taoweblog

dem Gedächtnis besser einprägen

2009-05-21T01:29:00.003+02:00

Die Verse im Tao Te King, die im chinesischen Original in Reimform verfasst sind, sind weniger als Dichtung zu verstehen, sondern als Denk- und Merkreime, so dass sie sich dem Gedächtnis besser einprägen. In letzter Zeit hat man des Öfteren versucht, das Tao Te King in eine alltägliche, weitschweifige Sprache frei zu übertragen, um das Werk leicht verständlich zu machen. Doch alle diese Versuche mussten fehlschlagen, weil das Tao Te King sich für solche, wenn auch noch so gut gemeinten Modernisierungsversuche nicht eignet. Jeder Versuch, den Text sprachlich zu glätten und durch Hinzufügungen in die Länge zu ziehen, führte unweigerlich dazu, die tiefen mystischen Aussagen des Lao-tse zu verfälschen und in die profane Ebene herabzuziehen. Solche den Text vergewaltigenden Übertragungen sind nicht nur dem mystischen Geist des Tao Te King vollkommen entgegengesetzt, sondern letztlich äußerst peinlich und in keiner Weise sinnvoll. Den Text so zu verwässern, als sei er ein Produkt der heutigen esoterischen Welle, bedeutet das Werk aus seinem historischen Rahmen zu reißen und es seiner lebendigen Ursprünglichkeit zu berauben.
Was die Sprache des Tao Te King anbetrifft, so ist sie geheimnisvoll, tiefgründig und voller Symbolik, so dass sich das Werk unmittelbar an die geistige Intuition des Lesers wendet. Der mystische Gehalt des Tao Te King erschließt sich somit in seiner ganzen Tiefe nur dem inneren Auge des mystischen Schauens. Das heißt, dass man ihn letztlich, über das logische Denken hinaus, nur meditativ ganz erfassen kann. Logik und Intuition bilden so in ihrer Verbindung von Herz und Verstand die ganzheitliche Grundlage zum Verständnis des Tao Te King.

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2138193/in_your_eyes_peter_gabriel_tribute_to_heroes/

Taoism is concerned with your beyond

2009-03-15T00:39:00.002+01:00

Johnson was a compulsive gambler, but always willing to give and share. So when he lost all his money in a poker game, Brown, one of his cronies, gave him a twenty-dollar bill to tide him over till the next day. On his way home, a shabbily dressed woman approached him with a hard-luck story. "I can't go on," she pleaded. "I haven't eaten all day. If you don't help me, I'm going to drown myself" Generous Johnson handed her the twenty-dollar bill. "I'll never forget your kindness," she said gratefully. "You have restored my faith in mankind." The next morning Johnson noticed a newspaper item about the body of an unknown woman that had been fished out of the river. The description of her clothes fitted the woman he had befriended. He was puzzled. He met Brown at lunch. "What did you do after you left us yesterday?" asked Brown. "I walked home," said Johnson. "Did you spend any money?" "No. Why?" "That's good," said Brown with a smile. "We were wondering what would happen when you tried to spend that phony twenty-dollar bill I gave you." Tao cannot be found by practicing anything -- neither Yoga nor Tantra nor Zen nor Taoism. Tao cannot be known by practicing anything whatsoever. Who will practice? All practices are confined to the mind and the mind practicing something means the mind is strengthened more and more through the practice, the mind is exercising and becoming stronger. Every practice strengthens the mind, and the mind belongs to the relative; t Is the very foundation of the relative.

No fight: no blame

2009-02-09T02:44:00.004+01:00

There was once a general of war who had spent his entire life fighting in campaigns for many kings. Now at the end of his career, he became tired of fighting. He had spent a lifetime perfecting his skill in all the arts of war and his skill was famous, but he was weary and had but one wish: to spend the rest of his days studying archery, the one art of war he had not mastered. The general did not want to learn archery in order to be a better fighter, but rather to study and reflect. He had heard of Master archers, living in distant monasteries, who spend a lifetime doing nothing else but perfecting their skill. Their life appealed to him, and so he retired from fighting and began to search for the Master archers. After a long journey the general found a monastery where the monks were devoted to archery. He entered the monastery and begged to join them and pass the remainder of his days on this earth studying archery. For 10 years that is what he did. Then, when he had perfected his skill as an archer, the abbot of the monastery came to the general and said, "It is time to leave." The general was shocked and he protested, saying that his life in the world outside the monastery was over. His only desire was to remain within the monastery walls and continue to meditate on the bow, the arrow, the target. The general argued and pleaded with the abbot, but the abbot was resolute. He insisted that the general must leave. To advance his skill, it was necessary for the general to go out into the world and teach what he had learned. And so he left the monastery. Once outside, the general had nowhere to go; he decided to return to the village of his birth. It was a long journey over many lands, but finally he neared the village. As he walked through the surrounding forest he noticed a bull's-eye on a tree, with an arrow in the exact center. The general was surprised by this and even more so when he noticed more trees with bull's-eyes and arrows in the center. Soon he came to the farmlands and there saw many barns and homes with bull's-eyes and arrows dead center. He became agitated and walked quickly into the village center. There, on every wall of every building was a bull's-eye with an arrow right in the center. The peace he had gained from his years of monastic life was gone. He was indignant to find that after 10 years of study and reflection there lived an archer more skilled than he. Quickly, he approached the elders of the town and demanded that the archer responsible for this perfection met him at the edge of town by the mill, in one hour. The general waited by the mill, but as the hour approached no one came. There was, however, a young girl playing by the river. The girl noticed him and came over. "Are you waiting for someone?" she asked, looking up at the general. "Go away," he said, irritated. "No, no," said the girl, "you look like you're waiting for someone and I was told to come and meet someone here." The general looked unbelieving at the little girl and said, "I'm waiting for the Master archer responsible for the hundreds of perfect shots I have seen." "Well, that's me then," said the girl. The general, feeling more indignant still, looked skeptically at the girl. Finally, he said, "If you are telling the truth, then explain to me how you can get a perfect shot every single time you shoot your arrow." "That's easy," said the girl, brightening. "I take my arrow and I draw it back very tight in the bow. Then I point it very, very straight and let it go. Wherever it lands I draw a bull's-eye."

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5159636580663884360&ei=ZYyPSaohitbbAtrz2bYL&q=

In jeder Erfahrung erfahren wir das Leben

2008-11-23T19:48:00.002+01:00

Alle versuchen ihr Glück zu schmieden, und doch macht jeder entsprechend seiner geistig-seelisch-körperlichen Verfassung andere Erfahrungen. Das Einzige, das wir tatsächlich in jeder Erfahrung erfahren können, ist das Leben selbst!
Im Taoismus geht es jedoch darum, sich der eigenen Erfahrung und deren Abhängigkeit von der individuellen Wahrnehmung der Welt bewusst zu werden, kurz, die eigenen Bedingungen zu erkennen. Dabei ist Lachen wie ein Transportmittel, das unseren Organismus mit Lebensfreude anreichert. Die Schritte, die jeder Einzelne in seinem ganz persönlichen Lebensumfeld aufgrund dieser Lebensfreude unternimmt, sind Schritte in Richtung Selbstachtung, Verständnis, Mitgefühl und Nächstenliebe. Der Taoismus ist ein humorvoll-heiterer Übungs- und Erkenntnisweg und dient der Reinigung von Körper, Geist und Seele, der Klärung der Gedanken und Gefühle und so dem ganzheitlich-harmonischen Gleichgewicht der humores, der Lebenssäfte.
Der Freude entsprosst alle Schöpfung. Durch Freude wird sie erhalten. Zur Freude bewegt sie sich hin. Und in die Freude kehrt sie zurück.
Der Wert des Lachens ist unschätzbar!

The notion that mysticism is just quantum physics

2008-11-22T02:08:00.004+01:00

"If you have happy thoughts, then you make happy molecules." The notion that ancient Hindu mysticism is just quantum physics wrapped in metaphysicalgarb seems to have originated with Fritjof Capra in his book The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism (1975). The book's first two parts are excellent expositions on ancient religions and modern physics. The third part, which tries to connect the two has influenced numerous New Age energy medicine advocates to claim that quantum physics proves the reality of everything from chi and prana to ESP. The idea that there is such a connection is denied by most physicists but books like Capra's and Gary Zukav's The Dancing Wu Li Masters : An Overview of the New Physics (1976) overshadow and are much more popular than books written by physicists. Chopra and other defenders of Ayurveda, following Capra and Zukav, are fond of claiming that modern physics has substantially validated ancient Hindu metaphysics. However, physicist Heinz R. Pagels, author of The Cosmic Code: Quantum Physics as the Language of Nature vehemently rejects the notion that there is any significant connection between the discoveries of modern physicists and the metaphysical claims of Ayurveda.

http://www.strimoo.com/video/10554703/osho-MySpaceVideos.html

They belonged to the trees and to the stars

2008-11-11T21:53:00.004+01:00

The Tao Teh Ching signifies a state of society when civilisation had not yet entered, when people were still living natural lives, when they were more close to the earth, to the rocks, to the rivers, when they were almost part of the ecology. They belonged to the trees and to the stars. The home was not yet lost; they were at home in the universe. Love can do that miracle again. Man has to become capable of living naturally, lovingly, and yet able to use his mind when needed. But he should not become obsessed with the mind. He should live in the heart, and mind should be used only as a mechanism, just as you use your car or your radio or your television. One should not become addicted to the head. A totally new kind of civilisation is needed: a heart-oriented civilisation. Taoism is the beginning of that new kind of civilisation. By becoming a taoist you are becoming part of the future, of that which is going to happen of that which has to happen if man is to survive, if life is to exist on earth. The old has failed, utterly failed; the new is absolutely needed and as quickly as possible, because man is dying, his heart is missing beats. Man is in a state of heart failure -- only a great dose of love, an allopathic dose, can save him, otherwise there is no hope.

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/yt-zrwGmWLlpng/matchbox_20_push_storytellers/

But the historians recorded that he was born on such and such a date.

2008-11-08T00:39:00.006+01:00

Christ comes to a village and a group of people gather around him. While he is talking to them someone from the rear of the crowd shouts, "His mother has arrived. Give her passage."
Jesus laughs and says, "Who is my mother? I was never born." But the historian appointed a date and wrote that Jesus was born on this date. Now this man says, "I was never born. How can I have a mother? I am eternal." But the historians who recorded this saying of his also recorded that he was born on such and such a date.
Those who wrote about Krishna were men of profound insight. They thought it would be doing injustice to Krishna, who says again and again that he is eternal and who tells Arjuna, "What I say to you has been said to many others in past millennia. And don't think that this is the last of it, I will continue to come and say it again and again. And you are mistaken to think that those before you here will die at your hands. They have been born and died countless times in the past and they will be here again and again in the future." It was for this reason a biography of Krishna was not recorded.
It would be hard for history to research and recover the lost records of Krishna's life, because they were deliberately allowed to be lost.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNZPHId0Yq0

if any of you can remember

2008-09-17T18:24:00.003+02:00

On the first day of school, the new teacher says to her class, "All right, children. I want you to know that I have a very difficult name, and so I am going to spell it out for you. Tomorrow, if any of you can remember how to spell it right, I will give you a bag of candy. My name is Miss Prussy. Spelled: P-r-u-s-s-y."
Little Guiseppe, who has just arrived in America from Italy, really wants to do well in his new school. That night, he goes home repeating over and over: "Prussy -- Miss Prussy."
Guiseppe's older brother hears him and asks what he is doing. Guiseppe explains and his brother says with a grin, "That's easy to remember. Just think of `pussy' with an `r'."
The next day in class, Guiseppe is anxiously waiting to be called on. As the teacher walks in, she sees Guiseppe waving his hand.
"Okay, Guiseppe," she says, "do you remember what my name is?"
In a sudden panic, Guiseppe tries to think of what his brother told him and stutters, "It is... mmh, ah... it is Miss CRUNT!"

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2354522218050337229&ei=CzXRSK_GJ5Ku2wKW6-W4Ag&q=

What we know need not necessarily be Truth.

2008-09-07T16:36:00.004+02:00

Realization of Truth, of the Supreme Soul, and of what we really are, is not a matter of intellectual deliberation or mental reflection. Only those of us are able to comprehend Truth who nurture their worthiness and receptivity by ceaseless practice. Inasmuch as our knowledge of things is restricted by the extent of our capacity to know, it is necessary to remember that the boundaries of Truth are not limited to the extent of our knowledge. The frontiers of Truth are ever beyond our ken, because the more we know the more remains yet to be known. What we know need not necessarily be Truth since Truth is much too large for our capacity to comprehend which is neither complete nor perfect. One who identifies the limits of one's knowledge with those of Truth stops thereat, and does not go further. Even in the case of worldly objects we find our knowledge restricted by our sense-organs. To a person bereft of eyesight there is, indeed, no object like light in his world of experience. A true conception of light cannot find a place in the community that consists entirely of blind persons. Nor can darkness be truly comprehended by them, because an experience of light is essential to a thorough understanding of darkness. If we are devoid of the auditory faculty, sound becomes non-existent for us. Virtually, the existence of only those things is revealed to us which are intelligible to our senses. Our world of experience co-extends with our perceptive ability. We cannot, however, say that the real world is only that much. The frontiers of the world we experience and the real world are not identical. Our world is thus restricted by us ourselves. Surely, there are many worlds within one world. There are as many worlds as there are living organisms. Examining still more minutely, we can say that there are as many worlds as there are individuals constituting the different species. Thus in the universe the individual worlds are numberless, because those who know, perceive, and experience are likewise numberless. Hence, the universe is subdivided into as many imaginary pieces as there are individual cogs in the wheel. Far behind men are quite a large number of animals whose sensory faculty is far inferior to that of man. We know that many of them do not possess the faculty of seeing or hearing. Some are denied the gustatory faculty and some the olfactory. Those beings do not, really, have the experience of light, sound, taste or smell. The world of experience of man extends as far as his sense-organs allow it to do, and it will be sheer ignorance if the real world were to be restricted by us to what is projected by our limited knowledge. Were we blessed with more sense-organs, we might possibly have extended our world of experience still further. Scientific appliances have enabled us to do so. This is mentioned only to emphasize that our knowledge is commensurate with our capacity to know, with the powers of our senses to understand and grasp. What is true of the visible world is also true of the existence of the invisible one. Whenever people ask, "Does God exist?", "Does the soul exist?", I would put this counter-question to them, "Do you possess the ability to experience the soul and God?" The real question is that of ability and not of the existence, or otherwise, of God. If you have the ability you will surely experience those truths which are beyond your reach now; in the absence of that ability, those truths will necessarily seem untruths. If some vague fear compels us to accept truths they cannot be real truths, for real Truth is what is experienced as such.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2113288694355750920&ei=su_DSJL5IZT22wKovI2-BQ&q=

a group of people gather around him

2008-09-04T01:18:00.004+02:00

It should be clearly understood that neither Krishna nor Christ wrote anything. Whatever passed for their utterances was all recorded by those who heard them.

Christ comes to a village and a group of people gather around him. While he is talking to them someone from the rear of the crowd shouts, "His mother has arrived. Give her passage."

Jesus laughs and says, "Who is my mother? I was never born." But the historian appointed a date and wrote that Jesus was born on this date. Now this man says, "I was never born. How can I have a mother? I am eternal." But the historians who recorded this saying of his also recorded that he was born on such and such a date.

Those who wrote about Krishna were men of profound insight. They thought it would be doing injustice to Krishna, who says again and again that he is eternal and who tells Arjuna, "What I say to you has been said to many others in past millennia. And don't think that this is the last of it, I will continue to come and say it again and again. And you are mistaken to think that those before you here will die at your hands. They have been born and died countless times in the past and they will be here again and again in the future." It was for this reason a biography of Krishna was not recorded.

