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June 2008 - Posts
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One day all the employees reached the office and they saw a big notice
on the door on which it was written: 'Yesterday the person who has been
hindering your growth in this company passed away. We invite you to join
the funeral in the room that has been prepared in the gym'.
In the beginning, they all got sad for the death of one of their
colleagues, but after a while they started getting curious to know who
was that man who hindered the growth of his colleagues and the company
itself. The excitement in the gym was such that security agents were
ordered to control the crowd within the room.
The more people reached the coffin, the more the excitement heated up.
Everyone thought: 'Who is this guy who was hindering my progress? Well,
at least he died!'
One by one the thrilled employees got closer to the coffin, and when
they looked inside it they suddenly became speechless. They stood nearby
the coffin, shocked and in silence, as if someone had touched the
deepest part of their soul.
There was a mirror inside the coffin: everyone who looked inside it
could see himself. There was also a sign next to the mirror that said:
'There is only one person who is capable to set limits to your growth:
it is YOU. You are the only person who can revolutionize your life. You
are the only person who can influence your happiness, your realization
and your success. You are the only person who can help yourself.
Your life does not change when your boss changes, when your friends
change, when your parents change, when your partner changes, when your
company changes.
Your life changes when YOU change, when you go beyond your limiting
beliefs, when you realize that you are the only one responsible for your
life.
'The most important relationship you can have, is the one you have with
yourself'
Examine yourself, watch yourself. Don't be afraid of difficulties,
impossibilities and losses: be a winner, build yourself and your
reality. The world is like a mirror: it gives back to anyone the
reflection of the thoughts in which one has strongly believed.
The world and your reality are like mirrors lying in a coffin, which
show to any individual the death of his divine capability to imagine and
create his happiness and his success.
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This will be our topic for coming meetup. So please take time to think abou this topic.
Below from Osho Times site
Our daughter go through a depressing divorce...
We
are a middle-aged couple watching our daughter go through a depressing
divorce. How can we help her and her little girl get through this with
less pain?
Below is Osho’s reply to a similar question:
To
fall in love is so easy. Why is it so difficult to fall out of love? So
many discussions, tears, fights, fears.... I don’t want to hurt the
person I’ve been with, because it’s not that there is no feeling. I’m
so confused. Can you say something?
Falling
is always easy. You can fall in any ditch. Getting out is difficult.
But you will have to get out. Once the love disappears the ditch
becomes hell. Then there is quarreling, argument, nagging, and every
kind of nastiness from both sides. Nobody wants to hurt; but because he
is hurting, she is hurting, unknowingly they go on dumping their hurt
feelings on the other.
In the first place, when you start falling in
love, when you are still not in the ditch, that is the time to ask me,
because I have a totally different kind of love affair which is called
rising in love. Then there is no problem. Rising in love is beautiful,
and getting out of it is very easy, because that will be falling down.
Falling down is easy, keep it for the next step; for the first step,
always use rising. The easier step you have done, now you have to do
the difficult one.
And it will happen -- all these tears and conflicts, but nothing can bring the love back.
A
simple thing has to be understood: love -- the love that you are
talking about -- is not in your hands. You have fallen into it. It was
not in your power not to fall, so when it comes, it takes you with it.
But it is like a breeze, it comes and goes. And it is good that it
comes and goes, because if it stays it becomes stale.
A little
understanding is needed on both sides, that the love is no longer
there. There is no need to hate each other, because nobody has
destroyed it -- nobody has created it. It had come like a breeze, you
enjoyed those moments; be thankful to each other and help each other to
come out of the ditch. In a ditch, that is the only way. The man, to be
really manly, should give his shoulders for the woman to rise up and
get out of the ditch. And the man can find his own gymnastics, how to
do it.
But nobody asks me before falling. This is strange! For
thirty-five years I have been waiting for somebody to ask me how to
fall in love. Nobody asks that, because if you had asked that I would
have suggested, "Never fall in love. Try to rise." And rising in love
is a totally different matter.
Rising in love means a learning, a
changing, a maturity. Rising in love ultimately helps you to become
grown-up. And two grown-up persons don’t quarrel; they try to
understand, they try to solve any problem.
