The Art of Witnessing

Mind has become accustomed to being a master. It will take a little time to bring it to its senses. Witnessing is enough. It is a very silent process, but the consequences are tremendously great. There is no other method which can be better than witnessing as far as dispersing the darkness of the mind is concerned.

In fact there are one hundred and twelve methods of meditation; I have gone through all those methods - and not intellectually. It took me years to go through each method and to find out its very essence, and after going through one hundred and twelve methods I was amazed that the essence is witnessing. The methods' non essentials are different, but the center of each method is witnessing.

Hence I can say to you, there is only one meditation in the whole world and that is the art of witnessing. It will do everything - the whole transformation of your being. It will open the doors of Satyam, Shivam, Sundram: the Truth, the Godliness and the Beauty of it all. ~Osho

Spiritual awakening is awakening from the dream of thought.

Being Conscious

One difficulty for Christians is that your religion does not train you in the art of remaining conscious with every moment of life as it is.
Conscious living and being is not attained easily by most humans; people need discipline and commitment to learn meditation. Meditation differs from prayer and contemplation in that it is a non-verbal connection with deeper parts of yourself, and ultimately with God as consciousness.
Start tuning in to your inner world of thoughts, energy and feelings. Watch every inner event closely and with equanimity. Gradually, as your capacity to watch your inner world grows, you develop the art of remaining relaxed and aware in all situations. Meditation will bring about the end of your suffering, as it has for thousands of sincere seekers of truth.
When meditation happens in the context of Thy Will Be Done, rapid spiritual growth occurs. The synthesis of meditation and surrender is the most potent method of transformation. This method does not rely on unverified beliefs, but on a willingness to explore yourself.
Give it a try. ~Maitreya Ishwara

~ O~

Before realization you cannot understand the holy books
...and after realization, you don't need them anyway!

A cup of tea

A Zen master was once asked:
It is terribly hot, how shall we escape it?

Why not go, answered the master,
to the place where it is neither -
neither hot nor cold?

Where is that place?

And then the master laughed and said:
In summer we sweat and in winter we shiver.

The Four Noble Truths

Q: I was just wondering if you could explain a bit about the four noble truths. I am not sure how they work and also how are they relate to the eight fold path in regards to Zen?

A: The Four Noble Truths, Buddha called these, ARYA SATYA. The first is that unconscious life is sorrow. That living in the fantasies of the mind, of living in the dreams, of believing that these are real, this is the source of sorrow. Your life is full of fantasies of, what you want for tomorrow, how you want your life to be and many dreams. If you were going to die in two weeks, suddenly all your fantasies would change. But if you had only this day to live, again your fantasies would change. Your life has been dictated by a series of fantasies. This is the first Noble Truth, that unenlightened life is sorrow.

The Second Noble truth is that the cause of sorrow is desire. Those who have escaped from the wheel of desire do not live in sorrow, they live in deep contentment. Those who live in the wheel of desire are crushed by it.

The third Noble Truth is the Eightfold Way. This Buddha calls, SAMYAK living, for which there is no word for translation in the English language. It has been translated as ‘right'. But right implies that there is a wrong. Therefore this mistranslation leads to the misunderstanding that this is to do with morality. Morality is a behavior imposed from the outside. The eightfold way is nothing to do with morality. This is about the inside. SAMYAK means living in tune with the Whole. This can only happen from the inside. It cannot be an imposed, or resolute behavior to be ‘good'. It is nothing to do with being good. With meditation, awareness begins to happen. Being in the Buddhafield, with an Awaken One, in the vibration, in the tune of the Buddhafield, this brings you into tune with the Whole. This then changes your views, your intentions, your speech, your livelihood, your efforts and your mindfulness. And with these seven, there opens awareness. And then all activities begin to happen with awareness. Now there is walking with awareness. Now there is working with awareness. Now there is eating with awareness. And everything changes. It is impossible to eat meat with awareness. To eat meat you have to be unaware, lost in the dream. Awareness spreads through all your activities. And these seven of the Eightfold Way lead to the eighth, which is Samadhi, which is being totally in tune with the Whole. This is the Third Noble Truth.