It would be hard for history to research and recover the lost records of Krishna's life, because they were deliberately allowed to be lost. Every effort has been made to suppress the chronological account of Krishna and persons like him. Nobody knows who wrote the Upanishads and who wrote the Vedas; their authors are all anonymous. Why? Their anonymity says it is God who is speaking through them and so they need not be mentioned.

http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=QdXCsGIuai4

the ultimate in consciousness

2008-07-26T23:14:00.005+02:00

Down the ages, many religions have existed on the earth -- invented by man, invented in his unconsciousness, invented according to his misery, invented out of misery. And they have been trying to depict the ultimate in consciousness as if it is dull, dead, no spice at all in it, no joy in it. Christians say that Jesus never laughed. Just ridiculous. If Jesus cannot laugh then who else? Do you think you can laugh? Yes, sometimes you laugh, but your laughter is shallow. It is at the most on the lips, or if it goes very deep it goes to the throat. It does not come from the heart, it does not come from your guts, it does not come from your core. It is just there. superficial, painted. It is shallow.
Only a man of tao can laugh. And when a man of tao laughs he is laughter -- not that he laughs. When you laugh you laugh. When a man of tao laughs he is laughter. When you dance you dance. When a man of tao dances he is dance. When you love YOU love. When a man of tao loves I he is simply love. He doesn't exist apart from it, otherwise there will be a division, split. When you laugh you are standing aloof and laughing -- laughing is an act, your total being is not involved in it.
And Christians say a very foolish thing, that Jesus never laughed. Why do they say it? Out of their miseries, out of their anguish, out of their meaninglessness, they have depicted Jesus sad, gloomy, serious, grave. And because of this your churches have become graveyards; the joy of life no more exists there. And because of this your scriptures have become like you find in museums -- a snake in alcohol. It will live long. But a snake on the grass alive in the sun, on the rock, resting in the afternoon, taking a nap, a snake moving up on a tree or swinging with the branches of a tree, a snake is ALIVE. And a snake in the museum, in the hospital, in the science lab, is in alcohol. The alcohol snake, or call it the alcoholic snake, will live long, because it is dead.
The real snake, the alive snake, will not live long, because it is alive -- death will be coming. But for the alcoholic snake there is no death.
Jesus died. He was a flower -- bloomed in the morning, by the evening gone. But the Christ invented by the Christians, lives. It is an alcoholic snake, bottled, a museum-piece. It can live for ever and for ever. Your scriptures are dead; they are like butterflies pinned. You can collect butterflies and go on pinning them -- they look like butterflies, they are not. Because what is a butterfly if it cannot have freedom, if it is not alive, if it is not roaming from one flower to another, if it is not a vagabond on the wings -- what is it? It is nothing. It is a corpse.
So are your Bibles, so are your Vedas and your Koran. They are invented things. Jesus, the real Jesus, is just an excuse. And you have imposed upon the real Jesus your own Jesus who never laughs.

http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=rv6oWhG76pQ

don't joke, they are all mahatmas

2007-08-27T20:44:00.000+02:00

A sense of humor is the taoistic contribution to religiousness. All religious people have been sad and serious and sick. You cannot live with them. That's why people simply touch their feet and run away, because they are so boring. Just sitting by their side a little while, you will start feeling bored too. If there is a heaven where these saints and sages and mahatmas have all reached, then I don't want to go there, because that will be the saddest place in the whole existence. And everybody will be trying to be sadder than the other. A sense of humor is something especially human. Buffalos don't laugh, they are all saints. Donkeys don't joke, they are all mahatmas. In their past lives they have been saints and mahatmas. That's why they have attained such a great status. These are the people who will go to heaven. If after death you are asked where you want to go, please remember to say, "Wherever you want to take me, take -- but I don't want to go where saints go!" Even hell will be better. You will find superior, finer, more juicy people.
Now the joke. It is about three journalists. All three were retired: one was eighty, another was eighty-five, and the third was ninety. It was their usual habit to go for an evening walk, sit in a public park and discuss the golden old days. One day it happened that the first journalist, who was eighty, said,"I feel so ashamed, it hurts. It is like a wound." The other two said, "What happened? Who has hurt you?" He said, "Nobody has hurt me. Just I was caught red-handed." They both said, "You are making a mystery of it. Simply tell us the whole thing! What happened?" He said, "I was caught red-handed by my mother." They said, "At what?" He said, "Now, how to say it? I was peeping through the keyhole when a beautiful woman was taking a bath and my mother caught me. I feel ashamed." The two other guys laughed. One said, "Son, don't get disturbed, it happens to everybody. In childhood everybody looks into keyholes, into bathrooms, and what else to do? Keyholes are made for that. Beautiful ladies are made for that. Don't feel ashamed -- we have all been caught but that doesn't mean that...." The man said, "You don't understand at all. You go on saying to me, "Don't feel ashamed, don't feel ashamed." It is not a question of childhood! It happened today!" Then there was silence. This was too much, if it happened today. The second one said, "Yes, we can understand. I will tell you my story which will give you consolation. It is now the third day that I have not made love to my wife. She is such a bitch that whenever I mention love she immediately turns to the other side and says, 'I have a headache, enough is enough. Now no more.'" The other two laughed now. The third, the oldest, said, "Do you know his love? First tell what you mean by love!" He said, "It is a very simple process. Every night I take her hand in my hand and press it three times. By that time I am fast asleep and snoring. But for three days the bitch won't allow me to make love. I can understand you are feeling ashamed, hurt. I am feeling hurt. My own wife, at this age, is betraying me!" The third man said, "What is happening to me will make you forget all your troubles. This morning when I started making arrangements to make love to my wife she said, 'What are you doing?' "I said, 'What am I doing? I am just doing what should be done. I am trying to make love.' "My wife said, 'You idiot! This is the fourth time in the night! Neither you sleep nor you let me sleep! Love, love, love... there is no limit to it.' "I said, 'My God, that means my memory is going. I had completely forgotten that three times already I have made love.' "And you are talking about your troubles. Think of my trouble, my memory disappearing. At least it is good I can still make the distinction between day and night."So everybody has his problems. To look at a problem with humor is human. Except for human beings no animal can laugh. And your religions have been preventing you from laughter.

one who gives meaning to the word

2007-04-23T16:43:00.000+02:00

The East has approached reality in an almost diametrically opposite way to the West. All Eastern scriptures begin with OM, Shantih shantih shantih and they also end with the same. OM is the symbol of the universal heartbeat; it is not a word. And as you come closer and closer to the universal heartbeat, the by-product is a deepening silence. Shantih means silence and it is always repeated three times because by the time you reach to the fourth, you are no more -- just the silence has remained. You have disappeared as an entity separate from the universe. The West has not been able to begin even a single scripture with this intention. It is understandable. They never went into the deeper communion between your heart and the bigger heart of the universe. They have taken a wrong route, that of fighting, that of conquering, that of being victorious. They have chosen to be extroverts. Their world is true, but they don't know anything about themselves. The outside is true and the inside has not been explored. The Bible says, "In the beginning was the word." Now this can be said only by somebody who is absolutely ignorant, because the word means a sound with a meaning. These sounds made by the words are just sounds; you cannot call them words. The moment you say, "In the beginning was the word," unknowingly you have accepted that there is someone who gives meaning to it, but then the word is not in the beginning. In the beginning is one who gives meaning to the word. And the Bible says, "God was with the word." Anyone who wrote it must have felt uneasy that the world should begin only with a word. Immediately he needed someone to give meaning to it; hence the second statement that God was with the word. If you look into things very impartially, deeply, you will be amazed how much they can reveal. Then he must have become aware to ask, "Who is first? God or the word?" The third sentence then tries to make a compromise. It says, "God and the word were one." Nobody in the whole Eastern search will agree with it. The East has not experienced the beginning because naturally you cannot see the beginning: you are already there, the beginning has happened. In your being you have preceded the beginning, so there is no possibility of any witness of the beginning. But there is a possibility to be a witness of the end. The Eastern meditators found as they entered into their inner being, they are first surrounded with a tremendously beautiful and musical sound. It is not the sound of any music being played, it is simply the heartbeat of the universe. And once they come in tune with the heartbeat of the universe, silence descends.

Look at a child

2007-02-16T15:00:00.000+01:00

This is how a tense man is: there is no flow of energy-many blocks, many dry beds, and somewhere a little pool exists and that pool is bound to become dirty. When energy is flowing you are fresh. When energy is moving without any blocks you are river-like, and the ocean is not far away. When you are a summer river; when everything is dried and only pools of energy exist, and there is no interlink between your energy pools, then you can never reach to the ocean; then God is the farthest thing possible. Flowing, He is near -- non-flowing, He is very, very far away. Flow is needed, and when you flow you are beautiful. Look at a child, watch a child; he is a flow, a river-like flow. He moves like wind and he never tires. They have been doing some experiments at Harvard University. One very, very healthy person was told to follow a child for twenty-four hours. Whatsoever the child did, he had to do -- whatsoever. If the child jumped he had to jump, if the child went out, he had to go out, the child lay down, he had to lie down. Within eight hours he was completely exhausted; he couldn't follow for twenty-four hours. And the child was never tired. What was happening? -- the river was flowing. When a river is flowing, a constant source of energy is available. The man simply said: I cannot follow any more. This boy is driving me crazy and I am tired, exhausted. I feel that my mind will crack any moment, because he is doing such absurd things, without any rhyme or reason, and I have to follow him. And the boy enjoyed tremendously, that somebody was following him and he had become the leader. Just watch a small boy. What is happening? Nothing, just a simple thing: he is not a dry river in the summer -- he is a flood. He is a river in the rainy season, millions of streams are falling into him, and you can be the same. But the more you become self-conscious, the more a deep tension goes into you. Self-conscious, you start shrinking; unself-conscious you open and spread. And everybody has two concubines. Everybody is himself the two concubines.
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. This looks irrational, but it has a deep reason. 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.
Try to understand this arithmetic of existence, paradoxical, but real. And if you can understand it many things will change in you immediately. If you demand something it will not be given to you. If you don't demand, you will suddenly find millions of streams falling into you -- every door is open. Demand and you will be denied; don't demand and the whole existence belongs to you. Possess and you will lose; don't possess and nobody can take it from you. Be self-conscious and you will not be a Self; be unself-conscious and you attain to the inner crystallization, the integrity which is the Self.

become part of the communion

2006-11-19T18:26:00.000+01:00

If your body were an organization, scientists would have been immensely happy, but man is not a mechanism put together, man is an organism. Everything in man is connected with everything else; the whole body is functioning in tremendous harmony. You love a person -- you want to touch the person, hug the person, and kiss the person. Why do you do all these things? To get as close to the person as possible. Kissing is unhygienic. A word is a bridge. If you allow yourself to become part of the communion, you cannot be bored; you will be in immense rejoicing, you will be blissful. But nobody can force you to be blissful. Why get miserable? Do something that makes you happy. And I don't know what makes you happy. It is a great art to be blissful. One has to learn it. Become more and more organic. You are bored with yourself.
A man was sitting in a chair in a waiting room on the railway station. Many other people were also waiting in the waiting room. They all became interested in this man, because what he was doing appeared very strange. Sometimes he would smile for no reason at all. Sometimes he would burst into laughter. Sometimes he would throw away something which was not there, but his hands, his face, expressed the idea that he wanted to get rid of something. He was saying, "No, no" -- not in words, in gestures. The whole waiting room fell into silence. What was this man doing? And he looked rich, well-dressed, educated. Finally one man got up to ask him, "What are you doing? -- because we are getting more and more curious. Now it is too much; and the train is late -- we will have to watch you for at least two hours more. It is becoming mysterious." The man said, "There is nothing mysterious. I was just telling jokes to myself. And whenever I came across an old joke, I threw it away -- I have heard it so many times. When something really juicy comes into my mind, there is a smile. Sometimes just a smile is not enough; the joke is so wonderful that I burst out into laughter. But all this I am doing to myself. How are you concerned? You do your work."
If you are bored, you are doing it to yourself. Please stop doing it. Making love is a way of getting close, so close that you are in each other. But what a communion can do, even lovemaking cannot do. A genital meeting is not a great meeting. It is the lowest form of meeting -- even buffalos are doing it. Only man is capable, at the highest sophisticated level, of touching your very heart. After a big storm there is a deep silence following it. This is the law of nature: day follows night, life is followed by death, and word follows wordlessness. On both sides....

our unguarded scientific experiments

2006-10-18T23:17:00.000+02:00

AIDS is going to kill the larger part of humanity, because it is spreading so fast. And it will spread... just one contact with a person who has AIDS is enough, and then those contacts will go on spreading. That's why remain with one partner. It is nothing to do with monogamy, it is just pure hygiene, health, on medical grounds, and there is no religious basis to it.
Jesus must have been suicidal.
Jesus had only twelve fools -- uneducated, unintelligent fishermen, carpenters -- and he himself was uneducated, uncultured. And when he was crucified they all escaped. They were not in love with Jesus; they were hoping that through Jesus they would enter into paradise and enjoy paradise.
Religions have been talking about peace and fighting and killing and murdering, burning people alive. On the one hand they will say God is love, on the other hand they will be burning living people. Christians have been killing, Mohammedans have been killing, and Hindus have been killing. It is a strange phenomenon that Buddha was born in India, but in India there are no Buddhists. For twenty-five centuries there have been no Buddhists. They had to escape because Hindus were killing them.
We have destroyed the harmony of nature through our unguarded scientific experiments. We have now in the hands of politicians, who are the most mediocre people in the world, such immense energy to destroy that they can destroy this whole earth seven hundred times. Now if just one politician goes nuts, that's enough -- and they are all nuts.
If something has become so rotten, it is better to be finished with it.
The world has become almost a madhouse. If we cannot change people's consciousness, if we cannot destroy the boundaries between nations, the boundaries between colours, and the boundaries between religions -- if that is not going to happen....
One cannot simply forget the reality. The world is divided into nations, into religions, all fighting and trying to kill each other. One cannot forget America and Russia, ready to destroy the whole world any moment. This is simple realism. This humanity, if it is not going to change, is not worth saving.
Either change or the world is going to be destroyed. So your change is absolutely necessary. It is not something that can wait, that tomorrow we will change.
Traditions just rubbish. They have done enough harm.
All religions of the world up to now have been sado-masochistic.

Lemuria und die Menschenaffen

2006-10-01T00:40:00.000+02:00

Nach der Begründerin der Theosophical Society, Helena Blavatsky, lebte der erste Mensch auf dem Kontinent Lemuria, er war “ein ungeheurer vortertiärer Riese”, der “vor achtzehn Millionen Jahren existierte”, war doppelgeschlechtig, vierarmig und mit drei Augen ausgestattet, das dritte für “geistiges Schauen”. Aus ihm entwickelten sich dann durch Sodomie die Menschenaffen. Lemuria habe sich schließlich in Einzelteile aufgespalten und wurde dann durch “unterirdische Feuer” zerstört. Teile der okkulten Rassentheorien Helena Blavatskys hatten auch die Rassentheorien der sogenannten “Ariosophen” beeinflusst - die bedeutendsten Vertreter waren zwei Österreicher: der Schriftsteller Guido von List und der Mystiker Adolf Lanz, der sich selbst Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels nannte - und wirkten sich durch diese vermittelt auf die Weltanschauung der Nationalsozialisten aus, die das Motiv der “lemurischen Rassenmischung” aufgriffen und es antisemitisch umdefinierten. Später spielte Lemuria bei der amerikanischen Ufo-Sekte der “Unarier” eine Rolle. Sie wurde von Ruth Norman gegründet, die sich selbst “Erzengel Uriel” nannte. Die Religionssoziologin Diana Tumminia schreibt, dass die Sekte 1976 in den “Lemurian Cycle” eintrat. Im Verlaufe von Gruppensitzungen, den “Readings”, “erinnerten” sich Sektenmitglieder an frühere Leben in Lemuria, auch daran, dass lemurische Herrscher die Massen durch in die Stirn implantierte elektronische Geräte kontrollierten und die Menschen dadurch nur ein Leben willenloser Roboter führten. Ursula Seiler reichert die Geschichte mit einem eigenen Element an: “Die Geschlechtskrankheit der Syphilis entstand übrigens auch auf Lemuria.” Doch sie weiß angeblich noch mehr: Die Wiege der Menschheit stehe mit Sicherheit nicht in Afrika, auch wenn sehr alte Skelette dies vermuten ließen. Als Beleg dafür wird sogar Haeckel zitiert. “Der Naturforscher Ernst Haeckel lag schon im 19. Jahrhundert bemerkenswert richtig mit seiner These: ‘Die Entwicklung des Urmenschen erfolgte entweder in Südasien oder Lemurien’.” Der entsprechende Text Haeckels ist ein Abschnitt aus seinem 1865 gehaltenen Vortrag ‘Stammbaum des Menschengeschlechts’. Dort heißt es: “Derjenige Theil der Erdoberfläche, auf welchem die Entwicklung des Urmenschen aus dem nächststehenden schmalnasigen Affen erfolgte, scheint entweder in Südasien, oder in Ostafrika, oder in Lemurien gesucht werden zu müssen.” Während Haeckel ausdrücklich Ostafrika als mögliche Region der Entstehung des Menschen aus dem Affen anführt, verfälscht sie den Text durch Weglassen dieser Passage, um genau das Gegenteil, nämlich den Ausschluss Afrikas, in Form eines “Autoritätenbeweises” zu belegen.

is there anything to be put at stake

2006-09-29T03:23:00.000+02:00

When somebody says that he did the best he could and it was not good enough, then this fellow is in the same class as the motorcycle cop who stopped a motorist and started to write a ticket. 'Officer,' this motorist protested with great indignation, 'I was not speeding! You are permitted to go fifty miles an hour, and I was only going forty.' 'I know that,' the motorcycle cop answered defensively, 'but I can't catch up with the really fast ones.'
If you want to know reality directly, it is very arduous. It asks for total sacrifice. The fool only tries up to a certain limit. The limit is: if he can get knowledge cheaply he is ready, but if there is anything to be put at stake then he recoils back. Be courageous. Unless you have infinite courage you will not be able to become the blessed fool. Ordinarily nobody remains in the state that is only a theoretical state. Everybody has to pass out of it, more or less -- the difference is of degrees, of quantity but not quality.
Don't have a closed mind. Be like the old maid who caught a burglar in her room. He pleaded with her, 'Please, lady, let me go. I ain't never did anything wrong.' The old maid answered him, 'Well, it is never too late to learn.'
If you think you are the intelligentsia, then it is never too late to learn. Knowledge you have enough, now learn knowing. Knowledge clutters the mind as dust gathers on the mirror. Knowledge is not knowing -- knowing has a totally different quality and flavour to it. It has the flavour of learning. Knowledge means that you go on gathering information, experience, categorising, memorising, learning means you don't gather anything; you simply remain available to what is happening or is going to happen. Learning is a state of open mind. The more you know, the more you become closed because then you cannot avoid the knowledge that you have, it always comes in-between. Deep inside you are judging, evaluating, criticising -- there is no dialogue, there is a debate. You may look silent but you are not silent, your knowledge goes on revolving. It destroys everything. It distorts. And whatsoever reaches you is not the real thing; whatsoever reaches you is only that which your knowledge allows to reach to you. A learning mind is one which listens attentively with no interference from the past, which is just an opening, a mirror-like phenomenon, which simply reflects whatsoever is. If you start learning, you will attain knowing. And knowing will help you to see that you don't know at all. A person who has come to know reality becomes aware of his ignorance -- he knows that he knows not. In this knowing, ignorance is the mutation, the transfiguration, the revolution. So take a jump from the state of foolishness to the state of being a blessed fool.