Anybody who rises in love
never falls from it, because rising is your effort, and the love that
is grown through your effort is within your hands. But falling in love
is not your effort.
Falling in love -- that love is going to be
disrupted somewhere, and the sooner it is understood that it is gone,
the better; otherwise you become too entangled in a thousand and one
things. Those are the things which make it difficult to separate.
When
you fall in love, no questions arise. You are clean, the other person
is clean. But when you want to separate, the days, the nights, the
years that you have lived together, loved together, experienced
something which is one of the most beautiful gifts of nature -- you go
on becoming entangled.
You go on giving promises to each other...
and it is not that you are lying or deceiving; in those beautiful
moments those promises seem to be absolutely coming from your heart.
But when those moments are gone -- and they will be gone, because it
has been a fall, and nobody can remain in a fallen state for eternity.
Someday he has to rise again. And the moment you start separating, all
those entanglements, your promises, the other’s promises, create the
complexity.
Rising in love is something spiritual.
Falling in love is something biological.
Biology
is blind, that’s why love is called blind. But the love I am talking
about is the only insight that is easily available to everyone. Just a
little effort....
Love should come out of your silence, awareness,
meditativeness. It is soft, it is unbinding -- because how can love
create fetters for the one who is loved? It is giving freedom to each
other, more and more. As the love grows deeper, freedom becomes bigger.
As the love grows deeper, you start accepting the person as he is. You
stop trying to change the person.
It is one of the miseries of the
world that lovers are continuously trying to change the other person.
They don’t know that if the person really changes, their love will
disappear, because they had not fallen in love with this changed person
in the first place. They had fallen in love with a person who was not
touched by their ideas -- "Change this and that."
Rising in love, you become aware that the other has his own territorial imperative, and you are not to encroach upon it.
If
love becomes freedom, then there is no need to separate. The idea of
separation arises because you go on seeing that you are becoming more
and more a slave, and nobody likes slavery.
But you always ask me
when you are in the ditch and cannot get out. One thing is certain: I
am not coming into the ditch to take you out! You two have to manage
it. If I come in the ditch to help you out, you both will be out and I
will be in the ditch! And I don’t know anybody whom I can ask, "How to
get out of here?"
I have never asked a single question of anybody
about my life. It is my life, and I have to live it, I have to solve
its problems. I have never taken any advice, I have never accepted
anybody’s advice which was not asked for in the first place. I have
told those people, "You have to understand that advice is the only
thing everybody gives free of charge and nobody takes."
Why bother? Advice given by a person whom you have not asked cannot be very wise.
The wise man never imposes his idea on anyone.
If somebody asks him, he simply gives his insight.
It is not a commandment, that they have to do it; there is no "should" in it.
I
can say only one thing: you have given each other beautiful moments --
be grateful, be thankful. The parting should not be ugly when the
meeting was so beautiful.
You owe it to existence that the parting
should be made beautiful. Forget all your promises -- they were right
when they were given, but the time has changed, you have changed. You
both are standing at a crossroads, ready to move in different
directions; perhaps you may never meet again. Make it as graceful as
possible. And once you understand that it has to happen, gracefully or
ungracefully, then it is better to make it graceful.
At least, your
lover will live in your memory, you will live in the memory of the
lover. In a certain way, those moments together will always enrich you.
But part gracefully.
And it is not difficult when you have
understood love -- which is a very difficult phenomenon. You fell
without a second thought; you can understand that very easily love has
disappeared. Accept the truth of it, and don’t blame each other,
because nobody is responsible.
Help each other gracefully; in deep
friendship, part. Lovers when they separate become enemies. That is a
strange kind of gratitude. They should become really friends. And if
love can become friendship, there is no guilt, no grudge, no feeling
that you have been cheated, exploited. Nobody has exploited anybody; it
was just the biological energy which made you blind.
I teach a different kind of love.
It does not end in friendship but begins in friendship.
It begins in silence, in awareness. It is a love which is your own creation, which is not blind.
Such a love can last forever, can go on growing deeper and deeper.
Such
a love is immensely sensitive. In this kind of relationship one starts
feeling the need of the other person even before the other person has
spoken.
