; perhaps they were unable to reach. Perhaps in our own way we can reach. So you are in a dilemma. Certainly, you cannot deny your experience, but still hope persists. This dilemma is your madness.
These two boats go in different directions, so board whichever one you choose. It does not matter if you decide to board the boat of hope, but at least get into one boat and leave the other. Step totally into the boat of the word and very soon you will get bored. This half-half business gets you nowhere. Keeping one foot in the boat of the Buddhas prevents you from having a full experience of the world. You remain half-half; you go to the temple as well as the shop. This way neither is the temple properly looked after, nor the stop; they cannot both be managed together. Look after your shop whole-heartedly. Forget that there ever was anyone like Mahavir or Buddha or Krishna or Shiva. Forget that there are any scriptures. Let ledgers in your shop be everything from you. Jump into it with all your heart and very soon you will emerge from it. Your experience itself will show you the uselessness of it all. But you find that you cannot do it; one foot is still stuck in the other boat. Again the problem: you are not wholly in the second boat. The reason you haven't left the first is that your mind keeps whispering: 'There is no hurry. You are still young. These are things for old people to concern themselves with. When you have one foot in the grave then put the other foot in Buddha's boat.'
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What is the matter ?
Mulla Nasruddin went for his first airplane flight. When he came back he was looking very tired -- and just a fifteen-minute flight from Bombay to Poona -- he was trembling, his face was looking so pale.
Someone asked, "What is the matter?"
He said, "What is the matter! Those two plane flights!"
The other said, "What two plane flights? You have been only on one plane flight."
He said, "Two -- my first and my last! I am finished with this nonsense! I was so afraid, I had to sit just on the edge of the chair."
"But why on the edge?" I asked him.
He said, "So that my whole weight was not on the plane, that's why."
And this is the way millions of people are living in the world: so their whole weight is not on the whole; otherwise something may go wrong.
The whole is capable of carrying you. You are almost nothing; it is not a problem for the whole.
A man who had finished his life went before God. God reviewed his life and showed him the many lessons he had learned. When he had finished God said, "My child, is there anything you wish to ask?"
The man said, "While you were showing me my life, I noticed that when the times were pleasant there were two sets of footprints, and I knew you walked beside me. But when times were difficult there was only one set of footprints. Why, Father, did you desert me during the difficult times?"
And God said, "You misinterpret me, my son. It is true that when times were pleasant I walked beside you and pointed out the way. But when times were difficult, I carried you."
Certainly, it is no use being prepared -- or, there is a totally different way of being prepared. Live in the moment totally, fully aware. That is the real way of preparing WITHOUT preparing. That is preparation without preparation. You will be ready for the next moment naturally, without any worry.
Meditate over this story:
A man is taking a walk in a park late at night. Suddenly, behind some bushes he hears strange gasps and muffled screams. Alarmed, he shouts, "Is anybody being killed in there?"
"No, no," shouts back a voice. "Just the opposite!"
The old dies and the new is born. This is how you become twice-born.