the chakras become available

2006-09-04T16:58:00.000+02:00

The introvert person becomes very lopsided. He closes the door of the heart because he becomes afraid. From that door opens the world. So he goes on denying. He becomes a renunciate, a monk, anti-life, condemnatory, repressive, afraid -- continuously afraid of relationship, of moving with people, of creating any sort of love, because who knows? -- love may bring in sex. Once you open the door of love, then the whole three chakras become available -- the chakras of the below. It is better not to open the doors so you can forget all about the lower world. Then one remains just inside -- but one's life becomes morbidity. One becomes like an island -- cut off from everything . . . a dry bone. No juice remains. The very shape of life disappears, because if you don't love, life starts disappearing. Life exists when you love. Love becomes the very foundation for life to exist. It can have its foothold there. The introvert becomes more and more sad -- silent of course, but not happy. The extrovert is very excited; the introvert is never excited. He remains calm and quiet, but calmness and quietude are not the goals of life. Ecstasy is the goal of life. Just to be calm and quiet can mean death, can mean suicide. You can dry up all the sources of life in you. You will become calm and quiet, all the fever gone, all the passion gone, all the lust gone -- but then you are also gone. You are just an empty room, negativity, a sort of absence, not a presence. You are not fulfilled. You cannot dance -- you have nothing to dance about. You cannot sing. No song arises in your life because all songs dry up when love dries up. The extrovert seems sometimes to be very happy . . . is more happy than the introvert, but never silent. More joyful -- it is a joy to be with an extrovert. You cannot live with an introvert long; that's why saints are so boring. It is good to pay respect to them, but you cannot live with them for twenty-four hours; they are really boring. And just to think about heaven where all the saints have gathered down the centuries.... One cannot believe how boring that place must now have become. It will be sheer boredom. You can be with an extrovert, happily; you can relate with him. He is an excited being. He sings, he plays around... many games. He enjoys. Of course he is tense. He is never silent; that is his problem. Happiness is at a cost -- that he loses tranquillity, equilibrium, balance. His excitement becomes more and more feverish, and there is every possibility of it turning into a delirium. The extrovert can be mad at any time; the breakdown can come very easily to him. He is so excited and so tense. He has no centre -- just the revolving periphery.

very difficult not to be impressed

2006-08-25T00:51:00.000+02:00

Second-hand knowledge acquired from others will not do in the quest for truth. You have to lay down the load, unburden yourself of all concepts. You have to enter within as if your boat has capsized and you are thrown on an unknown island. You do not know where you are; you know nothing about this place. Each step is an adventure in a strange land. Like Robinson Crusoe, you will have to discover everything yourself. This is the meaning of the simple self. With each step you will discover things as they are within, you will taste the original taste of the emptiness. Pseudo-tastes can also be created outside. You must have seen a hypnotist working. If you have not, you can try this experiment. Make a child lie down and suggest to him that he is falling asleep. It is not only with children that you can do this. Thirty per cent of people can be worked upon in this way. In a short while, the child will fall asleep. Hold an onion before him and say, "This is an apple, a delicious apple. Eat it." The child will eat it and smack his lips. He will say it is tasty. This is hypnotism. But in everyday things we also hypnotise ourselves. Do you remember what you felt when you took the first puff from a cigarette? But since everybody smokes, it must be enjoyable. When you took your first sip of coffee did you enjoy it? This is nothing but hypnotism. And we are told taste has to be cultivated! When you drink coffee for the first time you will find it bitter. It is no fault of the coffee. You are not refined; you are uncultured. Keep taking coffee over a period of time and you will develop the taste. Then it will be difficult for you to remain without coffee. What has happened? You have hypnotised yourself, you have been hypnotised by your friends and even by the advertisements of the Coffee Board. Now coffee has become delicious. But this taste is false; it is not authentic. In the same way, the inner taste can also be false. Therefore Lao Tzu exhorts us to embrace the simple self within. If you are impressed by Buddha -- and people like Buddha are impressive; it is very difficult not to be impressed by them -- then you sway to his music, you get carried away by his fragrance, you lose yourself in him. Then you catch hold of his words. You take these words and go within. You will get the same taste that Buddha has spoken about. But this taste will be false. It will be like the taste of coffee -- cultivated. The words echo within you. Buddha's image is established within you.

service to the establishment

2006-07-27T22:56:00.000+02:00

What the pope is doing is simply currying favour with the masses.
And he said: IT IS THE CHURCH'S DUTY...
To whom? Duty to whom? He means duty to the poor. That's wrong. It is duty to the vested interests; it is service to the establishment.
"…DEFENDING THE HUMAN DIGNITY OF THE POOR AND THEIR HOPE FOR A HUMAN FUTURE IS NOT A LUXURY FOR THE CHURCH...” It is not a luxury; it is its very life, its basic need. And he says: “IT IS HER DUTY...”
That too is true. It is duty to the establishment, duty to all that is ugly, to all that is dead, to all that is past.
The outraged husband, having caught his wife in another man's arms, shouted, "Sir! This is my wife, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself!" The man replied, "If that is your wife, you ought to be ashamed of yourself!"

It was eleven-thirty, and Hunchback Harry wanted to be home in time for the midnight movie, so he took the shortcut through the graveyard. He was very nervous as he walked among the gravestones. Suddenly there was a flash of lightning, and a loud clap of thunder, and a voice boomed: "I am Lucifer! I am the devil!" Terrified out of his wits, Hunchback Harry cowered behind a tombstone shivering. "Dost thou have a desire?!" thundered Lucifer. "Y-y-yes," mumbled Hunchback Harry. "I want to lose my hunchback." "Right! It shall be done!" shouted Lucifer, and vanished. And thus Harry lost his hunchback. The next night in the pub the lads were amazed. "Hey, Harry," said Charlie, "what happened to your hunchback?" So Harry told about how he had walked home through the graveyard and met Lucifer. "Mm, that's interesting," said Charlie, and he decided he was going to walk home through the graveyard that night. As he crept along there was a blinding flash and loud thunder. "I am Lucifer! I am the devil!" Charlie dived in panic behind the nearest tombstone and shuddered with fear. "Dost thou have a hunch-back?" roared Lucifer. "N-n-no," stuttered Charlie. "Right! Take this one!"

before the child is even awake

2006-06-30T02:48:00.000+02:00

There is no need to develop a conscience at all. What is needed is consciousness, not conscience. Conscience is a pseudo thing. Conscience is created in you by the society. It is a subtle method of slavery. The society teaches you what is right and what is wrong. And it starts teaching the child before the child is aware, before the child can decide on his own what is right and what is wrong, before the child is even conscious of what is happening to him, before the child is even awake. In a kind of sleep, in a kind of dream, the child lives in the beginning. In the mother's womb the child sleeps for twenty-four hours. Then after the birth he sleeps for twenty-three hours, twenty-two hours, twenty-one hours, twenty hours... slowly slowly. But he remains in a kind of limbo, neither awake nor asleep. The child cannot make any distinction between what is real and what is unreal. And we start teaching the child what is right, what is wrong -- we are conditioning him. We are conditioning him according to our ideas. All these ideas -- from parents, from priests, teachers, politicians, saints -- -all these ideas jumble together inside him. They become his conscience. And because of this conscience he will never be able to grow consciousness -- because conscience is a pseudo consciousness. And if you are satisfied with the pseudo you will never even think of the real. It is very deceptive; the way we have been bringing up children is very deceptive. It is ugly, it is violent, and it is against humanity. That's why millions of people live without any consciousness. Before they could have grown into consciousness, we gave them pseudo toys to play with. And their whole lives they think this is all that is needed to live a good life. And their whole lives they will be rewarded if they follow the conscience, and they will be punished if they don't follow the conscience. From the outside they will be punished and rewarded, and from the inside also. Whenever you do something that your conscience says is wrong, you feel guilty, you suffer, and you feel inner pain. You are afraid, you are trembling... it creates anxiety. And the fear about heaven, that you may lose heaven, and the fear of hell, that you may fall into hell... and with great inventiveness your saints have painted the joys of heaven and the miseries of hell. This is conscience. Conscience is artificial, arbitrary. Conscience is needed because the society does not want you to be intelligent.

that was his commune

2006-06-22T23:53:00.000+02:00

All educational systems take you outwards. Listening to the person -- it will look strange, because the teacher's function is to make you listen to him. The Socratic method is listening to the person respectfully, patiently, so that he can open up. He need not repress anything, he need not inhibit anything; he can be utterly naked and yet remain dignified.
If a therapist can do that -- help a man to be utterly nude, open, with no secret, hiding nothing -- the therapist has succeeded, because in this nudity one realizes one's innocence. One is born again. This nudity is symbolic. Just as a child is born nude, you are born again -- now spiritually nude.
Socrates was punished because he was teaching the truth. He had a school -- that was his commune -- where the whole function was to be respectful to everyone who comes to the school and help him uncondition himself, deprogram himself so he becomes again an innocent child.
Socrates has nothing to teach. He simply cleans you and leaves you to yourself, to grow according to your own potential. He does not give you even any guideline, because nobody knows what is hidden in your seed, what kind of flower is going to blossom in you. All guidelines are dangerous -- they may distract you from becoming yourself.
This was his crime, and he was dragged to the court. The crime was: "You are spoiling the youth of Athens." Certainly, in the minds of the mob, he was spoiling them. The mob wanted the people just to follow the well-trodden path of their forefathers. And Socrates was teaching them to be themselves and to find out the path on their own, with no scripture, no holy book, no God, no guide. Socrates was taking all these things away from you, unburdening you, making you a tabula rasa; nothing is written on you, and you are free now to be whatsoever your nature intends to be. He leaves your future open.
Naturally, the masses were against him. Their youth were being destroyed; they were being taken away from the religion, the philosophy, the ideology which had been followed for centuries. "They should carry it, it is their inheritance" -- and Socrates was insisting that you are a totally new being, with no inheritance.

the unsuccessful become unhappy

2006-06-18T20:26:00.000+02:00

First of all I should know who I am. I should ascertain whether I am trying to discover what I am, or whether I am trying to discover what I am not. If I fail to discover what I am not, I shall certainly be miserable. Still more interesting is the fact that if I actually succeed in discovering what I am not, I shall still be miserable. Those who are unsuccessful in life certainly become miserable, but there is no end to the miseries of those who succeed either. That unsuccessful people become miserable can be understood. But the successful ones also become unhappy. Just go and find out from successful people. Then it appears that life is a great joke, a mockery. In this world the unsuccessful become unhappy, which seems quite logical; it seems just and proper. But those who succeed in life also are unhappy. In such circumstances this world appears very crazy and unbalanced. When both the successful and the unsuccessful have to be unhappy, then there seems no way to be happy. So let us first of all ask the successful people why they are unhappy, as there is nothing surprising about the unsuccessful being unhappy. Let us ask people like Alexander the Great and Stalin; let us inquire of multimillionaires like Carnegie and Ford. Ask those who got what they wanted. Ask them, "Did you find happiness?" and you will be very puzzled to hear their replies. They say, "We have been successful, but successful in finding unhappiness." Those who are unsuccessful also say, "We failed to achieve happiness; we found unhappiness instead." Those who achieved success say, "We succeeded in becoming unhappy; we found only unhappiness in our hands." Those who run fast in the race of life reach their destination only to arrive at unhappiness; and those who reach nowhere and wander here and there in the wilderness also wander in misery. When such is the case, what is the difference between the destination and the path? What is the difference between roaming about and reaching the destination? There appears to be no difference. The difference cannot be seen, because the person who does not know who he is will be made miserable even by his success. The day on which he becomes successful he will realize that the building which he constructed -- his great achievement -- has not fulfilled his need. It gives his nature no nourishment. The building has been constructed, he has accumulated wealth, he has found fame and fortune; but these achievements fail to nourish any part of his inner life, they fail to bring contentment. He should have sought to discover, "What is my true desire, what is my longing? What do I really wish for?" Without knowing your true desire you will simply go on and on desiring, jumping from one desire to another.

an ancient Hindi scripture written by Manu

2006-06-17T23:10:00.000+02:00

Rama is not of great spiritual height, because whatever he has done is almost inhuman.
First the son of a Brahmin dies in Ayodhya...
And the Brahmin comes to Rama and says that there must be happening some great sin, otherwise the son of a Brahmin cannot die before his father. So a great search.... thousand miles away it has been found that a sudra -- an untouchable -- has heard few Brahmins reading Vedas, hiding behind trees. That was the great sin, thousand miles away from Ayodhya, where the Brahmin's son has died. The sudra was caught, and Manu Smrati (an ancient Hindi scripture written by Manu) provides only one punishment: that melted lead, absolute fire, should be poured into both his ears. And that's what Rama did. I cannot conceive Rama even human. To talk of him as incarnation of God is simply nonsense.
In Russia they had created communism through a very dictatorial regime, forcing people, and they killed almost one million people after revolution; and then too when freedom was given again, the communism disappeared, because there is something intrinsically wrong in Marxian understanding.
Man is not equal. You cannot make another Albert Einstein and you cannot create another Karl Marx. People are unique. So the whole idea of equality and inequality is baseless. You cannot compare two unique beings. You don't compare a man with a chair. It is stupid -- they are simply different. People are different, so they should be given equal opportunity to be different, but they should not be forced to be equal -- which is against human nature, against human psychology.
Communism is not necessarily connected with the dictatorship of the proletariat; in fact it is not connected with government at all.
Education means a man with a balanced growth -- of body, mind, heart and soul. So up to now there has never been any education which is total. It is at the most a training of the mind, at the cost of the body, at the cost of the heart, and finally at the cost of the man's innermost being.
This education has proved dangerous. It creates only clerks; it cannot create anything else.

truth has to be discovered

2006-06-14T23:03:00.000+02:00

It happened that one of Picasso's paintings was purchased by an American for one million dollars. Naturally, he wanted to know whether it was an authentic Picasso or not. He approached Picasso himself -- because that was the only way to find out -- and he asked Picasso, "Is this painting authentically yours, or has somebody made a copy of your painting?"
Picasso looked at the painting, and he said, "It is not authentic."
Picasso's girlfriend was amazed by the answer, because Picasso had painted that painting in front of her. She said to Picasso, "This is an inhuman joke! That man has spent one million dollars! He has come from America to France to ask you -- and you are lying, because I am an eyewitness. You have painted this painting; this is absolutely authentic!"
Picasso said, "You are not wrong. I have painted it, but still I say it is not authentic."
Now the man who had purchased the painting was absolutely in confusion. The girlfriend was also puzzled. What does Picasso mean? If he says he has painted the painting, and still insists it is not an authentic Picasso, this is a contradiction.
The man said, "This is even more confusing. It was good that it was not authentic; at least things were settled. But now you are saying you have painted it, and still it is not authentic. What do you mean then?"
Picasso said, "It is very simple, there is no contradiction. I have copied it from one of my old paintings. It is not authentic, it is just a copy. I have painted it, but it is not original. Somebody was insisting that he wants a painting, and I was not getting any ideas, so I simply used an old painting of mine and painted -- it is a copy. Now it does not matter who copies, Picasso or somebody else: a copy is a copy, it cannot be authentic."
This incident can remind you that existence never produces copies. It only produces authentic individuals -- never again the same person, never before. You are unique: you have never been in the whole eternity that has passed before you, and you will never be in the coming whole eternity. This uniqueness is something to be proud of.
Your truth has to be discovered only by you.

Sometimes you get identified too

2006-06-09T16:47:00.000+02:00

The metaphor of the mirror is tremendously meaningful. It will be very helpful on the Way if you can understand it. The consciousness is just standing behind, watching. It is a witness. Things come and go... just like a movie. You sit in a movie house; on the screen many things come and go. Sometimes you get identified too. Sometimes you become identified with an actor. Maybe he is beautiful, powerful, has a charm, a grace of personality, is impressive, and has some charisma: you get identified, you forget yourself. For a moment you start thinking as if he is you. Sometimes it happens that there is a very sad scene, and you start crying, your eyes are wet... and there is nothing on the screen -- just light and shadow passing. And you know it, but you have forgotten for a moment. If you remember it, you will start laughing at yourself: "What are you doing? Crying? Weeping?" But it happens when you read a novel too. At least there is something on the screen. Reading a novel there is nothing -- no screen, no actors, nothing. Just in your own fantasy the novel goes on and on and on. And suddenly sometimes you feel very happy, and sometimes you feel very sad; the climate of the novel starts possessing you.
This is exactly what is happening in life. Life is a great stage, a great drama. And it is very complex -- because you are the actor, and you are the director, and you are the film, and you are the screen, and you are the projector, and you are the audience too. Now you are all layers: one part playing the role of an actor, another part directing, another part functioning as a screen, another part working as a projector. And behind it all is your real reality -- the witness who is just watching.
This watcher....
Once you start feeling its existence, once you start getting settled with it, more and more in tune with it, then you will see what Buddha means when he says consciousness is a mirror. The mirror is never contaminated, it only appears to be. You can put a heap of dung before a mirror; of course, it will reflect it. But still the mirror is not contaminated, it is not polluted. It doesn't become impure because a heap of manure or dung is reflected in it. It remains still pure. Remove the dung and the mirror is there in all its purity.

saying things so simple

2006-06-08T23:43:00.000+02:00

If you compare.... that's why Jung was afraid. Jung was studying Eastern religions his whole life, and as he became more and more acquainted with them, a great fear arose in him; and the fear was that one day, sooner or later, the East is going to take over the West completely: "Religiously we cannot argue with such sharp, ten-thousand-year-old, very intricate, complicated systems. Our systems in the West are very poor." There is not a single commentary on Jesus' gospels. In two thousand years Christians have not even written one commentary, for the simple reason that there is nothing to comment on. Jesus was saying things so simple that Osho became the first commentator on Jesus, because he could make simple statements into complex philosophies. It is not difficult. It works both ways: you can make very complex philosophy into simple statements; you can do vice versa -- simple statements you can make into a great philosophy. When Osho spoke first on Jesus in THE MUSTARD SEED, it was accepted all over the Christian world as something unique, because in two thousand years nobody had bothered; nobody had even thought that there is any philosophy in it. Philosophy is not something that is ready-made, present anywhere; you have to create it. It does not exist. It is not that you simply open the door and philosophy is sitting there. No need to open the door -- you can simply create the hallucination of philosophy. Philosophy is just a linguistic game. It is a gimmick. You have only to learn to play with words -- and just being born in India is enough to know the game. It is in the very air. Everybody is talking great philosophy, it is not something rare. Even villagers are talking great philosophy, reading great philosophical treatises. So when Osho spoke on Jesus it had nothing to do with Jesus, it had nothing to do with anybody else; he enjoyed playing with words. But it is a very dangerous game. He can play for, he can play against. So when Osho was playing for, even Christian publishers published his books. Sheldon Press in London is a Christian publishing house. They published THE MUSTARD SEED and eight other books and, when in one of his talks Osho said that there are sources which say that Jesus was ugly, that he was four foot five inches high and that he was a hunchback, they freaked out! Their board of directors decided to withdraw all his books immediately.

the egoist in its utter nudity

2006-06-06T21:09:00.000+02:00

The disease called will-to-power is the greatest disease, as far as man's consciousness and its growth is concerned. It is just like cancer; it is the cancer of the soul. Will-to-power can express itself in many ways. The easiest is politics, because it does not need much intelligence. All that it needs is the capacity to create false hopes in the masses, hopes which have never been fulfilled, which were never meant to be fulfilled; their purpose was something else. And the masses are in suffering. They are poor, they are ignorant. They also need all the comforts of life, they also want to live like human beings, with dignity. The politician gives them the hope, and exploits the hope for his own purpose, because once he gets the power, once he becomes somebody -- a prime minister, a president -- then something in him feels at ease. It was his psychological need.
These people are basically, deep down, impotent -- hence the urge to power. They feel their weakness and powerlessness; they know they are nobodies. But if they can convince the mediocre mob that they will be fulfilling their needs, then it is a mutual understanding, a bargain. Then the masses give them power. Once they have got the power, they forget all their promises; in fact, they never meant them, and once they have the power, then you see their real face. Lord Acton was absolutely right when he said, "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." But he was not aware of why power corrupts, how power can corrupt. The man must be carrying the seeds of corruption already but was incapable of doing anything; he needed power. Once he has the power, then slowly his mask starts falling away and you will see within him the egoist in its utter nudity. The politician is nothing but an egoist. Inside he feels empty -- and afraid of that emptiness. He wants to be somebody so that he can forget his own emptiness. Power gives him the chance. He can see that millions of people are under his thumb. He can convince himself that he is not a nobody, he is somebody special. And he starts behaving that way. He starts misusing the power. Once he is in power, then he never wants to be out of it. Then he always wants to remain in power, because now he knows perfectly well that out of power he will be more aware than ever of his emptiness and his impotence.