And the Fourth Noble Truth is, the end of sorrow, the cessation of sorrow, nirvana. One who has followed the way of the Four Noble Truths, and reaches the Fourth, is free. ~Umi

Awareness and Being

Everyone wants to escape from the mind; everyone wants to disidentify with the mind, but where to go? To go beyond the mind does not mean to stop the mind but to find a new location within your existence. This new location is called I Am. From the viewpoint of I Am, it does not matter if you think or not think. Here, you are beyond thinking by your very presence. So how do we create this inner refuge, this inner solidity? By developing attention and by deepening the energy within Being. There is nothing else, in truth, only Awareness and Being. When attention is crystallised, this very attention which is Awareness, is located beyond the movement of thoughts, in its centre. When Being is deepened, you simply rest within. When you abide in Being, you recognise this experience directly. You know that you are abiding within something deeper than thought, you know it directly, even though you may not comprehend it fully. If you wish to follow the Path of Awakening, know that it points to this direct experience of reality, that is, to your very existence. Anything which doesn't bring you to the realisation of I Am, is just a deception. What is truly there is only: Awareness and Being.~Anadi

ANOTHER GIANT SOLAR FLARE ...

--posted by D.W.N and Kaspel
____edited by VY Maha________

ANOTHER GIANT SOLAR FLARE ...
14 September 2005
GIANT SOLAR FLARE HITS U.S., CANADA

Note: there was another X-class flare today. Could be geoeffective,
but I'm not sure.

Strong northern lights, or aurora, another sign of the ongoing powerful "geomagnetic storm."

Even NASA is on alert, with Johnson Space Center's radiation experts staffing their desks around the clock to ensure that astronauts aboard the International Space Station are ready for any shower of heavy radiation.

Power systems in the northern U.S. states and Canada reported electrical surges on Thursday, caused by the magnetic pulse from the solar eruption interacting with Earth's magnetic field, essentially turning the planet into a giant electrical generator.

Sept. 12, 2005— A rowdy sunspot cluster hurled a record-breaking flare into space on Wednesday, blacking out all high- and low- frequency radio communications on both American continents, causing power surges, blinding satellites and lighting up aurorae, and more trouble is likely on the way, say experts.

A massive initial X-ray flare on Sept. 7 was immediately followed by an eruption of solar material that broke free from the sun at a speed of 5.8 million miles per hour, the speediest seen in 20 years of CME observations by the National Center for Atmospheric Research's High Altitude Observatory in Hawaii.

Earth and near-Earth space was first hit with X-rays, followed by an ongoing magnetic storm and hard radiation.

The sunspot cluster causing all the trouble was just coming around the edge of the sun last week. Now it has rotated with the sun into better view and is showing no signs of calming down, said Larry Combs, a space weather forecaster with the National Oceanic and Space Administration's Space Environment Center.

"This particular region (on the sun) is just now reaching the center of the sun," said Combs. "It's just now getting into the bull's-eye."


A coronal mass ejection (CME) is racing toward Earth. Watch for severe geomagnetic storms to ensue. There have been much larger events in our recent and past history. This latest event comes from three X-Class flares which launched yesterday evening. It should take 24 to 48 hours to hit the Earth's magnetic field. So it is possible to experience itseffects as soon as late night/early morning.

Watch for "extreme" weather to follow, most likely in the way of straight-line winds, micro-burst, wind shears, and tornadoes. Also, sudden temperature shifts may occur.

Alerts have already been sent out to all power companies, military services, FAA (airlines), communication satellite companies, and NASA-ISS.

What you need to sacrifice....

In order to succeed, you have to sacrifice that which takes you away from the inner work. You don't need to sacrifice sex, that would be stupid. You don't have to sacrifice money, you only need to sacrifice what which disturbs your growth. You have to sacrifice everything which takes you away from the State of Presence. In truth, what you need to sacrifice is your own forgetfulness. ~Anadi

No-Mind

The flower invites the butterfly with no-mind;
The butterfly visits the flower with no-mind.
The flower opens, the butterfly comes;
The butterfly comes, the flower opens.
I don't know others,
Others don't know me.
By not-knowing we follow nature's course.

~Ryokan

Do it - but never be the `doer'

Be in the world, but don't be of the world. Remain in the crowd and remain alone. Do a thousand and one things - whatsoever is needed, do it - but never be the doer. Don't gather the ego - that's all.
~Osho - A Sudden Clash of Thunder, Aug 1976

Never take any credit for what happens through you. If something so-called "bad" happens, you don’t feel guilty. If something "good" happens, you don’t feel proud. You just don’t believe the mind’s interpretation of you as a doer. ~Rabia

piece of silver moon
suspended in the purple sky
not so far away

Here

Q: Is here, HERE, regardless whether one is enlightened or not?

A: Yes.

Q: This implies that the world remains whether I am here or not.

A: Yes. This ‘I' is simply a creation of the mind. This creation, this fantasy of ‘I', has no effect on the world. Remember it is the fantasy of ‘I' that has no effect on the world, but it is this fantasy, that is the source of your suffering. And all the while the world is always HERE.