I have known a few couples, very few couples -- my
acquaintance with couples is big, but I have come across only two,
three couples who had not fallen in love, who have risen in love. And
the most miraculous thing about them was that they started feeling each
other without words.
If the man was feeling thirsty, the woman would
bring water. Nothing has been said just a synchronicity. If the loved
one is feeling thirsty, she must start feeling thirsty herself. A
transfer is happening continuously, words are not needed. Energies can
relate directly without language.
Such a love needs nothing from the other.
It is grateful that the other receives something when he offers, or she offers.
It never feels in any kind of bondage, because there is none.
In
such love, sex may happen sometimes, may not happen for months, and
finally will disappear completely. In this context, sex is no longer
sexual, but only a way of being together, going as deeply as possible
into each other, an effort to reach the depths of the other. It has
nothing to do with biological reproduction.
And once they start
understanding that whatsoever they do.... In sex only their bodies can
meet, then sex slowly disappears. Then a different kind of meeting
starts happening which is just a meeting of energies. Holding hands,
sitting together looking at the stars, it is more than any sexual
orgasm can give -- two energies melting.
Sexual orgasm is physical,
is bound to be the lowest kind. Orgasm which is not physical has
tremendous beauty, and leads finally to self-realization. And if love
cannot give you enlightenment, don’t call it love. Love is such a
beautiful word. When you say, "Falling in love," you are using the word
in an ugly way. Say "falling in sex"; be true. In love one always
rises, never falls. But first you have to come out of the ditch. Help
each other.
Biology is not going to help. Just be human to each
other, and understand the point that the love that was blinding you is
no longer there. Your eyes are open. Don’t try to deceive the other
that you still love, you still feel, but what to do? This kind of
hypocrisy is not good. Simply say, "The feeling is no longer there. I
am sad and sorry about it, I would have loved the feeling to be there,
but it is not there. And I know it is not there in you either."
Once
it is understood that the feeling is gone, now at least, just as human
beings, help each other to get out of the ditch. If you help, there is
no problem. But instead of helping, each wants to get it finished but
doesn’t allow the other to get out of the ditch. They go on pulling
each other down.
Understand. The reason is fear; the old love is
gone, the new has not yet arrived. It cannot arrive in your ditch, you
will have to come out first. So the fear is of the unknown.
The past
was so beautiful you would like to repeat it, so you try to force it,
the other tries to force it. But these things are not within your power
to force. A forced love is not love.
If you have to kiss somebody at
the point of a sword -- "Kiss!" -- what kind of a kiss will that be?
Looking at the sword, you may kiss, but it will not be a kiss at all.
Any
love enforced for any reasons, is not love. And you both know what love
is, because you had been in those moments; so you can compare easily
that it is not the same thing. Help each other to come out -- and it is
very easy if you help each other -- and part in grace.
Next time try not to fall, but try to rise.
Don’t let biology dominate you.
Your consciousness should be the master.
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lets
think and analyze the image that we carry in our mind of a perfect
partner, how he/she should be like, how they should behave. What would
make them a good partner?
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Recently
Alan in one of our meetups, asked the question "Is the universe
helpful, dangerous or neither", similar to this is the question is a
certain time favorable, unfavorable OR neither.
I think universe, time is what it is! Its how we react to it, what we do with it.
Our life is a like a game of cards. When we are born we are given a set of cards. Its how we play them. Some times we get
good cards sometimes bad. We have to play and enjoy. Why get caught up
in the cards, they are temporary for short time just like life.
Here is Osho's answer to a similar question:
"There
are no 'times of uncertanity' because time is always uncertain. It is
the difficulty with the mind: mind wants certainty -- and time is
always uncertain.
So when just by coincidence mind finds a small
space of cerainty, it feels settled: a kind of illusory permancence
surrounds it. It tends to forget the real nature of existence and life,
it starts living in a kind of dream world; it starts mistaking
appearance for reality. It feels good to the mind because mind is
always afraid of change for the simple reason: who knows what change
will bring -- good or bad? One thing is certain, that change will
unsettle your world of illusions, expectations, dreams..." P153 - My
diamond days with Osho by ma prem shunyo
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Written by Jason Hunter:
Do you remember the Choose Your Own Adventure books from when you were younger?