Rejoice that existence cannot be without you

2006-05-16T16:21:00.000+02:00

Taken as a prisoner into paradise, do you think you can enjoy it? Going into paradise following Jesus Christ, or Moses, or Buddha, or Krishna -- what kind of paradise will that be, where you are expected to be blind believers; you cannot ask a question, you cannot inquire about anything. That paradise will be worse than hell. But people have been distracted from their very source. Come back home. Respect yourself. Feel the joy and the pride that existence needs you; otherwise you would not have been here. Rejoice that existence cannot be without you. In the first place that's why you are here: existence has given you an opportunity, a life with tremendous treasures hidden within you -- of beauty, of ecstasy, of freedom. But you are not existential! You are Christian, you are Buddhist, you are Hindu. And only believe in one thing: existence. There is no need to go to any synagogue or any church. If you cannot experience the sky, the stars, the sunset, the sunrise, the flowers blossoming, the birds singing.... The whole of existence is a sermon! Not prepared by some stupid priest -- it is all over the place. You just need to trust yourself; that is another name for loving yourself. And when you trust and love yourself, obviously you have taken all the responsibility of whatever you are, whoever you are, upon your own shoulders. That gives such a tremendous experience of being that nobody can enslave you again. Don't dump your responsibility on anybody. Can you see the beauty of an individual who is capable of standing on his own feet? And whatever happens -- joy or sorrow, life or death -- the man who has loved himself is so integrated that he will be able not only to enjoy life, he will be able to enjoy death too. But the individual is missing, so you have to take responsibility for yourself. But you will be able to take it only if you start loving whatever you are: this is the way existence wanted you to be. If existence wanted another Jesus Christ, it would have created one. To be Christian is ugly, to be Mohammedan is ugly, to be Hindu is ugly. Be yourself, just yourself, simply yourself. And remember, you are taking a great risk when you declare that you are simply yourself. You don't belong to any crowd, any herd. These are all herds: Hindus, Mohammedans, Christians, communists. You are declaring yourself an individual, knowing perfectly well that it is risky. The crowd may not forgive you at all. But it is so beautiful to take the risk, to move on the razor's edge where every step is dangerous. The more dangerously you live, the more you live. And it is possible to live, in a single moment, the whole eternity, if you are ready to live with totality, risking all and everything. Don't be a businessman, be a gambler. And when you are gambling, put everything at stake. Don't save anything for the next moment. Then whatever happens will bring great blessing to you. Even if you become a beggar, your being will be far more dignified than that of an emperor.

I have to be real

2006-05-15T14:37:00.000+02:00

The moment something has passed it has passed. Be completely clean of it and be free and fresh again; then you will be real, authentically real, and there will be joy, and there will be celebration and song. That does not mean you will not ever be sad, no. You will be sad. The false man is never sad -- because he is never happy. The false man just remains in the middle, never happy, never sad. He is simply so-so, lukewarm; he is never too cold and never too hot. He is just "okay". He somehow manages. He has a comfortable life, but no real life. Not that the real man will always be happy. The real man will always be real. When he is sad he will be really sad. He will sing a song -- of sadness. He will accept his sadness as part of life, as part of growth. He will not reject it. If he feels like crying he will cry; he will not say, "What am I doing? This is not good. Only women cry, and I am a man." He will not say that. He will say, "If my eyes want to cry and the tears are rolling down, good. I have to be real. I am only whatsoever I am." He will cry. His tears will be true. Your smiles are false, your tears are false. You manage to smile, and you manage to cry too. So you live an empty life. The real man's life will be full, sometimes full of joy and sometimes full of sadness. And the real man one day becomes enlightened. The unreal man never becomes enlightened. When the real man becomes enlightened, then there is no joy and no sadness. Then his being is just a witness. Joy comes: he watches it. Sadness comes: he watches it. Now, these are the three stages. The false man: his joy is just a show, a mask, his sadness too; he pretends. The real man, the second stage: he is natural, spontaneous; his joy is true, his sadness is true. You can trust him. When he is crying, his whole heart is crying; and when he smiles, his whole heart is smiling. And the second stage is a must to attain to the third, the enlightened man. The enlightened man is neither sad nor happy. He has attained to the witnessing soul; he simply watches. He knows the sadness has come, the happiness has come, but these are like climates that come and go and change, and he remains centered. The false man cannot jump to the enlightened state; hence taoism teaches the real man, but the real man is not the goal. The Gestalt ideology or the Encounter ideology stops at the real man. Good. Better than the unreal. But not enough. Something has yet to happen. One can use Encounter groups, Gestalt groups, and all the therapies that have become available. They are perfectly beautiful; they bring you from the first, false state to the authentic, real state. But taoism goes beyond them. But you can go beyond only if you have gone through the second stage. From the first there is no way, from the false there is no way, to enlightenment; only from the real is there a way. You will have to go through the ecstasy of the real and the agony of the real. When you have lived deeply all the realities of life, the witness will arise. It arises naturally.

You got a hammer ?

2006-05-09T23:00:00.000+02:00

A woman was seriously ill. Her husband summoned the doctor, who dashed inside the sickroom and came out a minute later asking for a chisel. The stunned but anxious husband didn't ask questions. He found a chisel. Minutes later the doctor poked his head out and asked, 'You got a hammer?' The husband was puzzled, but not wanting to doubt the doctor, gave him a hammer. Five minutes later out came the doctor asking for a hacksaw. By now the husband was completely upset and screamed hysterically, 'Doctor, you asked for a hammer, a chisel and a hacksaw. What are you doing to my wife? 'What wife?' asked the doctor. 'I'm trying to open my satchel!'
The doctor is just opening his box. Scriptures can't help you more than that. And there is every possibility that whatsoever you read in the scriptures may not be in the scriptures at all. How can you read something that you don't know already? You can read only that which you know. So people go on reading themselves in their books. They don't read the books. When you read books you cannot read them. You will be reading only something about your own mind into it. You will interpret it in your own way. You will be the interpreter. To understand Christ you will have to attain to Christ consciousness. To understand Krishna you will have to attain Krishna consciousness. Just by learning, you will not be able to understand -- you will misunderstand. All your interpretations are going to be wrong. They will be your interpretations out of your ignorance and out of all your kinds of stupidities.
Parson Sloan, with a nervous habit of winking his eye, was sent by his parish to New York City. Sloan asked the taxi driver for a good hotel -- as he winked -- and the cabbie mistook the wink and took him to a bawdy-house. The parson asked the madam for a nice room -- as he winked -- and she took him by the hand to a room filled with her girls, telling him to take his pick. But Parson Sloan said -- as he winked -- that he didn't want any girls. The madam went to the head of the stairs and shouted, 'Oh, Clarence, here's one for you!'
People understand only according to their state of mind. And that is natural. It has to be forgiven. Through knowledge knowing is not possible, through knowledge wisdom is not possible.
Farthington and Smythe, two Englishmen, went on holiday to Ireland. Farthington had a reputation for tactlessness, so Smythe warned him not to say anything disparaging about the Catholic Church. One evening they were playing darts in the local pub when news came over the radio that the pope was ill. Immediately everyone crowded around the radio to listen. 'Oh, to hell with the pope,' said Farthington. 'Let's get on with the game.' He woke up in the hospital to find Smythe sitting next to him. 'I warned you not to say anything about their religion,' said Smythe. 'Yes, I know,' said Farthington. 'But you didn't tell me the pope was a Catholic.'

the merits of their religion

2006-04-13T23:08:00.000+02:00

Moshe Kapoyer was the only Jew in a small town and since business was bad he decided to change his name. There were other reasons also to change his name: because he was a Jew and the only Jew, people were avoiding him and his business was suffering. And secondly because his name, Moshe Kapoyer, means Mr. Topsy-turvy or Mr. Upside-down, so he was not very happy with his name either.
He went to a judge and became Mr. Jones. One week later he was back before the same judge asking that his name be changed to Murphy.
"Why do you want your name changed? I just changed it last week."
"So that when people ask me what my name was before it was Murphy, I can say it was Jones."
In fact you ARE a god; even if you want to be somebody else you cannot. Everybody is trying to be somebody else, but nobody has ever succeeded in being somebody else. God is our nature. You can forget all about it, but you cannot change it.

Flaherty and Gluckstein were discussing the merits of their religion.
"Answer me this," said the Irishman, "could one of your boys be pope?"
"No," answered Gluckstein. "Could one of your boys be God?"
"Why, of course not!" replied Flaherty.
"Well," said Gluckstein, "one of our boys made it!"
If Jesus can make it, if Buddha can make it, why not you? In fact, they could make it because it is not something to be achieved, it is something to be only discovered. We have forgotten it; it is already there like an undercurrent. Our godliness is always there; wherever you go it goes with you. It is you. It is in the sinner, it is even in the saint!
Anna: "Is it true what I hear about your husband cutting down on his smoking?"
Hannah: "Yes, now he is smoking only after meals -- his meal, my meal, the children's meals, everybody's meal!"

The defendant was accused of sullying the honor of a pure young maiden, according to the lady's testimony, and he was having a difficult time explaining the circumstances.
"I am innocent, Your Honor," he declared. "All I did was offer her a scotch and soda, and she reclined!"

hence the fear

2006-04-10T22:41:00.000+02:00

Death is the greatest mystery of life. Life has many mysteries, but there is nothing comparable to death. Death is the climax, the crescendo. One is afraid of it because one will be lost, one will dissolve in it. One is afraid of it because of the ego -- the ego cannot survive death. It will be left on this shore when you start moving towards the other; it cannot go with you.
And the ego is all that you know about yourself, hence the fear, great fear: "I will not exist in death." But there is great attraction too. The ego will be lost, but not your reality. In fact, death will reveal to you your true identity; death will take away all your masks and will reveal your original face.
Death will for the first time make it possible for you to encounter your innermost, interiormost subjectivity as it is, without any camouflage, without any pretense, without any pseudo personality.
Hence, everybody is afraid of death and everybody is attracted. This attraction was misunderstood by Sigmund Freud and he thought that there is a death-wish in man -- he called it thanatos. He said, "Man has two basic, fundamental instincts: one is eros -- a deep desire to live, to be alive for ever, a desire for immortality -- and the other is thanatos, the desire to die, to be finished with it all." He misunderstood the whole point because he was not a mystic; He knew only one face of death -- that it ends life -- he knew only one thing: that death is an end. He was not aware that death is also a beginning. Each end is always a beginning, because nothing ever ends totally, nothing can ever end. Everything continues, only forms change.
Your form will die, but you have something formless in you too. Your body will not be there, but you have something in you, within your body, which is not part of your body. Your earthly part will drop into the earth, dust unto dust, but you have something of the sky in you, something of the beyond, which will take a new journey, a new pilgrimage.
Death creates fear if you think of the ego, and death appeals to you, attracts you, if you think of your true self. So vaguely one remains attracted towards death; if you become clearly aware of it, it can become a transforming understanding, it can become a mutant force.
Try to understand both the fear and the attraction. And don't think that they are opposites -- they don't overlap, they are not opposites either; they don't interfere with each other. The fear is directed in one direction: the ego; and the attraction is directed into a totally different dimension: the egoless self. And the attraction is far more important than the fear.

What does the lion's skin have to do with celibacy ?

2006-04-08T19:15:00.000+02:00

Religion seems to give a certain stupidity to people who were born intelligent.
The Hindu monks sit on the skin of a lion -- and of course, one lion has to be killed for one monk -- and the ideology that they preach is that by sitting on the lion's skin you can remain celibate. Stupidity has no limit.
What does the lion's skin have to do with your celibacy? Lions are not celibate; one has never heard about a lion who was celibate. What scientific proof is there? There is not a single monk who is a celibate, and there are thousands of monks -- Hindus, Jainas....
Two books had come out about one of the richest sects of the Jainas, Terapanth. The sect is headed by Acharya Tulsi. Seventeen hundred monks are under him, and three times more nuns -- and all are sexually perverted.
These two books Acharya Tulsi tried hard to get the government to ban them. But the publisher of the books is also a follower of the same sect. He knows that what is written in those two books by ex-monks of Acharya Tulsi is absolutely true. He said, "I will fight against the government and go to the Supreme Court. They cannot prevent a truth!"
Once Osho was in Acharya Tulsi's camp for seven days. Osho could not believe... so many monks, so many nuns came in contact with him, and they told him that such perversion is going on behind the scenes -- and even Acharya Tulsi is not an exception. Homosexuality is widely prevalent, heterosexuality is widely prevalent. Those nuns are used almost like prostitutes. They go on preaching about celibacy, and their own reality is all kinds of perversions.
One of the ex-members of the cult had come to Osho directly when he left the cult. He wanted to write the book, but Osho said, "Wait a little. Nobody will listen to you. You just create some status for yourself and then write the book. The book is absolutely essential" -- because he himself was the victim of Acharya Tulsi's sexuality, not to say of other monks.
Beautiful Jaina girls are invited to become nuns. It is thought, it is preached, it has been propagated for hundreds of years that to become a nun is to become holy: you bring prestige and blessings to your family too. So when they see a beautiful girl, they invite the family: "The girl has such spiritual powers that she needs to be initiated as a nun." The family is happy, the community is happy, the girl is happy that she has been chosen as a spiritual being of tremendous possibilities. But the reality is totally different. She has been chosen because she is beautiful, young, and the monks are sitting there hungry.

