The saint

The saint wants to break records as much as the man who plays cricket. Really there is not much difference between them, for both have this comparative evaluation of life. If you seriously ask yourself why you compare, putting away the competitive aggression, would you not find that there is a deep fear of being nothing? By putting on different masks, according to the culture and society you live in, you cover the feeling of not being and not becoming- becoming something better than what is. When you observe what actually is, it is also the result of previous conditioning, of measurement.–JK

Teaching

What is it that you want to convey to him? To live a non-competitive life?To explain to him the machinery of comparison and what it does? Tell him in words and convince him intellectually? You as teachers and humans must live that way. Only then can you convey it to the student and it will have truth behind it. Freedom means a life without comparison. But inevitably, you will ask what is the condition of life without any high or low, without division. You want a description of it so that through a description you may capture it. This is another form of comparison and competition. You have to live it and then you will know what it means.

When the mind breaks through all this rubbish, which can only happen with self-knowing, then what happens can never be told to another. Even in the telling things have already changed. —JK

true vacation

Time gives us hope, thought gives us comfort, thought assures us a continuity,So time, thought, give continuity, and we cling to that continuity and therefore there is fear. And fear destroys love

So to come upon this great sense, there must be the absence of the me, the ego, egocentric activity, the becoming. There must be a great silence in one. Silence means emptiness of everything. In that there is vast space. -JK

on emptiness

No matter what, you are alone. And all the fiction that there may be somebody who is just made for you, there may be somebody who will fill this gap, this emptiness in you…. Nobody can do it; not because nobody wants to do it, no, everybody would love to do it, but it is just not possible in the very nature of things. And it is good, I repeat, that it is not possible in the very nature of things, because if it was possible then there would be no necessity for religion — no need of religion

Man should be like a hollow bamboo, so that existence can pass through him. Man should be like a porous sponge — not hard — so that the doors and the windows of his being are open, and existence can pass from one end to another without any hindrance; in fact, finding no one inside. The winds blow — they come in from one window and they go out from another window of his being. This emptiness is the highest bliss possible. But you are like a hard, unporous rock, or like a hard steel rod. Nothing passes through you. You resist everything. You don’t allow. You go on fighting on all sides and in all directions as if you are in a great war with existence. There is no war going on, you are simply befooled by yourself. Nobody is there to destroy you. The whole supports you; the whole is the very earth on which you are standing, the very sky in which you breathe, you live. In fact, you are not — only the whole is. When one understands this, by and by one drops the inner hardness, there is no need for it. There is no enmity, the whole is friendly towards you. The whole cherishes you, loves you. Otherwise, why are you here? The whole brings you forth, like a tree is brought forth by the earth. The whole would like to participate in all your blessings, in all the celebrations that are possible. When you flower, the whole will flower through you; when you sing, the whole will sing through you; when you dance, the whole will dance with you. You are not separate…

–OSHO

love

What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.

–W.H.Auden

boredom

“Work spares us from three evils: boredom, vice, and need” Voltaire

“The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.” Ellen Parr

“Uncertainty and mystery are energies of life. Don’t let them scare you unduly, for they keep boredom at bay and spark creativity.” R. I. Fitzhenry

“In order to live free and happily, you must sacrifice boredom. It is not always an easy sacrifice.” Richard Bach

 “Unless a man has been taught what to do with success after getting it, the achievement of it must inevitably leave him a prey to boredom.” Bertrand Russell

“Without lies humanity would perish of despair and boredom” Anatole France

on love

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”

 ”This is love: to fly toward a secret sky, to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment. First to let go of life. Finally, to take a step without feet.”

“We come spinning out of nothingness, scattering stars like dust”

“The lion is most handsome when looking for food”

“Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.”

“Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open? Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking. Live in silence.”

Everyone sees the unseen in proportion to the clarity of his heart, and that depends upon how much he has polished it. Whoever has polished it more sees more — more unseen forms become manifest to him

I can’t stop pointing to the beauty. Every moment and place says, “Put this design in your carpet!”

Forget the future. I’d worship someone who could do that

—Jalal ad-Din Rumi

motivation

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”——- Marianne Williamson

perception

A monk asked Ummon: `What is Buddha?’ Ummon answered him: `Dried dung.’

Lightning flashes,
Sparks shower.
In one blink of your eyes
You have missed seeing.

 —-Zen Koan

comparison and ambition

Comparison brings about frustration and merely encourages envy, which is called competition. Like other forms of persuasion, comparison prevents learning and breeds fear. Ambition also breeds fear. Ambition, whether personal or identified with the collective, is always antisocial. So-called noble ambition in relationship is fundamentally destructive.

What happens when you are ambitious? You are thinking about yourself, are you not? You are cruel, you push other people aside because you are trying to fulfil your ambition, trying to become a big man, thereby creating in society the conflict between those who are succeeding and those who are falling behind. There is a constant battle between you and the others who are also after what you want; and is this conflict productive of creative living? Do you understand, or is this too difficult?
     Are you ambitious when you love to do something for its own sake? When you are doing something with your whole being, not because you want to get somewhere, or have more profit, or greater results, but simply because you love to do it – in that there is no ambition, is there? In that there is no competition; you are not struggling with anyone for first place. And should not education help you to find out what you really love to do so that from the beginning to the end of your life you are working at something which you feel is worth while and which for you has deep significance? Otherwise, for the rest of your days, you will be miserable.

——-JK