You read a few pages, and come to a
fork in the road. As your main character tries to escape the bad guys,
he could either hope on a moving boxcar or hid in the bushes hoping to
avoid detection. The fun of it all is going back through the story to
see how it will all end, depending on each varied route you decide to
take.
Protagonize would updates this concept by allowing
contributions by the users. While there are countless websites out there that have an
ongoing, round-the-robin formats for collaborative stories, Protagonize
puts some handy tracking tools in there so that you can better stay
afloat with the stories you like and those that you create. Other users can respond to your content, build on it, and
take things in an entirely different direction.
Check it out...
http://protagonize.com/
About jbass
Born in Toronto, raised
between Florida and New Jersey. My birthday is May 13th so if you want
any brownie points from here on out, you'd better write that down. I
enjoy hanging out with my friends, traveling, hanging out at my house
and watching movies whenever I am not working. I run a web design
company and have worked hard to get where I'm at. I do my best to make
the best of any situation I'm in and always have a good time. I love
all kinds of music, I am always listening to it and always looking for
new bands to check out. Recently I've been into music in other
languages. Without knowing what they are saying, I can really hear the
beat. But I listen to anything and love to dance. I like every kind of
food you can imagine, including sushi, thai, mexican, italian, chinese
and anything else that is delicious. I'm currently single and totally
happy with it, but I also love being in relationships and having
someone to open my eyes to in the morning. I hate flaky people and
people who have to be right all the time. I love meeting new people and
hearing about the adventures that life has taken them on and sharing
experiences with them. I consider myself an awesome friend and am
always there for the people close to me. There's so much more I could
write but I'm running out of space so how about you send me a message
and we talk instead! And if you can't write me here, be creative and
figure out another way.
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In
the summer of 2000 I was studying in Florence, Italy. One day on my way
home from class, I recognized someone from home and yelled out to get
her attention. That evening we shared a meal and swore that we would
make an effort to stay close once we returned home. Fast forward 2
years. It's about 1am and I am on my way back to my car in a lot on
Washington Street in Hoboken. Out of the dark, I hear my name being
yelled and look up only to see... the same girl. This time, we promise
to each other to keep in touch and make plans as soon as possible. Once
again, another year or so goes by and neither of us have called the
other. Then one day, out of the blue, I get a message from her that she
has a website venture that she and 2 friends would like to talk to me
about (because I am a web developer). So, FINALLY a meeting is arranged.
In
this meeting she tells me about her project. It's a website intended to
help connect like minded people. Of course I thought this was a great
idea and we spent hours going over ways to make it happen. At the end
of the meeting she tells me that she is very excited to work with me
because she can tell that I have something really special going on. She
asked me if I'd ever been through a course called Landmark Education.
I
had never heard of it but I am always open to new things and this was a
way for me to spend more time with this special person who continued to
show up in my life at the most random places and times.
That
following Tuesday I went with her to an Introduction. The seminar was
led by an Indian woman who had a presence on stage that I couldn't help
but be intrigued. I remember she told a story about a little girl who
once ran up to her father who was working at his desk and asked him to
play with her. She said no, that he was busy, and the little girl ran
off disappointed. She explained that the little girl, without knowing
any better, metaphorically put on a pair of glasses. A few years later
this same little girl was in school and asked if she could play
kickball with a group of boys during recess. As most 10 year old boys
will do, they said no and again the little girl walked away, placing a
new pair of glasses on top of her old ones. When the little girl got
to high school, she wanted to go to her prom with a boy who apparently
wanted to go with someone else. Again feeling rejected, she
subconsciously placed a third pair of glasses over her eyes. Now as you
can imagine, this little girl can no longer possibly see clearly and
every relationship she entered into was clouded by these glasses from
her childhood.
The Landmark Education Leader proceeded to
explain that what they do there, is help you to remove the glasses. It
was a nice story and I could see that other people in the room really
wanted more. I wasn't quite sold but I stuck around. I stuck around
long enough for the woman to come over and introduce herself. When she
did, I extended my hand to meet hers and could feel her energy
transfer to me. I actually remember being shocked and telling her how
nice it was to meet her. Although it seemed that most people had things
"wrong" with their lives that they came to Landmark to "fix," at that
point I was pretty open to what this could be. At the very least, I
know that I would meet some great people.