I suspect that now I cannot walk on the water

2006-03-29T00:55:00.000+02:00

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."
In life there are only two possibilities, and they are polar opposites, as you say: ego and egolessness.
The word `surrender' brings the other person in, and you start thinking in polar opposites. Both the polar opposites are within you, so ego and egolessness let become things simple. Drop the ego and be egoless. No surrender is needed.
In egolessness, you are surrendered to existence itself.
And that is the greatest miracle that can happen to a man.
Then nothing is impossible.

unterhalb dieser anderen Wolken

2006-03-14T22:07:00.000+01:00

Blondinenwitz: Was macht eine Blondine mit heißem Wasser? Einfrieren, heißes Wasser kann man immer brauchen. Sex: In Rom wird Viagra für den Vatikan in Pulverform hergestellt. Weshalb? Damit der Papst es unter seine Arme streichen kann, damit beim Urbi et Orbi die Arme länger oben bleiben. Anmache: Wenn du weinst, weine ich mit dir, wenn du lachst, lache ich mit dir und wenn du geil drauf bist... ruf' mich an. Fußballerspruch: Wir haben ein Abstimmungsproblem - das müssen wir automatisieren. (Berti Vogts) Beleidigung: Als die Götter dich zum ersten Mal sahen, mussten sie lächeln; als sie genauer hinsahen, mussten sie lachen. Fieser Spruch: Hallo hier ist dein Handy, die einzige Energiequelle in deiner Hose. Das Folgende ist eine Darstellung des merkwürdigen Vorfalls, der morgens am 12. August 1915 während der schweren Kämpfe geschah, die auf Höhe 17, Bucht von Suvla, ANZAC, stattfanden. Der Tagesanbruch war klar, ohne eine Wolke am Himmel, wie man es bei einem schönen Tag am Mittelmeer erwarten kann. Eine Ausnahme bildete jedoch sechs bis acht brotlaibförmige Wolken, die alle exakt gleich waren und über Höhe 60 schwebten. Es war zu bemerken, dass sie trotz einer Windstärke von sechs bis acht Kilometern pro Stunde aus südlicher Richtung ihre Position nicht veränderten und auch nicht mit der Brise abtrieben. Vom Beobachtungspunkt 150 Meter darüber aus gesehen, schwebten sie in einem Höhenwinkel von 60 Grad. Ebenfalls stationär und auf dem Boden direkt unterhalb dieser anderen Wolken liegend befand sich eine ähnliche Wolke. Sie maß etwa 245 Meter in der Klänge, 65 Meter in der Höhe und erreichte 60 Meter in der Breite. Diese Wolke war völlig dicht und sah von der Struktur her fest aus und war etwa 900 bis 1100 Meter von den Kampfhandlungen im britisch besetzten Gebiet entfernt. All das wurde von 22 Männern der Sektion Nr. 3 Feldkompanie Nr.1, N. Z. E. beobachtet. Sie lagen 13.500 Meter südwestlich dieser Wolke am Boden. Der Beobachtungspunkt befand sich etwa 90 Meter oberhalb des Hügels 60. Wie sich später herausstellte, hüllte die Wolke ein trockenes Bachbett oder einen abgesackten Weg (Kaiajik Dere) ein und sie hatten perfekte Sicht auf alle Seiten der Wolke. Ihre Farbe war ein leichtes Grau, ebenso wie die der anderen Wolken. Ein britisches Regiment, die 1./4. Norfolk mit einigen hundert Leuten, kam dann diesen abgesackten Weg oder das Bachbett entlang in Richtung Höhe 610. Als sie die Wolke erreicht hatten, marschierten sie ohne zu zögern direkt hinein, keiner von ihnen kam wieder heraus. Etwa eine Stunde später, nachdem die letzten darin verschwunden waren, hob die Wolke von Boden ab und stieg langsam auf, bis sie die anderen Wolken erreicht hatte. Beim nochmaligen Hinsehen glichen sie sich wie ein Ei dem anderen. Die ganze Zeit über hatten sie an derselben Stelle geschwebt. Sobald die einzelne Wolke aber ihre Ebene erreicht hatte, bewegten sich alle nordwärts in Richtung Bulgarien. Innerhalb einer Dreiviertelstunde waren alle außer Sichtweite.

nothing comes close to Coca-Cola

2006-02-28T12:41:00.000+01:00

Either it is a coincidence, or it is a conspiracy, or it is just a myth created when the person is gone. But you can judge very easily.
Jesus can revive a dead man, but when he is feeling thirsty on the cross he cannot materialize a single glass of water, or just a Coca-Cola. That would have been a real miracle -- if he had produced Coca-Cola. Then nobody would ever say that miracles don't exist, because to produce Coca-Cola at that time would not have been possible. Even today you cannot make it, because the secret of Coca-Cola is absolutely preserved, there is no way.... There are so many cold drinks available in the world, but nothing comes close to Coca-Cola.
If Jesus had produced that, with the label of Coca-cola and the bottle and everything, then there would have been no need for any other proof; they could have just preserved the Coca-Cola bottle in the Vatican.
But whatever he did is not of much significance, and he could not do it when he was himself in need. He could revive the dead but he could not change those apostles, transform their beings. What to say of transformation -- even on the last night when Jesus is to depart he says to them again and again, "Remain awake, don't fall asleep! This is my last night; tonight they are going to catch me. Remain awake so that I can pray silently -- and be watchful!" And after each hour he comes and he finds his disciples are fast asleep, snoring. He wakes them up and tells them again, "Have you forgotten?" Now, with these stupid people Jesus wasted his whole life -- people who were not even capable of remaining awake just one night. When the master is going to be crucified the next day, even out of curiosity one would have remained awake; but even curiosity is not there. The moment Jesus goes back behind the bushes to pray... and why does he go behind the bushes? That I don't understand. You can go behind the bushes to piss, not to pray, but it would stink. He should have remained just in the middle of those fools and prayed there; that would have kept them awake at least. But going behind the bushes.... Again and again, the whole night that drama continues, but they are not ready. You can't change people's minds just a little bit but you can raise people from the dead? It doesn't seem to be possible.

innocent

2006-02-11T22:01:00.000+01:00

It is the mind that tempts you to go wrong because the mind can exist only when you are wrong. The mind is not needed at all when you are moving towards truth, when you are right. When you are on the right track, mind has no utility; it simply loses its power over you. Go on becoming more and more stupid -- stupid in the sense of innocent.
Jesus was called a fool. Saint Francis was called a fool; used to call himself "the fool of God." Why have Jesus and Francis and people like these been called fools? Even they themselves have called themselves fools for the simple reason that there is something which the fool can know and the knowledgeable can never know. The foo. The fool is not so foolish as the knowledgeable person is. Sometimes he seems to be wiser than your so-called wise people. It was an ancient custom in almost all the countries of the world that every great king used to have a fool in his court. Why? -- for the simple reason that sometimes the fool says things which the wise – so called wise -- cannot say. The fool is so innocent that he simply utters the truth. The so-called wise are cunning; they will not say the truth, they will say that which appeals. It may be a lie -- and lies have great appeal because people live in lies. And particularly in the courts, all kinds of lies remain prevalent. The king is surrounded by all kinds of cheats, all kinds of cunning people; hence a fool was needed, so that he can depend on the fool. The fool will not be cunning and he will say whatsoever is the case. He is so foolish that he will not be bothered about the consequences of it. This is strange, but something significant to be understood. The fool was a necessary part in every great king's court, and the fools have saved many kings many times. They have saved their kingdoms because their advice came from a state of not-knowing, utterly innocent. They have a clarity that the knowledgeable person cannot afford; he is clouded. But because you are calling it stupidity, condemning it, giving it a negative name, you are feeling sad, hopeless. We live through words; we have become so much attached to words that we are deceived by words. Just change the word and you will see the change in your inner climate. Call it innocence and just feel the texture, the taste. Call it stupid and feel the texture and the taste. When you call it stupid you suddenly feel surrounded by darkness; when you call it innocence, as if a flower starts opening within your heart, a fragrance surrounds you. Beware about words, what words you use, because we have lived so long with words, through words.... People live through words. In a crowded theater, if somebody suddenly shouts, "Fire! Fire!" people will start running. Nobody will bother whether there is any fire. The very word 'fire' and your imagination starts working.

these egos are inclusive of all

2006-01-27T21:41:00.000+01:00

The Hare Krishna people are very simple, almost simpletons. They don't know anything about life. Prabhupad has attracted the lowest, the stupidest people of the world, foolish people. Hare Krishna is not going to bring any revolution in the world. It is traditional. Hare Krishna people are nothing. Maybe a sort of entertainment, amusing, eccentric, but they have no future. They have a past. Taoists have no past; they have a future.
And the future is always dangerous -- because if the future is allowed, the past has to be dropped. Only by dying to the past does one become available to the future.
If before you die you can have a taste of something beyond, it will be good. Sooner or later you will be dying. It is better to have some preparation. It is better to be ready for an after-death life. It is possible.
Truth can't be said, but it can be whistled. And you know it too, that when you can't say something, you find ways to whistle it. You want to say to some woman, "I love you," and you can't say it; then what do you do? You hug her. It is a way of whistling. You hold her hands, you look into her eyes, helpless, knowing well that you can't say it, but still you impart, you commune.
Yes, that is right -- truth cannot be said -- nobody has ever said it -- nobody is ever going to say it. By its very definition it is ineffable, inexpressible; but it can be whistled. Buddha whistled, Mahavir whistled, Jesus, Zarathustra, Mohammed.
It is so difficult to say it, it is so impossible to say it. Maybe there is some other way and it can be whistled a little better.
It cannot be said, that's true; but it can be whistled.
Don't try to imitate it; because you can imitate a drunkard, but by that you will not become drunk. You can imitate a drunkard perfectly -- even better than the drunkard himself -- but you will not become drunk. Become drunk with the divine. It is a miracle.
Krishna says to Arjuna in the Geeta: "SARVA DHARMAN PARITYAJYA MAMEKAM SHARANAM VRAJ" -- "Leave all your religions and come to my feet." He is the same type of egoist as Buddha. Buddha says, "Come to me, and I will deliver you." He is also the same type of egoist. And Jesus says, "I have come into the world to deliver everybody." What pure egos!
But remember, these egos are inclusive of all; hence it is not an ego at all. It is so inclusive that it is empty. It is so all-inclusive that there is no sense of "I" in it.

they are touching it and it is becoming unholy

2006-01-12T14:35:00.000+01:00

Look at the Hindus. They are still following ancient scriptures, five thousand years old, which are full of ugliness, which cannot be even called human. But because Hinduism is organized, it is a religion. One-fourth of the Hindus have lived, for ten thousand years at least, in a very inhuman way; they have been forced to live in an inhuman way. They are called untouchables. This is religiousness? One-fourth of Hindus cannot take water from the well from which everybody else takes water. They cannot live in the city, they have to live outside the city.
You will be surprised to know that even today there are places which are very orthodox. The untouchables move with a bell in their hand, continuously making people aware that an untouchable is passing: "Please move away. Close your doors." And they have been forced to have a broom attached to their back so that, when they move, the broom goes on cleaning the road, because they are touching it and it is becoming unholy. They cannot move in all the parts of the city where higher classes live. These people are religious? -- and they all have tax-exempt status.
Mohammedans have killed thousands of people, burned thousands of cities, raped thousands of women, forced people to become Mohammedans at the point of the sword. In the fourteen hundred years they have been on the earth they have been just a curse! But they are a religion.
All these religions don't have any religious quality. The religious quality comes through meditation, and meditation has nothing to do with organization. It is something... you have to go inwards; organization is something outside you.
You need not go to a church to be religious, or to a synagogue to be religious. You have to go inside yourself. That makes one a mystic, a scientist of one's own interiority. And only the few people who are doing this inner search are truly religious.
All the religions should be stopped from being given tax-exempt status. They have done only murders, rapes; they are criminals.
It is only a meditative person who becomes silent, serene, centered, reaches to his innermost core. From there arises the fragrance of truth, love, compassion. He will not be a Christian, he will not be a Jew, he will not be a Taoist. He will be only a mystic, one who has known his own mystery.
The way of religiousness is not an organization, it is an individual inquiry.
Laws are for man; man is not for laws.

künstliche Produkte einer bisher unbekannten Kultur

2005-12-23T00:58:00.000+01:00

An den Flüssen Narada, Kozhim und den oben genannten Balbanju und an den Bächen Wetwisty und Lapchewozh stießen Glücksritter zwischen drei und 12 Metern Tiefe angeblich immer wieder auf die ominösen Artefakte. Das Material der Objekte reicht von Kupfer für die größeren bis zu Molybdän und Wolfram. Gerade die beiden letzten Metalle sind interessant, denn Molybdän, ein bleigraues Metall, hat einen Schmelzpunkt von 2620 °C und wird in der Elektronik und Raketentechnik sowie als Legierungsbestandteil (Molybdänstahl) verwendet. Wolfram hingegen ist recht bekannt, denn das bei 3380 °C schmelzende, sehr harte Metall wird heute als Glühfaden in Leuchtmitteln und auch als Legierungsbestandteil für Metall verwendet.
Die in Rußland gefundenen Objekte erwecken den Anschein, als seien sie allesamt künstliche Produkte einer bisher unbekannten Kultur. Aufgrund der Tatsache, daß die Spiralen und Ringe extrem klein sind, muß, bei einem künstlichen Ursprung der Nanoobjekte, eine sehr weit fortgeschrittene Zivilisation hier am Werk gewesen sein. Auch wenn ein ersichtlicher Verwendungszweck der Objekte heute nicht mehr nachweisbar ist, so kann man aber mit Sicherheit ausschließen, daß diese als Schmuckstücke oder ähnliches Gedient haben. Vielmehr liegt eine technische Nutzung nahe, wobei man nur an unserer aktuellen Forschungen auf dem Gebiet der Nanotechnologie denken muß (zum Beispiel Kleinstroboter in der Medizin).
Die an den Flußufern gefundenen Teile wurde auch einer genaueren Untersuchung wie etwa mit dem "Auger-Spektroskopie-Verfahren", das eine Analyse der Oberfläche erlaubt, ohne die Probe zu zerstören, unterzogen. Am Zentralen Wissenschaftlichen Institut für Geologie und Metallurgie in Moskau nahm man sich der Proben des Flusses Balbanju an, und veröffentlichte am 29. November 1996 die vorläufigen Ergebnisse. In dem Untersuchungsbericht von E. W. Matwejewa kommen die Wissenschaftler zu interessanten Resultaten. So wurde festgestellt, daß die Funderdschicht eine Ablagerung darstellte, die "orientierungsmäßig auf 100000 Jahre datiert werden" kann. Resümierend kam die wissenschaftliche Untersuchungsgruppe zu dem Ergebnis, daß man durch die Umstände des Fundes in Ablagerungen aus dem oberen Pleistozän ausschließen kann, daß es sich um Rückstände bzw. Müll der russischen Raumfahrtprojekte handelt. "Die angeführten Daten erlauben die Frage nach ihrem ,außerirdischen‘ technologischen Ursprung", schließt der Bericht.

killing will not bring life to the man who is murdered

2005-12-17T15:51:00.000+01:00

A man tries to commit suicide but is caught red-handed, so he could not commit it. Now, the court in many countries gives him death as punishment.
Strange world. Strange laws made by great men.
You support the man. He was committing suicide -- that was a crime. You caught him, and now you kill him and that is punishment. In fact, you are fulfilling his desire which he has not been able to fulfill.
Somebody commits a murder -- certainly the greatest crime. But the question is: the murder is committed in the past, the man has a long future ahead; who gives you the authority to hang this man and destroy his future? For one thing, killing him will not bring life to the man who is murdered.
Killing him is not justice but only revenge. You are doing the same that the man had done. But he is a criminal because he is powerless, alone, and you have the power of the government, the power of the law, the power of the army, so naturally you can justify your crime as law. But murder in any way is unlawful.
Can any court give life to any man? If the courts cannot give life to any man, then no court has the authority to destroy any man's life. And, in fact, it is not needed at all. That the man committed murder simply means something is wrong with his psychology. It is not a crime; it is a disease. It has to be treated, not punished.
And for a single act you condemn the whole man. That too, is not justified. You can condemn the act, but you cannot condemn the individual. The individual has to be respected, just as he was respected before. All that can be done is, he should be sent respectfully into a psychiatric nursing home, treated, helped, so the wound in his psychology which created the crime disappears.
Your jails are nothing but universities for criminology. A man goes into your jail for two years' confinement. He was just an amateur, obviously; otherwise it would not have been so easy to catch hold of him. But in the jail he finds great thieves, master thieves, experts of crime who have come many times to the jail and treat the jail as their home. They are called jailbirds. Outside, they don't like it very much. You leave them and soon they will commit a crime and will be back again. And all the criminals in the jail know one thing: that they have been punished not because they committed the crime; they have been punished because they were CAUGHT... because they know people who have committed the same crime on a far greater scale and are respectable citizens, are receiving Nobel Prizes. They have not been caught. So the real crime is to be caught. Crime itself is not crime. And once this enters into the mind of a person, you have spoiled his psychology forever.

a sort of miracle from heaven

2005-12-14T13:53:00.000+01:00

A Cockney was in great difficulties over which of his two girlfriends he should marry. One was called Margaret and the other Maria. The first was rich but very ugly, and the second was poor but immensely beautiful. So he was divided. The head was saying 'Marry the rich girl and then you will have no problems. And what is ugliness? You will become accustomed to it. And even beauty is so fragile -- today it is there, tomorrow it may not be there. And if you get even the most beautiful woman, after a few days you become accustomed to it and the beauty disappears. It is only a question of a few days. Marry the rich girl.' But the heart was longing for the beauty. And he was going nuts.
A friend said to him 'Ere, Bert, why don't you go to Lourdes?'
'Lourdes?' said Bert. 'Where's that?'
'It's in France' said his friend. 'It's a sort of shrine where people go to get cured. But maybe you could find the answer to your problem there -- you know, a sort of miracle from heaven!'
So Bert saved up and went over to Lourdes. A week later he was back and his friend asked him how he had got on. 'Great!' said Bert. 'I got the answer all right. I went into the big church place -- and there, up at the altar, was a statue of Our Lady of Lourdes with a big banner next to it, saying "Ave Maria".'
So he married Maria, the beautiful girl.
When you hear, it depends on you what color you will give it to it. You are already too full of repressions, you are ready to become licentious -- so when you read it you interpret it perhaps as licentiousness. It is nothing of the sort. Be very careful.
It was some time since Patrick and Michael had met, so Michael was anxious to hear if there had been any addition to Patrick's family.
'Not one' answered Patrick very sadly. 'We've still got the four.'
'Still four?' said Michael. 'Are you at the birth-control or something?'
'Not exactly' replied Patrick. 'You see, it's all to do with this new hearing-aid.'
'What do you mean -- this new hearing-aid?'
'Well, you see, when Bridget and I would get to bed, I'd say to her "Darling, is it sleep or what?" And Bridget would reply "What?" And we would make love. But now, with this new hearing-aid of hers, when I say to her "Well, dear, is it sleep or what?" she just turns on her side and says "Sleep" and off she goes.'