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I don't want it to be known
It was the religious people who crucified Jesus. Not a single rabbi ever came to him, except one, and that too, in the middle of the night when the whole city was asleep -- a rabbi called Nicodemus. He was a professor in the Jewish university of Jerusalem ... a learned man, but he could not gather courage to come in the daylight. In the middle of the night he woke Jesus. Jesus was surprised. He said, "You could have come in the day, anytime -- I am just staying next to your house." Nicodemus said, "Speak silently! If any of your disciples wakes up and sees me here, there will be trouble." Jesus said, "What trouble?" Nicodemus said, "I don't want to be seen with you. I don't want it to be known that I had gone to you to ask a few things." Jesus said, "If you don't have even this much courage then forget all about religion. If you cannot come even in the daytime, if you are such a coward, then nobody can be of any help to you. In the search for truth the most significant qualification is courage -- and you don't have any courage. Go home, and unless you are born again, remember: you will not be able to understand what religion is. `Unless you are born again' -- what does that mean? It means unless you drop your cowardliness and become just the opposite of what you are today -- a courageous man .... That is rebirth, and unless you are reborn again, don't come to me; I cannot help you. If you want to be helped, at least you should prepare the ground." Except this Nicodemus, no rabbi ever approached Jesus -- and Nicodemus approached him in the night. It would have been better that he also had not approached Jesus, because he shows the cowardliness of your so-called religious people and who crucified Jesus? The high priest and the supreme command of rabbis who overruled the whole community of Jews -- they decided that he should be crucified. There were many attempts made on Buddha's life by religious people, although it is impossible now after twenty-five centuries to find out whether the suspicion is right or wrong, but there is a ninety-nine percent possibility that it is right .... It has to be right because some fundamental principles are involved. Buddha died of food poisoning. He was given poison, it was not a coincidence. There were many attempts on the life of Mahavira. Yes, in India it was not as primitive as it was in Judea. Even the cross on which they hanged poor Jesus was not a piece of art -- so ugly. At least they should have shown some respect. Even if they were in disagreement, even if they were going to crucify him, they should have found something beautiful -- just out of respect for a human being. But no, what did they do? For miles they forced him to carry his own cross -- which is really ugly, big. Jesus was young, thirty-three years old, and healthy, but he fell down three times; the weight of the cross was so much. When you are killing a person at least you should be a little more courteous, a little more human. 
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a rocky cliff protruding
CHINESE MOUNTAIN CLIFF PRODUCES STONE EGGS
Stone Eggs Born Every 30 Years on Guizhou Mountain Cliff
Our world is so vast that it contains everything. Even rocks can lay eggs. For tens of hundreds of years a mountain cliff in Sandu County of Guizhou Province in southern China has continually laid stone eggs. Furthermore, it is said that it would do so every 30 years.
This peculiar cliff is found amidst the rising mountain hill near the Gulu stronghold in Guizhou's Sandu County. The entire mountain is covered with green trees and weeds, with a rocky cliff protruding from its mountainside. The cliff is said to drop from its walls a number of egg-shaped stones every 30 years. For this reason, locals have customarily called it Chan Dan Ya (Egg Producing Cliff.)
Chan Dan Ya is approximately 20 meters in length, 6 meters in height, and its surface is extremely uneven. It is extremely steep with a few huge and pointy rocks extending upwards diagonally. Due to its unusual shape, the stone eggs are peacefully incubated in the hollows beneath overhangs in the precipice wall. Some have just begun to form, while others have halfway emerged. Some are already mature in development, and at any moment will separate from the body of the mountain.
The stone eggs of Chan Dan Ya average about 30 centimetres in diameter, though some are bigger than others. The majority of them are circular or oval in shape, and light yellow in colour. These eggs are similar in shape and size to the dinosaur eggs fossils discovered in the city of Heyuan, Guangdong Province, in 1995.
Such a unique phenomenon of stone eggs dropping in 30-year intervals from an ice-cold rocky wall is bizarre, if not mystical.
After analysis and evaluation, it was discovered that the geologic timescale of the rock egg region dates back to the Cambrian period, prior to the Triassic and Jurassic periods, making the formations about 500 million years old. Oddly, however, the rocky wall of Chan Dan Ya was found to be made up of a structure of calcareous rock that is common in many geological regions on earth. This then raises the question of how the 500 million-year-old Cambrian egg-shaped stones could come together with a common calcareous rock wall. It is indeed quite odd.
Who actually bestowed these cliffs with mysterious power to generate rock eggs?? The unfathomable enigmas through the ages hiding within the steep lofty mountain cliff have remained unsolved.