A few weeks later I
found myself back in the same room, along with about 100 other people.
As the seminar began a few people started getting very agitated asking
all sorts of questions accusing Landmark of brainwashing. The leader
met each accusation with an explanation and eventually some of the
protesters just got up and left. With a full refund of course. For me,
I was still intrigued.
Over the next 3 days, we spent 10 hours a
day listening to lectures and doing exercises. This is the Landmark
Education curriculum . Up until day 2 I still had no idea what I was
getting from it. Meanwhile, dozens of people were eager to get up on
stage and talk about their breakthroughs to the whole room. For one of
the exercises, I turned to talk with the person next to me and began
sharing a brief history of myself. This person heard something I
subconsciously had said and pointed it out to me. Basically, this was
my story:
My parents divorced when I was 1. For the next few
years, my father was for the most part nonexistent in my life (for one
reason or another - depending on who I ask). At 10, my dad bought me
plane ticket to come visit him in California. When I landed, I was
introduced to a nice woman and her two daughters. I rode with him on
his motorcycle, we went to an amusement park, to Mexico, I got to be in
a pool every day... long story short, I had a great time and when I got
home I was hysterical crying. Finally my mom called him and had me talk
to him to calm me down. What he told me in that conversation was that
the reason he wanted me to come out there was to get my approval of
this woman he wanted to marry. I immediately stopped crying and began
living my life. I say it like that because up until then, I don't have
many memories at all. And from that point on, I remember almost
everything.
Speeding ahead to my current life, I began to tell
my exercise partner about my business. I mentioned that sometimes when
I am in meetings with clients, that I feel like they look at me as if I
was 15 year old kid. My partner quickly did the math. I was 25 at the
time, feeling like I was 15. 25 minus 15 is the 10 years I have no
memories. I still didn't understand what this really meant... until I
called my dad on a break to share this with him.
He and his wife
(the woman I had met 15 years ago), were driving and had me on
speakerphone. I shared with them this story and my dad said to me,
"Jason, I can't believe that you don't know how much you have always
meant to me." ... I started balling. Right on 34th Street on the front
steps of a church with hundreds of people walking by me.
In that
moment, I finally got it. I was able to take off those glasses that the
Indian woman was talking about and see clearly. That night when I left
Landmark, I took a cab downtown to meet some friends for drinks. Every
person I saw, including the cab driver, had a new aura around them. I
felt more open and more powerful than ever before. Of course, none of
my friends noticed anything different, but I knew I'd never be the
same. For someone who went through life thinking they had such a deep
understanding of life of his self, I all the sudden felt reborn.
Someone
else once gave the glasses explanation a different way... He said that
if you could think of your life as a filing cabinet, everything in your
past is actually being placed in your future as well. So that when you
get there, you are already looking at it a certain way because of the
story you've already assigned it in your past. I'm sure you can
identify with what he's talking about.
If I sat here to write
all the individual things that have come to me because of the
possibilities that I created for myself and my life in that weekend at
Landmark, we'd be here all night. What I can tell you is that using
myself as an example, someone who didn't know why I was there, I found
Landmark to be worth every penny (about $350) and hope that you are
open to give it a look.
If you are interested in learning more about Landmark Education, you can visit their website at http://www.landmarkeducation.com
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We ended our weekly discussion with agreement that we need to acheive a balance in our lives.
When
we get into a relationship, everything is so beautifull. One reason is
that we are willing to sacrifice everything and give maximum time to
our partner. We allow ourselves to miss classes, we leave work on time,
call in sick....
But when honey moon period is over, we start
paying more attention to everything other than our partner. Some times
its the circumstances that require us to work more, attend events, take
care of a sick family member.
What we perhaps need to ask
ourselves is how I can balance my life. How can do everything else but
still do my necessary part to keep my relationship going, alive,
vibrant ? Lets all delve a bit deeper.... and come with our thoughts!
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