Schneller als ein Gigant

2005-12-10T14:01:00.000+01:00

Millionen PC-Nutzer überholen die Superrechner
Das Rennen um den schnellsten Computer der Welt geht in die nächste Runde: Die US-Regierung hat IBM beauftragt, einen neuen Rekordhalter zu bauen. Das Gerät soll stufenweise auf Höchstleistung getrimmt werden und diese in neun Jahren erreichen.
Schneller als solch ein Gigant arbeiten nur noch private Computer - wenn sie sich zusammenschalten. Eine Million Jahre reine Prozessor-Rechenzeit hat die weltweite Gemeinde der Computernutzer dem ambitionierten Projekt SETI@home von 1999 bis heute zur Verfügung gestellt.
3,8 Millionen PC-Nutzer machen mit bei SETI (Search für Extraterrestrial Intelligence). Sie unterstützen Forscher der Universität Berkeley, die in den Daten des größten Teleskops der Welt nach Spuren von Leben im All fahnden.
Suche nach Außerirdischen in der Kaffeepause
Das Verfahren ist einfach: Die Daten werden in kleine Päckchen zerlegt und per Internet an die Freiwilligen versandt. Wenn deren Rechner nachts oder in der Kaffeepause nichts zu tun haben, arbeitet auf ihnen ein Computerprogramm, analysiert automatisch die kleinen Häppchen Datenbrei und schickt das Ergebnis zurück.
1,62 Trilliarden Rechenoperationen haben die über die Erde verteilten Computer auf diese Weise hinter sich gebracht - eine Trilliarde ist eine Zahl mit 21 Nullen! Der bislang schnellste Computer der Welt - der "ASCI White" von IBM - bräuchte bei voller Leistung seiner mehr als 8000 Prozessoren dafür rund sieben Jahre - mehr als doppelt so lang wie die PC-Gemeinde.
Das Projekt zeigt, wie sehr sich Menschen für Forschung begeistern können. Und dafür Risiken in Kauf nehmen - schließlich lassen sie fremde Programme auf ihren Rechnern laufen. Vielleicht muss man die Sache aber auch tiefer hängen - und die Leute wollen einfach nur einen coolen Bildschirmschoner haben.
So don't compromise at any point, because the point of compromise makes you weak: you lose your individuality. But don't be egoistic. Be humble. If you want to be an egoist, then sooner or later you will have to compromise.
So, no compromise, whatever the consequence. Even if death comes as a result, you will be able to receive death dancingly. Only individuals can receive death dancingly, because only individuals know that there is no death, that it is only a transformation from one form into another form.
The old house has become dilapidated and you enter into a new house. Of course, the old house may think you have died, because you have disappeared. Here you die; and there, immediately, you find a new house, a new form.

The moment there is no fear in you and no greed, you will be surprised

2005-12-05T00:59:00.000+01:00

You are not judged, you are not labeled as a sinner or as a saint, and you are not condemned for your small mistakes. You are accepted in your totality. The mistakes come with you.
Yes, we would like to learn from our mistakes, but condemnation is not the way. Every mistake is an opportunity to learn something; but the moment people start condemning you, they destroy your opportunity and they make you stubborn. They force you to commit the same mistake again and again just as a resistance. Your ego is hurt.
It is true that the society is run by punishment or by reward. Reduced to the roots, the whole society is based on fear and greed. Fear as an ultimate consequence creates the idea of hell; greed, on the other hand, as a logical conclusion creates the idea of heaven.
The moment there is no fear in you and no greed, you will be surprised: hell and heaven have disappeared. They were just projections of your psychology; they disappear the moment you accept yourself -- and you can accept yourself only if people around you accept you, if they do not create some guilt in you, do not make you feel unworthy.
It is so easy to accept yourself, if everybody else is accepting you. And there are great implications in it. If a man accepts himself without any guilt, God will disappear. God is your guilt projected. It was God who condemned Adam and Eve in the first place. It was God who drove Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden as a punishment, because they had disobeyed. This God seems to be more like Adolf Hitler -- no compassion even for his own creation.
And if Adam and Eve disobeyed, the whole responsibility goes to God, because why did he create disobedience in Adam and Eve in the first place?
God begins condemnation, expulsion, punishment -- and what a punishment! We do not know when Adam and Eve existed -- at least one million years ago, perhaps two million, three million years, or perhaps never. Most probably never. But we are still sinners because four million years ago Adam and Eve disobeyed God.
Do you think it is fair? Even the most fanatic Christian cannot say that it is fair. It is absolutely unfair. We have not done anything. This is strange, that four million years ago somebody did something, and you are jailed for it, imprisoned, sentenced to death. You don't even know whether these people existed at all. In fact, it is only a story, and the story has been created in almost all the religions, with small differences in the details.
The story has a function -- to make you feel guilty from your very birth.

Tao is a word that has meaning

2005-11-17T17:27:00.000+01:00

May be you know a lot about Tao, but what does it exactly mean? When mountain hamper the path, cowards think it is an obstacle on their way while the braves think it is a reason to move forward. Obstacles in life cannot be shunned, only determined people can enjoy life. When an eagle learns to fly, it follows the flow of the wind. Find a danger, and turn to the other way it goes, fly higher it will. Destiny makes us to meet Tao, our "Wu" then takes the role, which will brings us to practice Tao successfully. Tao is a word that has meaning if it is wanted to be learned, discussed and spoken shortly, easily and simply, then it will be short, simple and without deep meaning. But, if it is tried to be understood widely and deeply, thus the problem and the language must have more meaning and touch the soul.
dwelling in emptiness yet living life to the full: true peace
sinneslandschaft
gespinst aus geruechen
verwirrende botschaft aus dueften
lochstreifen-fluesse
lebens-elixier, aus atem geboren
der duenne plastikfilm, der deine zunge bedeckt,
löst sich
schwammige felder aus rotem fleisch
liegen frisch gepfluegt offen
geschmackslandschaften
auf bebendem pelzchen aus zellen
(frei nach ttk 10)
die *qualitaet* deines bewusst-seins bestimmt die *wahrhaftigkeit* der leckereien. vielleicht schmeckt irgendwas *auf einmal* nicht mehr, was letztes jahr die grosse versuchung war .. nichts ist von dauer
tao te king 12:
die fuenf wuerzen benennen
zerstoert den geschmack
seltene schaetze rauben den schlaf,
wertvolle gueter machen verrueckt

Die sprachgeschichtlichen Ableitungen sind nur als theoretische anzusehen

2005-11-09T01:41:00.000+01:00

Geköpfte Mumie in Lima entdeckt Wie das Archäologische Institut Peru berichtete, hat ein Forscherteam in der Nähe von Lima eine ca. 1.300 Jahre alte, kopflose Mumie gefunden, welche nach gegenwärtigen Erkenntnissen auf die Huari Kultur zurückgeht. Entdeckt wurde der Sensationsfund in Huaca Pucllana, einer Tempel- und Zeremonienanlage, in der Nähe Limas, in dem auch nach dem Mumienfund weitere Forschungen angesetzt sind, um weitere Erkenntnisse über die Kultur der Huari zu gewinnen.
"Derzeit ist bekannt, dass die Mumie enthauptet wurde und der Huari Kultur angehörte", erklärte Isabel Flores Direktorin des Huaca Pucllana Museums. "Anhand der Kleidung wird gemutmaßt, dass die Mumie anscheinend eine Art Beamter war. Der Leichnam war in einem Tuch eingewickelt und verschnürt worden", fügte sie hinzu. Die Huari waren ein vorkolumbisches Kriegervolk, welches von 600 bis 1000 n.Chr. im zentralen Hochland von Peru, nördlich von Ayacucho, herrschte und über beträchtliche Kenntnisse im Bereich der Töpferei und Textilherstellung verfügte. Jedoch wurden die Huari später von der Ichma-Kultur verdrängt, welche, wie Flores anmerkte, bekannt dafür waren, dass sie ihre Feinde köpften. "Es gab einen Aufstand, der sich gegen die Huari richtete. Ohne Zweifel, dieser Fund eröffnet uns neue Informationen über die ehemaligen Bewohner der jetzigen peruanischen Hauptstadt." Peru konnte in den letzten Jahren mehrere sensationelle Funde verzeichnen. So wurden schon im Jahr 2004, auf einer Baustelle, zwei über 700 Jahre alte Mumien entdeckt.
Allerdings konnten sich die germanischen Ethnien auf dem Boden des Fränkischen Reichs und des späteren Deutschen Reichs nur begrenzt verstehen. Diejenigen des "niederdeutschen Raums" untereinander und diejenigen des "hochdeutschen Raums" so ziemlich. Ein Angehöriger des "mitteldeutschen" Sprachraums mag denjenigen des "oberdeutschen" leicht verstanden haben. Aber anders war es bereits mit dem "niederdeutschen" Sprachen. Und noch heute dürften plattsprechender Holsteiner und ein bayrischsprechender Bayer enorme Verständigungsprobleme haben, wenn beide nur in ihrer jeweiligen Mundart miteinander kommunizierten. Daß lingua teudisca die Latinisierung eines von the oda abgeleiteten Begriffs ist, ist kein Argument dafür, daß das Adjektiv "tiudisk" dem Adjektiv "teudiscus" vorgängig wäre. Wobei "Germanisch" eine noch "fiktivere" Sprachstufe ist als Althochdeutsche. Zumal zwischen beiden noch die Stufen "Spät-Germanisch" und "Früh-Althochdeutsch" liegen.
Die sprachgeschichtlichen Ableitungen sind nur als theoretische anzusehen bzw als Parallele.

THE FIRE THAT CONSUMES IS STEADILY BURNING UP

2005-10-26T01:06:00.000+02:00

THE SUTRA OF FORTY-TWO CHAPTERS
THE BUDDHA SAID:
"MOVED BY THEIR SELFISH DESIRES, PEOPLE SEEK AFTER FAME AND GLORY. BUT WHEN THEY HAVE ACQUIRED IT, THEY ARE ALREADY STRICKEN IN YEARS. IF YOU HANKER AFTER WORLDLY FAME AND PRACTISE NOT THE WAY, YOUR LABOURS ARE WRONGFULLY APPLIED AND YOUR ENERGY IS WASTED. IT IS LIKE UNTO BURNING AN INCENSE STICK. HOWEVER MUCH ITS PLEASING ODOUR BE ADMIRED, THE FIRE THAT CONSUMES IS STEADILY BURNING UP THE STICK."
THE BUDDHA SAID:
"PEOPLE CLEAVE TO THEIR WORLDLY POSSESSIONS AND SELFISH PASSIONS SO BLINDLY AS TO SACRIFICE THEIR OWN LIVES FOR THEM. THEY ARE LIKE A CHILD WHO TRIES TO EAT A LITTLE HONEY SMEARED ON THE EDGE OF A KNIFE. THE AMOUNT IS BY NO MEANS SUFFICIENT TO APPEASE HIS APPETITE, BUT HE RUNS THE RISK OF WOUNDING HIS TONGUE."
THE BUDDHA SAID:
"MEN ARE TIED UP TO THEIR FAMILIES AND POSSESSIONS MORE HELPLESSLY THAN IN A PRISON. THERE IS AN OCCASION FOR THE PRISONER TO BE RELEASED, BUT HOUSEHOLDERS ENTERTAIN NO DESIRE TO BE RELIEVED FROM THE TIES OF FAMILY. WHEN A MAN'S PASSION IS AROUSED NOTHING PREVENTS HIM FROM RUINING HIMSELF. EVEN INTO THE MAWS OF A TIGER HE WILL JUMP. THOSE WHO ARE THUS DROWNED IN THE FILTH OF PASSION ARE CALLED THE IGNORANT. THOSE WHO ARE ABLE TO OVERCOME IT ARE SAINTLY ARHATS."
The way of the buddha is not a religion in the ordinary sense of the term, because it has no belief-system, no dogma, no scripture. It does not believe in God, it does not believe in the soul, it does not believe in any state of moksha. It is a tremendous unbelief -- and yet it is a religion.
It is unique. Nothing has ever happened before like that in the history of human consciousness, and nothing afterwards. Buddha remains utterly unique, incomparable.
He says that God is nothing but a search for security, a search for safety, a search for shelter. You believe in God, not because God is there; you believe in God because you feel helpless without that belief. Even if there is no God, you will go on inventing. The temptation comes from your weakness. It is a projection.

if you suffer long enough, you will become addicted to your suffering

2005-10-22T23:13:00.000+02:00

Love arises out of friendship, and then sooner or later it becomes a relationship and there is no friendship -- then it dies.
Always remember one thing: to be in love is good -- that is great virtue. If it is not flowing with one person, then it is better to let it be flowing with somebody else. But don't get stuck -- otherwise you will suffer, you will make him suffer, you both will suffer. And the problem is that if you suffer long enough, you will become addicted to your suffering. Then you will start feeling a sort of enjoyment in your suffering itself. You may become masochists, and then it will be very very difficult to get out of it.
Put all the cards out on the table and don't try to hide; because that is not going to help. Only truth helps. Lies never help -- they can only postpone the problem, and meanwhile the problem will be getting more and more roots in you. So the sooner the better....
You have been happy together; if it hurts, that too has to be faced. Be absolutely true -- no finding of scapegoats, no witch hunting, no rationalisation. Just be true. Look into yourself, show your heart, and help him also to be true. If love is finished, then be friends, there is no need to force it. Maybe, some day again....
Love needs so much awareness to keep it flowing -- and we are not so aware, so again and again it stops.
If one door is closed, another will open.
Never betray love. Lovers change -- that is not a problem, that should not be a problem; we should not become attached too much to persons. Let there be only one commitment, and that has to be to love itself! Be in love with love, and everything else is secondary.
And be courageous -- that courage will help. Otherwise you will both pretend that because of this and because of that... and you will go on being miserable. Never remain in misery for a single moment. Live dangerously -- because that is the only way to live. If it is no more there, it is no more there.
And maybe just making everything open, looking at things again with fresh eyes, something may happen! It may be there -- maybe it is burdened too much with nonsense. If you are putting things openly you may become unburdened, he may become unburdened, you may start feeling for each other again. But next time, if you do start feeling for each other again, don't do the same that you have done before.
Each marriage kills love. Very rarely there is a marriage which has not killed love -- it is a miracle It is not the rule, it is the exception -- and the exception simply proves the rule.

who is there to appreciate ?

2005-10-16T17:02:00.000+02:00

The mass of people has no soul in it. It is just a big crowd of almost dead people who don't know what life is and who will never know what life is.
One has to look into people like Vincent Van Gogh. The man who could produce such immensely significant paintings, why he went mad?
He never went mad. But according to everybody who knew him, he was mad. He was mad because he never worked, he never got well educated. He was mad because his family was persistent that, "You get educated." they wanted to make him a priest and he refused. And that job is respectable, that job is financially the best. It is powerful. And he refused, and he said, "I want to become a painter."
The family simply said that, "If you want to become a painter, you must be mad, because what you are going to gain out of your paintings? If you want to become a painter, then we have nothing to do with you. You just leave us alone, don't bother us any more."
Hungry, without money... sometimes few friends helped, but who is going to help him for long? And once a friend who has helped him saw his paintings, stopped helping him because his paintings were un-understandable. They were as mysterious as existence itself.
But who was there to appreciate them?
His younger brother was very sad for him because he had a certain understanding about paintings. He used to work as a salesman of a big firm which was selling all kinds of art pieces, paintings included. He could understand a little bit. He had known the best paintings in the shop of his owner. He had seen the best sculptures. He had some sense and sensitivity.
So he used to send him just enough that he can eat two meals every day, and what Van Gogh was doing, that out of seven days, four days he will eat and three days he will save the money to purchase canvases, colors. So only alternate days he was eating.
Naturally, anybody will think this man is mad. He is starving but he continues to paint. And he is certainly insane because he could not sell a single painting in his whole life. Nobody was ready to give a single cent.
But his devotion to painting was religious.

WELL DONE, YOU SENSELESS UPSTART FOOL!

2005-10-15T21:08:00.000+02:00

Hakim Sanai says:
FROM HIM FORGIVENESS COMES SO FAST, IT REACHES US BEFORE REPENTANCE
HAS EVEN TAKEN SHAPE ON OUR LIPS.
HE IS YOUR SHEPHERD, AND YOU PREFER THE WOLF; HE INVITES YOU TO HIM,
AND YET YOU STAY UNFED; HE GIVES YOU HIS PROTECTION, YET YOU ARE SOUND ASLEEP:
OH, WELL DONE, YOU SENSELESS UPSTART FOOL!
HE HEALS OUR NATURE FROM WITHIN, KINDER TO US THAN WE OURSELVES ARE.
A MOTHER DOES NOT LOVE HER CHILD WITH HALF THE LOVE THAT HE BESTOWS.
YOU HAVE BROKEN FAITH, YET STILL HE KEEPS HIS FAITH WITH YOU: HE IS TRUER TO YOU
THAN YOU ARE TO YOURSELF. HE CREATED YOUR MENTAL POWERS;
YET HIS KNOWLEDGE IS INNOCENT OF THE PASSAGE OF THOUGHT.
HE KNOWS WHAT IS IN YOUR HEART; OR HE MADE YOUR HEART ALONG WITH YOUR CLAY;
BUT IF YOU THINK THAT HE KNOWS IN THE SAME WAY THAT YOU DO,
THEN YOU ARE STUCK LIKE A DONKEY IN YOUR OWN MUD.
An elephant was having an awful time in the jungle because a horsefly kept biting her near her tail and there was nothing she could do about it. She kept swinging her trunk, but he was far out of reach. A little sparrow observed this and snipped the horsefly in half with his beak. "Oh, thank you!" said the elephant. "That was such a relief." "My pleasure, ma'am," said the sparrow. "Listen, Mr. Sparrow, if there's anything I can ever do for you, don't hesitate to ask." The sparrow hesitated. "Well, ma'am..." he said. "What is it?" said the elephant. "You needn't be shy with me." "Well," said the sparrow, "the truth is that all my life I wondered how it would feel to make love to an elephant." "Go right ahead," said the elephant. "Be my guest!" The sparrow flew around behind the elephant and began to make love immediately. Up above them, a monkey in the tree watched and began to get very excited. He started to shake the tree, and a coconut got loose and fell from the tree, hitting the elephant smack on the head. "Ouch!" said the elephant. At which point, the sparrow looked from behind and said, "Am I hurting you, dear?"
Drop the magnifying glass, and there is neither sin nor virtue, and there are neither sinners nor saints -- simple human beings, just simple human beings. In that simplicity, Tao arrives. In that simplicity, existence starts pouring love. It is already pouring, but because of your ideas, great ideas about yourself, you are not receptive.