The entire Gulu stronghold area has only a small community of merely 20 or so households. Within the village, however, only 68 stone eggs have been preserved altogether. The people of Gulu stronghold all feel honoured to have one of these stone eggs in their homes. This is because they believe that whichever house has a stone egg will thereafter enjoy prosperity for their people and livestock and have no worries for their clothing and food.
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tonnenschwere Steinquader wurden aneinander gelegt
In Tiahuanaco bzw. in der nahe Ruinenstätte Puma-Punku begegnen wir einem Phänomen. Dort liegen gewaltige Steinplatten wild umher, die einstmals mit Klammern aus Metall zusammengehalten wurden. Die Architekten "legten" - so schwer dies alleine schon ist! - die und gossen in vorgefertigte Paßformen flüssiges Metall. Nach Erkalten hatte man so eine dauerhafte und sicher Verbindung der monströsen Steingiganten. Doch genau diese Art der Bautechnik wurde auch in Ollantaytambo, Kambodscha und Ägypten angewandt! Sehr interessant ist ein Fund, den Thor Heyerdahl bei einer Expedition machte. Bei der Ausgrabung eines der gewaltigen Moai-Bildnisse zeigte sich auf dessen Brust die Darstellung eine Schiffes mit Masten. Der Bautyp ist bis heute unbekannt, zeigt aber ein nicht gerade kleines Schiff. Neben der Osterinsel und einer wahrscheinlichen Besiedlung von Südamerika her ist auch die Insel Nan Madol im Pazifik ein Rätsel. Dort stehen gewaltige Anlagen und Terrassen aus Basaltstein mitten auf einer sehr kleinen Insel. Urheber und Zweck dieser aus dem Bild der Südseearchitektur fallenden Gebäude ist vergessen. Nan Madol ist aber einsam und verlassen in den Reihen der frühen Kulturverbindungen, da sich keine Ähnlichkeit zu anderen Baustilen in irgendeinem nahen Erdteil zeigen. Auch lokale Mythologien sind nicht sehr hilfreich, die schlicht alles "Göttern" zusprechen und selber keine näheren Informationen geben können. Bei der Osterinsel liegt der Vorteil in einer geschichtlichen Betrachtung darin, daß viele der alten Mythen und Legenden und eine ganze Reihe von Schrifttafeln erhalten sind. Diese Schrift jedoch ist bis heute nicht entziffert. Im Frühling 1999 glaubte jedoch ein Deutscher Hobbyforscher in den Hieroglyphen Sternenkonstellationen erkannt zu haben, die den frühen Seefahrern zur Navigation dienten. Stellt man die Hieroglyphen der Rongo-Rongo-Schrift den Zeichen der Indus-Kultur gegenüber, zeigen sich frappierende Ähnlichkeiten. Beide Schriften sind bis heute nicht entziffert, weshalb leider nicht gesagt werden kann, ob die sich ähnelnden Zeichen auch gleiche oder identische Bedeutungen haben. Wann alle die hier angesprochenen kulturellen Kontakte stattfanden - wenn überhaupt -, ist völlig unklar. Entdeckungen vor der Küste Japans, die seit einigen Jahren für Furore sorgen, lassen zeitliche Dimensionen erneut in ein anderes Licht rücken. Denn vor der Küste Japans soll es eindeutig künstliche Strukturen geben, dessen Alter man vorsichtig auf 12000 Jahre beziffert. Bereits 1985 wurden sie von Tauchern entdeckt, aber bis heute ist die Frage, ob sie künstlich oder natürlich sind, ungeklärt geblieben. Frühe Seefahrt über den Atlantik hinweg ist nicht nur vorstellbar, sondern scheint sogar wahrscheinlich zu sein. Es bedarf einer gründlichen Analyse aller Indizien, Funde und der Parallelen religiös-mythischer Weltanschauungen, um hier jedoch eine klare und verbindliche Aussagen machen zu können.