Q: Do I ever get the chance to declare I am here.

A: You are doing it all the time. You are lost in this illusion and your declaration has nothing to do with reality. Your declaration is simply an expression of the ego. It is the same as those people who declared that the earth was flat. It did not make any difference to the world, but it made a great deal of difference to their lives. You can think that the earth is the center of the universe, but that does not change the universe, it just limits you. This is the same with having the belief in this ‘I', it does not change the world, but it locks you into the prison of the ego, the illusion, into the limitations of the mind.

Q: Am I the imposition or is the world the imposition.

A: The thought, the belief in the ‘I' is the imposition. The ‘I' is an illusion, a creation of the mind, a collection of thoughts. The world can never be an imposition.

Q: One more thing, Awake translates to presence,

A: Yes.

Q: while asleep translates to absence.

A: No. That which is absent is that which is not real. Dreamless sleep is the nearest you get to Enlightenment. It is just that in your dreamless sleep you are not aware. To be in dreamless sleep with Awareness, is Samadhi. ~Umi

Emptiness

Radical consciousness is unqualifiable, which can be metaphorically indicated by saying that pure consciousness is pure Emptiness. Emptiness is not a concept, it is a simple and direct awareness. Look, right now you can see various colors -- that tree is green, the earth over there is red, the sky is blue. You can see color, so your awareness itself is colorless. It's like the cornea of your eye, which is clear -- if the cornea were red, you wouldn't be able to see red. You can see red because the cornea is "red-less" or colorless. Just so, your present consciousness sees color and is therefore itself colorless. You can see space, so your present consciousness is spaceless. You are aware of time, because your consciousness is timeless. You see form, your consciousness if formless.

So your basic, immediate consciousness -- not the objects of consciousness, but consciousness itself, the witnessing awareness -- is colorless, formless, spaceless, timeless. In other words, your basic and premordial awareness is unqualifiable. It is empty of form, color, space, and time. Your consciousness, right now, is pure Emptiness in which the entire universe is arising. The blue sky exists in your consciousness, right now. The red earth exists in your consciousness, right now. The form of that tree exists in your consciousness, right now. Time is flowing by in your consciousness, right now.~Ken Wilber

The Now-moment

For the Now-moment, in which God made the first man and the Now-moment in which the last man will disappear, and the Now-moment in which I am speaking are all the one in God, in whom there is only one Now. Look! The person who lives in the light of God is conscious neither of time past nor of time to come but only of the one eternity. ~Meister Eckhart

I have realized that the past and future are real illusion, that they exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is. ~Alan Watts

Religion and Science

Q: What is the difference between religion and science?

A: The institutional religions have always insisted on belief. Whereas science cannot accept belief. And yet the Masters, the origin of the religions never presented beliefs. The trick of using beliefs is that it covers up your ignorance, it gives you a false reality. Science uses doubt, but religions have made doubt into a negative. But doubt has a great beauty to it. It is the source of inquiry.

When you were born you had no beliefs, you were curious, you were open, but beliefs were imposed on you by parents, teachers, religious leaders etc. And it is these people, who are unconsciously the source of ignorance. Once you have accepted their beliefs, you are no longer looking into the deep reality of existence, you are no longer inquiring, doubting, questioning, exploring, you are floating on the surface in the illusion of the beliefs. These beliefs have kept humanity in darkness for thousands of years. These beliefs have made it possible to exploit, enslave, and manipulate humanity. The institutional religions are not only not concerned about Truth,they want to avoid it.
Why do you need beliefs? Do you believe in the sun? This would be absurd. Do you belief in a rose? No. You know the rose. Knowledge has no beliefs. Zen has no beliefs. Zen is pragmatic. The Master simply invites you to do this, to do that, and then see what happens. Not as a belief, but as a direct experience. Zen is an inner science. It is the great prerogative of the doubters. It is only when you are willing to keep going deeper and deeper, and shedding this concept, that belief, this opinion, that ideal, and still keep shedding, and still keep going deeper and deeper in, and be willing to let all go, even your very foundation, only then will you begin to emerge directly into the mysterious, and into the light of knowing, where Truth, Freedom, Peace and Love are as intimate as the sun and the rose. ~Umi

Eternity; herenow

Eternity isn’t some later time.
Eternity isn’t even a long time. Eternity has nothing to do with time. Eternity is that dimension of here and now that all thinking in temporal times cuts off. And if you don’t get it here, you won’t get it anywhere ... the experience of eternity right here and now, in all things, is the function of life. This is it. ~Joseph Campbell