No goal is there to be achieved

2005-10-12T00:15:00.000+02:00

All the prophets and the messiahs had secrets, esoteric philosophies. Taoism has none.
But being nothing, nobody, brings you all the blessings of the world. And just being close to tao, slowly one starts feeling also that one is nobody, nobody is special. And the moment one feels he is nobody, the whole existence starts pouring immense blissfulness. It showers on him like flowers. And once you have known the secret, that is how you can commune with existence.
With your ego you cannot commune with existence; you are separating yourself. With no ego, there is communion. That is real godliness. Taoism doesn´t have any God to offer, but certainly it can show the way to godliness. And remember, godliness is nothing special. It is our birthright, we just have to claim it.
It has been said for centuries, again and again, that you have to earn virtue. It will take many times, many lives for you to reach the kingdom of God. They have made it very far away, it is always beyond death. This is sheer stupidity. They were exploiting people's gullibility. They were exploiting peoples hope.
There is nothing beyond this moment. Don't wait for any Godot. Live this moment in its totality and squeeze the whole juice out of it. And if the next moment comes, do the same to it. Go on squeezing each moment and you will be surprised that unawares you have entered into paradise. In this very life, here and now, existence knows only one tense: the present. It knows no past, it knows no future.
So simply be here and now, get more rooted in the present, and then everything becomes possible. And it is not a question of deserving God. We are part of existence already. It is not a question of earning. No virtue is needed, because it is not a bargain, not a business. Just we have to be a little quiet, silent, so we can hear the still small voice within. And we can also hear the silent music that surrounds the whole existence.
And that I call godliness. There is no God, but there is certainly a quality of tremendous beauty, grace, love.
Taoism doesn't have any catechism, any dogma. Taoism doesn't offer any principles, any philosophy, any theology. Taoists live individual lives in freedom.
There is no good taoist, there is no bad taoist; there are only taoists. Good and bad are ugly words and taoism has dissolved them completely. There is no judgment. Everybody has to be responsible for himself, his freedom and whatsoever he wants to do with his life. So it is difficult, impossible, to explain how a taoist is. Those people will have to come to the well, the well does not go to the thirsty.
Taoism does not teach that you have to become somebody other than what you are. No improvement is needed. No goal is there to be achieved. Whatever you need is already provided by existence each moment. It is up to you how to use it, or not to use it.

The religious man is multidimensional

2005-10-10T16:52:00.000+02:00

If you are obsessed you cannot be religious.
Yes, scientists, poets, painters, musicians, dancers have sometimes reached into unknown spaces through their obsession. But those unknown spaces are not spiritual spaces; they are within the mind, and they belong to some part below the conscious mind, either to the unconscious or to the collective unconscious or to the cosmic unconscious.
The deeper the space is, the more unknown it is. But just because it is unknown does not mean that you have touched something spiritual. It is unknown but part of the unconscious world of your mind -- it is not spiritual. It is tremendously exciting because it is so unknown. You have entered into an unknown corner of your being.
It is just a tremendous discovery, but still it is not religious. It won't bring you to the ecstasy and the blessing of a religious man. On the contrary, it may create a tremendous anguish in you, a tension which is unbearable, a nightmare which is pure suffering. Hence, you will find poets, musicians, scientists, in a kind of anguish. What they are doing is certainly a kind of fulfillment to them, but it does not bring solace to the soul.
Albert Einstein, before dying, said, "If I am born again I would prefer to be a plumber than to be a physicist." What anguish he must have suffered that he is ready to become a plumber and does not want to be a physicist again! -- because any obsession is a torture. You are being stretched. It is not a harmonious growth of your being because it is one-dimensional. It is as if a man's head starts growing and becoming bigger and bigger and bigger; the whole body shrinks and the head becomes so big that he can only stand on his head, there is no other way. The body cannot support the head.
In Japan they have dolls called daruma dolls Daruma is the Japanese name for Bodhidharma. Those dolls are beautiful. They represent Bodhidharma: their base is heavy, very heavy, so you can throw the doll in any way, and it will always go back into the lotus posture again. Because the base is heavy and the head is light, and the whole body is light, it cannot remain in any other position. If you put it in any other position it will immediately turn and sit in the lotus posture. The daruma doll was created because of a certain statement of Bodhidharma. He said, "When you become really centered in your being, nothing in the whole of existence can create even a slight trembling in you. No fear is possible. And when you are centered in your being, even if the whole of existence wants to throw you upside down, it is impossible; you will always come rightside up." That gave the idea of the daruma doll.
The religious man is multidimensional.

Nobody is holier than anybody else

2005-10-09T23:52:00.000+02:00

Mahatma Gandhi used to say that the whole universe is one, all religions are one. In his ashram he used to teach that Hindus and Mohammedans and Christians are all one. In his prayer meetings all the prayers of all the religions were recited. He loved one prayer the most which says: Allah Ishwar tere nam -- Ishwar and Allah, both are your names, God. But when he was killed he forgot all about Allah. He said, "Hey Ram!" Then the hidden Hindu came to the surface. His whole life he was saying, "Both are the same, both are names of the same." But when the bullet went into his heart he forgot all his philosophy. It would have been really beautiful if he had said, "Allah!" But he said, "Ram!" He used to say that the Gita and the Koran and the Bible have the same message, but he worshipped the Gita and he called the Gita his mother. Then what is the Koran? He has not even called the Koran his auntie! The Gita is his mother -- and of course he has chosen a few pieces from the Koran and from the Bible which are in agreement with the Gita. Anything that disagrees with the Gita has not been chosen by him, so the Gita remains the criterion. Now this is so clear, that anything that does not fit with the Gita is wrong; it may be in the Koran, it may be in the Bible, but it is wrong. He would not say it so clearly because he was a politician. Nobody is holier than anybody else. Indians believe that they know, they are very knowledgeable. Naturally -- it is an ancient country; you need not read the scriptures, the scriptures are in the atmosphere. And the knowledgeable person can never be religious. And up to now India has believed in the knowledgeable person -- the pundit, the scholar, the professor. And taoistic effort is to help you become more and more childlike, more innocent, full of wonder not full of knowledge, full of awe not full of information. There is no need to read the Vedas -- because anyway ninety-nine percent of the Vedas is absolutely rubbish! Now this hurts the Indians. Only one percent is beautiful; you have to be very choosy. The same is the case with other scriptures of the world. You look at the Bible, look at the Old Testament; ninety-nine percent is just rubbish. It would be better if we got rid of that rubbish so only diamonds can shine forth. Otherwise the pebbles are so many, the diamonds are lost. But no -- no Jew will be ready to drop anything out of the Old Testament. And the same is the case with the New Testament, and the same is the case -- more so -- with the Koran. But the reason is, in those days everything was written in the religious scriptures: history, geography, mythology. That was the only way. The old religious scriptures are like Encyclopaedia Britannica; they are the encyclopedias of the old days. Everything is written, whatsoever was happening in those days and whatsoever was thought important. It may have been important in those days; now it is irrelevant. Because taoistic message is universal it will appeal only to those people who are universal, who don't belong to any country anymore, to any religion, to any church. Taoism is for those who are without a religion, without a nation, without a race; it is only for those liberated ones. It is for the new generation. The new generation is courageous; it has dropped much of the load that people have been carrying for centuries. The churches have destroyed any possibility for any intelligent person to be religious.

It is the nature of consciousness to solve problems

2005-10-09T20:09:00.000+02:00

There is a zen story about a samurai, a great warrior. One night he comes back to his home and finds a very big rat sitting on his pillow. Of course he goes mad. This is too much! An ordinary rat and so daring? He takes his sword -- because that is the only thing he knows -- and hits the rat. but the rat somehow escapes and sits in another place, looking at the samurai and blinking his eyes. Now the samurai becomes furious. This is the first time in his life that he has missed any target and this rat is trying to befool him.
In his madness he hits here and there, and because of his madness he goes on missing. Suddenly he feels a cold shivering and begins to perspire. The idea arises that this rat is no ordinary rat; something mysterious about him. Maybe he is a ghost? The samurai escapes and tells his family. They tell him not to be afraid and not to get so worked up. They bring their cat to the room.
The cat is brought but the samurai is shivering and trembling. The cat looks at the samurai and tries to get out. There must be something very fearful there, otherwise why is the samurai -- such a great man and a great warrior -- so afraid? The cat enters the room and the rat jumps on her. The cat escapes, shivering and perspiring.
The story goes on. The whole town's cats are tried but it seems simply impossible to catch the rat.
Then they go to the palace and the king's cat is brought in. She is taken to the samurai's room. She simply goes in, takes the rat in her mouth and comes out. All the cats gathered and they said 'What is the trick?' She said, 'There is no trick. I am a cat and he is a rat -- finished. There is no trick.'
'There is nothing to be praised. I am a cat; that's enough for me to catch the rat. He is a rat. As it is natural for me to catch him, it is natural for him to be caught.'
This is the whole point to be understood in life. You are a man, you are a mind, you are consciousness; you are a cat! So why be afraid of rats? Problems will come; they are just like rats. Situations will arise; they are just like rats. You are a conscious being. Why be afraid of foolish things? When the problem arises be conscious, and that will be enough. There is no need to be prepared. Your very preparation will kill you.
The warrior missed because of his being prepared too much -- the sword, the warrior, the ego. The other cats missed because they were trying from the very beginning to try to catch this rat. But the king's cat could do it. It is a zen story and one of the most beautiful; a very significant story.
It is the nature of consciousness to solve problems, mirror-like. There is nothing special in it. It is the nature of consciousness to solve it. If I am ready, that will be the barrier.

THE PERMEATION OF TAO

2005-10-05T00:31:00.000+02:00

TAO is that which penetrates the Universe and touches every part of it. It cannot be exhausted; it knows neither exuberance nor decay. If it could be opened out it would fill the entire Universe; if it could be gathered together, it would not even fill a child's hand.
Though it can be contracted, it can also be expanded; though it is obscure, it can become clear; though it is weak, it can become strong; though it is soft, it can become hard. TAO contains the balance of the masculine and the feminine, it contains the balance of the light and the dark; it holds together the Universe and Time, and supplies the great with inspiration.
It is so tenuous and subtle that it pervades everything like water soaked earth. It is by TAO that mountains are high, and abysses deep; that beasts walk and birds fly; that the sun and moon are bright, and the stars revolve in their courses. All mysteries arise from it, and are resolved by it. When the wise obtain the power inherent in TAO, and are established in the center, they walk with the highest spiritual beings and all the Universe is at peace.

Just being silent will not help

2005-09-30T23:29:00.000+02:00

Love can at the most be only a glimpse of a ray, not the ray itself, but only a glimpse in the lake. A ray of the sun playing on the lake, and you see the glimpse. That glimpse is love. When you find out the real ray, it becomes prayer. When you start moving through that ray, upwards, you start climbing on that ray and you start reaching towards the source of all light, then you are growing in spirituality. One day you are dissolved into that light. You yourself have become that light. That is ecstasy.
And Zen people say that when you know, you have to say, knowing well that it cannot be said. You have to sing it.
Zen Masters have been very creative. Either they were singers, dancers, or painters, or in some sort of art, calligraphy, pottery. Whatsoever they could do they did. That became the gesture of their expression. They were not inactive people. Deep down they were not doers, and on the surface they were not inactive at all. Deep down they were just instrumental to the divine. No doer, no idea of doing anything -- just being, but on the surface very creative. The world would have been far richer if every religion had developed such a school as Zen.
For example, Hindu monks have lived a very uncreative life. Jaina monks have lived a very uncreative life. Except Zen, even Buddhists have lived a very uncreative life. So has been the case with the Catholics.
Zen brings creativity. And remember, if you want to be one with the creator, you will have to learn some ways of creativity. The only way to be one with the creator is to be in some moment of creativity, when you are lost. The potter is lost in making his pottery; the potter is lost while working on the wheel. The painter is lost while painting. The dancer is lost; there is no dancer, only the dance remains. Those are the peak moments, where you touch Tao, where Tao touches you.
Now, the scholar, the so-called scholar, becomes wordy. He goes on learning more words, more words, more information, more scriptures. He has no silence. That is a very lopsided phenomenon. Then against the scholar there are a few saints, who keep quiet; they don't even say a single word. That too is moving to the other extreme. They become uncreative. Of course, they are silent, better than the scholar -- at least they will not throw their rubbish into other people's heads, at least they are not committing any crime -- but in a higher sense they are also criminals because they are not benefiting existence. They are parasites. They are not making existence richer by their being here. They are not helping God in his dance, in his song.
Zen brings the highest synthesis. Don't be afraid of speaking, but don't go on speaking if you don't know. Don't be silent. Just being silent will not help.

a system of justice, a system of law

2005-09-27T23:57:00.000+02:00

If a person is caught trying to commit suicide, then for centuries his punishment was death. Strange... great wisdom! What he was doing himself, you are doing to him as a punishment. If a murderer is given a death sentence, your whole society is murderous, your law is murderous. What is the difference? That man destroyed a life and you are destroying another life -- do you think by destroying this murderer you are going to bring life back to the murdered one? No, instead of one man murdered now there are two men murdered -- great justice, great love. If a man has murdered someone, somewhere deep in us is hidden the same desire -- and that has become the law in the court. We have made the law; our law is as murderous as any murderer. This is not justice, this is simply revenge. You are taking revenge in the name of justice. Because that man did not obey, he should not be left alive. But are you certain that if this murderer is not killed by the law, he may not turn into a great poet, or a musician or a painter? Or even a mystic? You are taking away the opportunity for his growth, and without ever thinking why he murdered in the first place. Nobody bothers about the causes, everybody looks only at the symptoms. Perhaps that man has suffered so much at the hands of the society that you have reduced him into an animal. And once he is an animal he is going to behave like an animal. But remember -- he is a victim and you are the cause. That's why laws go on growing, new laws are being made, new courts, new judges, more police, more armies -- and you have not been able to reduce the number of crimes. They are growing simultaneously; there must be some deep relationship between the two. The growth of your legal systems and the growth of the criminals is equal. It is a strange coincidence. If you were right, then so many police, so many great armies, so many courts, so many parliaments, so many legal experts... and you have not been able to prevent anything. It is a blame on your very being, it is a condemnation of your intelligence. Something is very profoundly wrong with the whole system. A murderer, a thief should be treated with dignity. He is a human being. And if he has committed a murder he is psychologically sick. You don't punish the sick people, you send them to a psychiatric hospital where they can be taken care of. There is no need for any jail. All jails should be converted into beautiful psychiatric nursing homes, where people who have lost their humanity because of the ugly behavior of the society -- exploitation and oppression and all kinds of repression -- should be given back their dignity and honor, should be treated mentally and physically, should be trained and educated, should be made productive and creative, should be given the opportunity that they have missed before. Then only exists a system of justice, there exists a system of law.

You should have protested

2005-09-25T13:53:00.000+02:00

When Al-Hillaj Mansoor, a Mohammedan mystic, was being very primitively assassinated... Jesus' crucifixion is far more sophisticated; Socrates' poisoning is even more sophisticated, but nobody has suffered as much as Al-Hillaj Mansoor. First they cut his legs -- they killed him piece by piece, just to torture him as much as possible, to the optimum -- then they cut his hands. Then they destroyed his eyes with hot iron rods -- they went on piece by piece. Thousands of people had gathered to watch. Al-Hillaj Mansoor's master, Junnaid, a famous teacher, was also present. Of course he was absolutely against what was happening, but the weakness of the good... Seeing the majority he remained silent. He knew that Mansoor was born after thousands of years; he was one of the rarest flowers. Junnaid had been a teacher of thousands, but none of his students, none of his disciples had reached to the same heights as Mansoor -- all this he understood. People were throwing stones before the assassination began. He did not want people to know that he was not throwing stones, so instead of throwing a stone he threw a roseflower, just to show that he had thrown. Now in thousands of stones, who can find out what he had thrown? People saw that he had thrown something. But Mansoor could see. When thousands of stones were falling on him, hitting him, and blood was flowing all over his body, he could see that a roseflower also fell on his face. And he knew that this roseflower could only be thrown by his master Junnaid. He shouted from his cross, "Junnaid, these thousands of stones are not hurting me so much as your roseflower; it has created a wound in my very soul." This statement is tremendous: "Thousands of stones have not hurt me. These are people who don't know me -- but you know me; I had grown under your shadow. Still, instead of protesting, you are so cowardly that you are afraid that if you don't throw something people may start suspecting that you may be a friend..." And tears came to his eyes. And Mansoor said, "These tears are not for these stones; these stones are not worth my tears. These tears are for the man who has thrown the roseflower to me." And still Junnaid remained silent.... The good man is responsible. The silent man, the man who has understood is responsible for all that has happened in the history of man against the people who were just pure love, pure silence, pure godliness.
But perhaps nothing can be said to those good people either, because if they had come out there would have been another assassination and nothing else. That's what Junnaid said afterwards, and he was right. Other disciples asked him, "It was very shameful when he called out your name. You behaved as if you were not Junnaid. It is shameful that you did not protest when your greatest disciple was being tortured -- tortured brutally." No, even animals don't torture in that way. If you want to kill someone, kill. But to cut him piece by piece is so condemnable. The other disciples said, "You should have protested." Junnaid said, "Do you think it would have saved him? I have also thought about it. It is not that I have not felt the tragedy, I have felt as much hurt as Mansoor. I loved him, but I knew that if I had come out and protested, then instead of one man, two men would have been assassinated. Nothing would have been achieved by it." But still it would have been better that two men were assassinated instead of one, because there may have been a third man who would have come out, and three men may have provoked courage in many more. It is not that in that vast crowd there was only Junnaid who saw that it was absolutely inhuman and ugly -- and there was no crime. The crime was simply that Al-Hillaj Mansoor had said, "I am God," ana'l haq, and simultaneously he said, "It is not that only I am God -- you are also. I know it; you still have to know it. That's the only difference."