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All these beautiful things have been said down the ages
Who am I ? How can I answer this question? Nobody else can answer it for you except you. You will have to dive deep within your own self. And the people who have been answering on your behalf are your enemies, because you will start collecting and accumulating their answers, you will become knowledgeable, and to become knowledgeable is to prevent wisdom arising.
Yes, thousands of answers are available: that you are a soul, eternal, deathless; that you are sons of God, sons of immortality -- AMRITASYA PUTRA. All these beautiful things have been said down the ages, but they are not going to help.
It is not a question that can be answered by anybody other than yourself. You have to go into your own self. You have to search. You have to ask and inquire, "Who am I?" It is a question which is very private, absolutely private, and only you are capable of knowing the answer -- and not through scriptures, remember, but through a deep inquiry into your own being. That very inquiry is meditation.
Ramana Maharshi used to give only one meditation to his disciples: Sit silently and go on inquiring within yourself "Who am I?" First verbally, and then slowly slowly let the words disappear and let the question become a feeling: "Who am I?" -- just a feeling, just a question mark deep down in your heart. And go on asking. One day even that feeling disappears. There is no question; suddenly you are questionless.
The question "Who am I?" will help you to destroy all other questions, and then finally it commits suicide: you are left with no question. And that is the moment of the answer arising in you. Then, even if you know the answer, you will not be able to communicate it to anybody else. It is incommunicable.
You ask me: "Who am l?"
You are N.N.; this is your name. You may be a man; you may have the body of a man. You may be an educated person; you may have a medical degree. These things can be answered by anybody, but these are not you. You may be a Hindu; you may have lived the life of a so-called Hindu religious man. You may know the Gita; you may have read it so many times that you can simply repeat it from memory. And in the Gita Krishna has answered so many times who you are that you must know those answers too.
Beware of people who answer such deep questions of yours. Only superficial questions can be answered by others. If somebody starts telling you about your deepest core, stop him immediately. It is none of his business and he is going to make a mess of you.
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Use all that this life contains
Whenever an enlightened person is available, one should enjoy as much as one can, one should eat as much as one can.
Mahavira had a tunnel vision, Mohammed had a tunnel vision. In fact, very few people have been able to have multidimensional vision, for the simple reason that when you achieve enlightenment you achieve through a certain path, certain method, and you become obsessed with it; you think this is the only way. And you are right -- this is a way, but not the only way.
That's how the alchemist functions: This very life has to be used, and all that this life contains.
You can see a "blue movie" and if you try to just be a witness, don't get identified, and it becomes a meditation. And the blue movie will be the right thing, because again and again you will forget to be a witness. And again and again you will have to be a witness. It will be a constant struggle. Just looking at a wall, anybody can become a witness.
Bodhidharma was looking at a wall for nine years. There is no wonder he became enlightened. What else can you do? He must have thought, "It is better now to become enlightened -- at least to get rid of this wall."
It is better to project a blue movie on the wall and then be a witness. And you will not take nine years, far quicker -- you will be tired of all those naked women passing by.
Everything can be used. That's why taoism is against renunciation -- everything in life can be used. Yes, even wine can be used. You can drink it, but in small quantities in the beginning, and remain alert -- just a little quantity and then remain alert. Try to be alert when the wine starts functioning in you. If you can be alert with wine, then go on increasing the dose. One day you can drink the wine just like water and still you are alert. And if you can drink the whole bottle and remain alert, then nobody can make you unenlightened again. Impossible!
This has been used; this is not a new method. This has been used for centuries in India, from the days of the RIG VEDA; they called it soma-ras, it is the same. everything can be used. In fact, the more you have been taught to be against alcohol, against other drugs, the more you have become interested in them. And nobody teaches you how to use these drugs -- alcohol, other intoxicants -- to become alert, aware.
In a better world, in a more scientific world, every commune should have a small place with experts to give you small doses of intoxicant and help you to remain alert. And if you can remain alert while every possibility is of losing alertness, then in ordinary life you will be alert without any difficulty.
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