Lao Tzu says: "Accept yourself. Non-acceptance is the root of all the trouble." None of us accept ourselves. The more a person doesn't accept himself, the greater a mahatma he looks to others to be. We are our greatest enemy. If we had our way, we would cut ourselves to pieces in order to remove what was unacceptable.
The word religion comes from an origin which means "coming together." But priesthood has been doing just the opposite, it has created splits in man, not oneness. Religion means creating in man an organic unity; it has nothing to do with God, it has something to do with you. It has nothing to do with worship, it has something to do with a transformation of your own consciousness.
Laughter is more sacred than prayer, dancing more spiritual than chanting mantras, loving existence more cosmic than going to a church.
There is great difference between trust and belief. Trust is personal, Belief is social.
Anybody who gives you a belief system is your enemy, because the belief system becomes the barrier for your eyes, you cannot see the truth.
Man is less interested in marriage, very much less interested. In fact not interested at all. If he agrees, he agrees only reluctantly - because marriage means responsibility. Marriage means bondage, marriage means now you are imprisoned. Now you are no more free to move with other women. For a man, marriage looks like a prison. For a woman, marriage looks like safety, security, a home. For a woman marriage means home, and for a man marriage means slavery. Total different beliefs, so they act differently. Conflicting beliefs.
Once you have started seeing the beauty of life, ugliness starts disappearing. If you start looking at life with joy, sadness starts disappearing. You cannot have heaven and hell together, you can have only one. It is your choice.
Ecstasy is our very nature, not to be ecstatic is simply unnecessary. To be ecstatic is natural, spontaneous. It needs no effort to be ecstatic, it needs great effort to be miserable. That's why you look so tired, because misery is real hard work; to maintain it is really difficult, because you are doing something against the nature.
This is what enlightenment is all about - a deep understanding that there is no problem. Then, with no problem to solve, what will you do? Immediately you start living. You will eat, you will sleep, you will love, you will work, you will have a chit-chat, you will sing, you will dance - what else is there to do?
Looking at a sunset, just for a second you forget your separateness: you are the sunset. That is the moment when you feel the beauty of it. But the moment you say that it is a beautiful sunset, you are no longer feeling it; you have come back to your separate, enclosed entity of the ego. Now the mind is speaking. And this is one of the mysteries, that the mind can speak, and knows nothing; and the heart knows everything, and cannot speak.
Meditation is an insight that all goals are false. Meditation is an understanding that desires don't lead anywhere. Seeing that... And this is not a belief that you can get from me or from Buddha or from Jesus. This is not knowledge; you will have to see it. You can see it right now!
Belief is like plastic flowers, which look like flowers from far away. Trust is real rose. It has roots, and roots go deep into your heart and into your being.
A mature person should disconnect himself from anything that is connected with fear. That`s how maturity comes. Just watch all your acts, all your beliefs, and find out whether they are based in reality, in experience, or based in fear. And anything based in fear has to be dropped immediately, without a second thought. It is your armor. I cannot melt it. I can simply show you how you can drop 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.
Religion is not based on belief or faith: religion is based on awe, religion is based on wonder. Religion is based on the mysterious that is your surround. To feel it, to be aware of it, to see it, open your eyes and drop the dust of the ages. Clean your mirror! and see what beauty surrounds you, what tremendous grandeur goes on knocking at your doors. Why are you sitting with closed eyes? Why are you sitting with such long faces? Why can't you dance? and why can't you laugh?
The present gives you the opportunity to dive deep into the water of life, or to fly high into the sky of life. But on both the sides there are dangers - 'past' and ´future´ are the most dangerous words in human language.
This relaxation is the space in which happiness grows, and again I repeat: for no reason at all. It is not that you are happy because of something. You are simply happy. Happiness is your nature. Unhappiness is something nurtured, you have learned it. Every credit goes to you for all your misery, but for happiness, you cannot have any credit. It is natural. You were born happy. You were happy in your mother's womb.
Whenever commandments are given they create difficulties for people, because by the time they are given they are already out of date. Life moves so fast; it is a dynamism, it is not static. It is not a stagnant pool, it is a Ganges, it goes on flowing. It is never the same for two consecutive moments. So one thing may be right this moment, and may not be right the next. Then what to do? The only possible thing is make people so aware that they themselves can decide how to respond to a changing life.
From birth to death you go on living, groping in darkness with no light - and you could have created the light. You cannot find it in the scriptures; nobody can hand it to you. It is not purchased or sold; it is nontransferable. But you can create it - you can put all your energies together. You can start living consciously from this very moment.
When you are sharing your joy, you don't create a prison for anybody - you simply give. You don´t even expect gratitude or thankfulness, because you are giving, but not to get anything, not even gratitude. You are giving because you are so full of joy and life, you have to give.
Unless you become alert and aware in life, unless you change the quality of your living, you will not die consciously. And only a conscious death can bring you to a conscious birth; and then a far more conscious life opens its doors.
Truth is always here. That's the only way truth can be. Truth cannot be anywhere else. The only time it can be is here, and the only place it can be is now. But the mind is never here and is never now. Hence, mind and truth never meet. The mind goes on thinking about truth, and the truth goes on waiting to be realized, but the meeting never happens. The meeting is possible only if mind stops functioning, because mind means the past, mind means the future. Mind is never here-now. Whenever you start thinking, you are going astray. If you stop thinking, suddenly you are at home.
There is no heaven and there is no hell. They are not geographical, they are part of your psychology. They are psychological. To live the life of spontaneity, truth, love, beauty is to live in heaven. To live the life of hypocrisy, lies, compromises,to live according to others, is to live in hell. To live in freedom is heaven, and to live in subjection is hell.
Even towards yourself you have to be tremendously loving, because you too are god's form. One has to love oneself, one has to love all. Love is prayer. And the more you love, the more you will feel your consciousness expanding, becoming bigger - because whomsoever we love becomes part of our being, we include him. Mm? A bird on the wing, and we look at the bird with great love - suddenly we are not two: the bird is inside us and we are inside the bird.
Yoga is existential, experiential, experimental. No belief is required, no faith is needed - only courage to experience. And that's what's lacking. You can believe easily because in belief you are not going to be transformed. Belief is something added to you, something superficial. Your being is not changed; you are not passing through some mutation.
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