Create a balance

2005-09-24T00:42:00.000+02:00

In Wardha where Vinoba lives, it is very hot the whole day -- and he will not use a fan, he will not use a cooler, he will not use an air-conditioner. Impossible! How can a spiritual man use an air-conditioner? He cannot even use a fan. The man who had come from there was very much impressed. He said, `See, what a great spiritual man! He is not even using a fan.' Then he was asked, `What is he doing?' He said, `The whole day, from ten to five, for seven hours, he goes on putting cold cloths on his head and on his stomach.' Seven of Vinoba's hours wasted every day! -- and what is the cost of a fan or a cooler or an air-conditioner? And Vinoba's seven wasted hours every day...? But if there was a fan, this man would have felt that Vinoba is not spiritual. And somehow Vinoba is also agreeing with this type of attitude -- that Vinoba's seven hours every day are not important. Life is very short, and a genius like Vinoba is wasting seven hours unnecessarily. But he himself also feels that technology is somehow anti-spiritual. The outside and the inside -- he has chosen the inside. But if you are choosing the inside, even putting on the wet cloth is outside. It is doing the same thing, only in a very primitive way. What are you doing? You are creating a sort of cooling. And you are wasting seven hours for it! This is at a very great cost. But we will say, `No, this is austerity, this is spirituality, and this man is great.' This has gone to the very cells of our brains. Taoism accepts life in its totality. The outer and the inner both are there, and they both belong to me. And they must be balanced. You need not choose one at the cost of the other. And if you choose, you are falling a victim -- victim of an extreme -- and you will suffer for it.Create a balance. The outer and the inner are not opposed. They are movements of the same energy, two banks of the same river, and the river cannot flow with only one bank. You can forget the other, but the other will be there. And the river can exist only if the other is there. You can forget it completely: then hypocrisy is born, because unnecessarily you have to go on hiding the other. There is no need. The river cannot flow. Life flows between the inner and the outer, and both are essential. Life cannot exist with one. And the two are not really two. The two banks of the river only appear two; if you go deep in the river they are joined -- the same ground is appearing as two banks. The outer and the inner are the same ground, the same phenomenon, the same Tao.
Definitions of Tao:
ultimate reality: in Taoist philosophy, the ultimate reality in which all things are located or happen
universal energy: in Taoist philosophy, the universal energy that makes and maintains everything that exists
relationship between individual and universe: in Taoist philosophy, the order and wisdom of individual life, and the way that this harmonizes with the universe as a whole.

Ramakrishna´s experiment

2005-09-20T15:16:00.000+02:00

Ramakrishna tried one experiment. He was the only one who has done such an experiment in this age. He would reach to a particular state of consciousness, and then he would stop and begin to travel by another path, then by another. And he stopped this only when he found he could reach to the same state by so many paths. He tried Sufi ways, he tried Buddhist meditation, he tried Hindu paths. Deeply he was a devotee, basically he was on the path of love, but then he tried Vedanta -- the path of knowledge. It was very arduous, because it is not so easy to change from the path of devotion to the path of knowledge. Then everything has to be contradicted. He was learning from Totapuri, one of the greatest Vedantists of his time, and Totapuri was absolutely a Vedantist, a follower of the path of knowledge. So he would laugh at Ramakrishna and would say, "You are foolish! What are you doing with this weeping, crying, dancing, praying? There is no one! To whom are you praying?' Then Ramakrishna became a disciple. And this is one of the rarest phenomena, because Ramakrishna had achieved whatsoever Totapuri had achieved. This is humbleness. He became a disciple of Totapuri. He said, "Teach me. Now, by your path I will travel." Totapuri became the teacher, and he was a very rough teacher, a taskmaster. And he would teach him in the same way as he would teach anyone else ABC. So Ramakrishna was in a mess because Totapuri would say, "Throw this image of your goddess Kali! Throw this! Destroy this! Cut it into pieces!" And Ramakrishna would begin to weep. Then Totapuri would say, "This childishness won't do." One day Ramakrishna said, "It is difficult! It is impossible! Whenever I close my eyes the goddess is there. I am bowing down to her Divine feet, and you go on saying to me, 'Throw, cut, destroy!' How can I do it? How can I destroy the Divine image? And it is so beautiful, and the experience is so lovely! And I am in such a high state of mind. 1 am not in this world at all." Totapuri said, "This is all illusion, your projections. Take a sword in your hand and out the goddess into two. Kill!" So Ramakrishna said, "From where can I get the sword?" Totapuri said, "From the same source where you got this image, from inside where you got this image -- from imagination. So get one sword from imagination; and if you are not going to destroy this, I am going to leave. And you have taken a vow to follow me, to be my disciple, so do whatsoever is told! Otherwise I will leave this very moment!" So Ramakrishna closed his eyes. He was weeping, tears were falling down, and Totapuri, while laughing, said, "What foolishness you are doing! Why are you weeping? No one can reach Truth through weeping. Be a man and kill the goddess!" And then he brought a piece of glass. Totapuri brought a piece of glass and he cut Ramakrishna's forehead with that glass. Blood began to flow, and he said, "As I am cutting your forehead, just inside cut the image." And Ramakrishna destroyed the image. This was very arduous. No bhakta has ever done this. This was done for the first time. But no bhakta will travel this path; there is no need. And then Ramakrishna said, "The last barrier has fallen away." That was the last barrier on the path of knowledge, so Totapuri was at ease, happy. He said, "You have achieved. Now you are Liberated.?' And the second day Ramakrishna was in the Kali Temple and weeping. He himself had said that the last barrier had fallen, and now again he was weeping and crying and dancing. Then Totapuri left, and he said, "You are incurable." But this is not a case of incurability. He was just trying to reach to the same point by so many paths. He became a Mohammedan for six months; then he would not enter the Kali Temple -- because how can a Mohammedan enter? So he would come just outside and he would inquire about his goddess, asking how she was, and then he would go back. Then he would sleep in a mosque and he would do Sufi methods for six months. For that period he was a Mohammedan. Then, one day, he came laughing to the Temple and said, "Now I am back. Mother, I am back! I have reached to the same through Mohammedan methods."

religion is totally individual

2005-09-06T21:02:00.000+02:00

The history of man's evolution is divided into two stages -- war, and the preparation for war. We have never had peace. And it is this kind of human behavior that is responsible for the disintegration of mankind.
Who has divided mankind? Who? Have not the religions done it? Haven't ideologies, codes of conduct and organizations split man asunder? Hasn't the whole petty concept of nations and nationalities separated man from man? But religion is the worst culprit.
All controversy has some identifications with a particular sect inherent in it. And these sects may be religious or political. No matter which, their existence causes controversy and controversy ultimately results in war. Today, communism and democracy are the new religions.
But is it not possible to stop this discrimination, to end this division in humanity? Can it not all be traced to our personal ideologies and to our private dreams? Do you think it is right that there should be "my ideas" and "your ideas" when all they do is corrupt the hearts and minds of us both? Up to now this is what has happened.
No organization based on religious and national preferences can ever be any organization of brotherly love. They are, in fact, organizations of brotherly hate. You must be aware that anyone can be made to join an organization if the poison of hatred sufficiently pollutes the general atmosphere. Adolf Hitler said somewhere that to unite a community it was necessary to create hatred for another community. Not only did he say this, he put it into action and found the formula to be very effective indeed. And any revolutionary who has ever wanted to create chaos on earth has found it as true and as applicable as Hitler did.
You can unite Mohammedans by shouting "Islam is in danger" and Christians will react if they hear the same cry about Christianity. Danger produces fear, and whatever makes a man afraid becomes the object of his hatred. It is his way of reacting to the fear. All organizations and alliances are based on some aspect of his fear and hatred.
All religions say they want to foster love in the world, but since they want individual organizational unity they must ultimately take shelter in hatred. And so they only pay lip service to love. Their hatred of each other is the backbone of each and every one of them.
Religion is not an organization at all. It is meditation. It is a sadhana; it is the journey to self-realization itself. It is an experience, an individual experience. It has nothing whatsoever to do with amassing large groups of followers. The experience of religion is a totally individual one.

A very cunning strategy

2005-08-22T17:24:00.000+02:00

Some religions say God is higher than life. Other religions say liberation, salvation is higher than life. Politicians say the nation is higher than life -- ideologies, like communism, are higher than life. All these people are agreed on one point, that you have to sacrifice your life for something. It looks like a beautiful statement, but it hides a very ugly reality.
In thousands of ways the same thing is repeated. The child is told he should live for the parents.... Nobody seems to realize a simple fact, that there is nothing higher than life, cannot be. And if there is anything higher than life it is bound to be dead; otherwise, how can it be higher than life?
But man has been manipulated to sacrifice himself, either for ideas or for ideals. And to sacrifice your life for something else means you stop living, you start committing suicide. You start murdering yourself so slowly that you don't become aware of it. But every man who has sacrificed his life for any goal, realizes at the moment of death that he missed the train, that he has been a fool.
"Always sacrifice. Don't live, don't enjoy. Today has to be sacrificed for tomorrow." And tomorrow never comes, it is always today. And every today has to be sacrificed for tomorrow, which is not going to come -- has never come.
William James says, "The most important thing in life is to live your life for something more important than your life." No, William James is talking junk. He is simply paraphrasing all vested interests, because they don't want you to live, they want to use you.
Nations want to use you for war. Naturally, the politicians are bound to say, "The nation is far bigger than you, and you should not be selfish. You should be ready to sacrifice your life for the nation" -- not only for the nation, but a piece of cloth they call the flag. You have to die for it!
Intelligent people have been conditioned for such a foolish thing, and they have been doing it for thousands of years. What is the attainment? What have we achieved by sacrificing?
If we live in the moment, but then what about the future? -- future generations?
Your father was thinking about you, you were his future generation. His father was thinking about your father, he was his future generation. And what has happened? Where are you? A very cunning strategy not to allow you to live.... But it cannot be said directly, because then you will not follow it. It has to be made sweet-sounding, tasteful. Thinking of the future -- when you will not be here, sacrificing for things which never materialize...

reverence for life

2005-08-01T23:25:00.000+02:00

Animals are unique -- you cannot find two cats exactly the same. They have their individuality. you cannot find two trees the same -- they have their individuality. You cannot find two leaves exactly the same, or two pebbles on this big earth exactly the same -- they have their individuality. The individuality is so deep in existence.
Individuality is the very signature of God.
So to think inferior, to think superior, and then to fall into another trap of thinking equal is just irrelevant to the truth of life. The truth is that we are unique -- you are you, I am me, and there is no way to compare. Comparison has to disappear.
Once comparison disappears, compassion arises. Once comparison disappears, you start seeing the tremendous beauty of people all around. Then each existence is so unique, is so utterly precious. A single roseflower -- it has never been before and it will never be again -- don't miss it! Dance with it, sing with it, be with it. It is only for the moment. This morning it has bloomed, by the evening it will be gone and gone forever!
The woman you are in love with has never been on the earth will never been on the earth and will never be again. In fact, the woman that you love is one in the morning, another in the afternoon, and by the night she has changed utterly. It is not only that individuals are individuals, but each single moment has an individuality. you cannot compare even that. You cannot compare your woman in the morning with the woman in the night -- much water has flowed down the Ganges since then.
The flower in the morning was one thing -- with the rising sun, with birds singing, with clouds moving in the sky. And the flower in the night is another thing -- with stars, the sun disappeared, the darkness all around. It is a totally different thing! Each single moment is also unique. The uniqueness of life is multi-dimensional. Individuals are unique, their single moments are unique.
Once you start seeing this uniqueness of existence, then all these foolish ideas of feeling superior, inferior, equal, this and that, disappear. You are not equal either! How can you be equal? If you CAN be equal, then why can't you be superior? and why can't you be inferior? If equality is allowed, then superiority, inferiority, all come from the backdoor. Then you cannot avoid them.
This I call reverence for life. Respect for life helps you to drop all these foolish ideas. It is the ego that needs the idea of equality, superiority, inferiority -- these are the props. Without these the ego cannot exist. Withdraw the props and ego falls flat on the ground and disappears.

Zenmaster Dogen

2005-07-22T15:00:00.000+02:00

DOGEN WROTE:
PRACTICE IS IDENTICAL WITH EXPRESSION, AND VICE VERSA. TO EXPRESS THE WAY ALL DAY IS TO PRACTICE THE WAY ALL DAY. IN OTHER WORDS, WE PRACTICE SOMETHING IMPRACTICABLE AND EXPRESS SOMETHING INEXPRESSIBLE ....
EACH DAY'S LIFE SHOULD BE ESTEEMED; THE BODY SHOULD BE RESPECTED. SO IF WE CAN REALLY GET THE BUDDHIST FUNCTION EVEN IN A DAY, SUCH A SINGLE DAY CAN BE SAID TO BE MORE VALUABLE THAN COUNTLESS IDLE LIVES.
THEREFORE, BEFORE WE HAVE REALIZED THE WAY, WE MUST NOT IDLE AWAY EVEN A SINGLE DAY. SUCH A SINGLE DAY IS TOO PRECIOUS A TREASURE TO BE COMPARED WITH A FINE JEWEL. ANCIENT WISE PERSONS HELD IT DEARER THAN THEIR BODY AND LIFE.
WE MUST THINK QUIETLY THAT A FINE JEWEL AND A RARE GEM, THOUGH LOST, MAY BE ACQUIRED AGAIN, BUT THAT A SINGLE DAY IN A HUNDRED YEARS OF LIFE, ONCE LOST, NEVER RETURNS. NO MATTER HOW SKILLFUL WE MAY BE, IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO BRING BACK EVEN A SINGLE DAY OF THE PAST. NO HISTORY BOOK SAYS THAT IT IS POSSIBLE ....
WHY DOES TIME DEPRIVE US OF OUR TRAINING, DAILY AND LIFELONG? WHY HAS TIME A GRUDGE AGAINST US? IT IS, UNFORTUNATELY, BECAUSE WE HAVE EVER NEGLECTED OUR PRACTICE ....
WITHOUT LOOKING FORWARD TO TOMORROW EVERY MOMENT, YOU MUST THINK ONLY OF THIS DAY AND THIS HOUR. BECAUSE TOMORROW IS DIFFICULT AND UNFIXED, AND DIFFICULT TO KNOW, YOU MUST THINK OF FOLLOWING THE WAY WHILE YOU LIVE TODAY .... YOU MUST CONCENTRATE ON ZEN PRACTICE WITHOUT WASTING TIME, THINKING THAT THERE IS ONLY THIS DAY AND THIS HOUR. AFTER THAT, IT BECOMES TRULY EASY. YOU MUST FORGET ABOUT THE GOOD AND THE BAD OF YOUR NATURE, THE STRENGTH OR WEAKNESS OF YOUR POWER.
But there is always a desire to be in other people's dresses, in other people's lifestyles. And one does not know that this is the way that one becomes lost and forgets the way home. Never, for a single moment, be imitative. Just be yourself. And not only be yourself; Dogen says, "Respect yourself. Respect your body."
These are the beautiful things that Zen has brought into the history of mankind, particularly in the history of consciousness.

about a man who had gone mad

2005-07-20T12:01:00.000+02:00

I have read about a man who had gone mad -- and not an ordinarily mad person; his madness was unique. He started thinking that he was dead. He would not go to the office... his family would tell him, "Go to the office; otherwise how are we going to survive?" But he would say, "Have you ever heard of any dead man going to the office? Have you ever heard of any dead man helping his relatives, his family, his friends to survive? I am absolutely helpless, what can I do? Nobody has any control over death; I am dead."
People tried in every way: "You are talking and you are eating and you are sleeping and you are walking -- and still you go on insisting that you are dead?"
He said, "I know more about myself... I don't need anybody's advice. I feel absolutely certain that I am dead, and if a dead man feels hungry -- he eats. What is wrong with it?"
Finally they took him to a psychiatrist, and the psychiatrist said, "I will settle him. He is a little rare; I have never come across.... There have been many kinds of people, but he surpasses them all."
He talked with the dead man, and the dead man's arguments to prove that he was dead were perfectly rational. Not only that: when his family left and he was alone with the psychiatrist, he pulled his chair close to him and told him, "You are also dead. I did not say it in front of those people; otherwise your whole profession would be disturbed. We are in the same boat; just as I died, you died."
The psychiatrist said, "This is too much. You are trying to convince me."
He said, "It is not a question of conviction: once dead, dead forever. Do you think somebody convinced me? I discovered myself that I am dead -- and because I know how to discover it, I have discovered that you are dead too. It is good that they brought me here; otherwise you would have lived with the wrong conception -- that you are alive."
The psychiatrist thought, "What to do with this man?" He took out his paper knife, to cut the man on his hand. Before cutting the man -- just to bring a little blood -- he said, "Have you ever heard that dead men don't bleed?"
The man said, "Yes, when I used to be alive, I heard the saying that dead men don't bleed."
The psychiatrist said, "Okay, now this will be decisive." He cut a little on the man's hand and blood came out, and he said, "What do you say now?"
The man said, "What is there to be said? It means the proverb is wrong: dead men do bleed. Now just give me the paper knife and I will show you." He cut the hand of the psychiatrist and blood came out, and he said, "Look! There is not only one piece of evidence; now we are both proofs that the proverb is wrong. It seems nobody has ever checked, and some idiot must have spread the idea that dead men don't bleed. Why shouldn't they bleed? They have every right to bleed; it is not the monopoly only of the living ones."
The psychiatrist said, "You take your fees back and you go home before I become convinced, because I have a wife and two small kids, and I have to take care of them. And you are so logically convincing that once in a while the suspicion arises in my mind too: Who knows? perhaps he is right. What proof have I got that I am alive -- except that I have never thought about it. You are a great thinker, but go -- before it is too late!"

Men are not equal

2005-07-19T18:23:00.000+02:00

Great debates on ideas, clashes of ideas, ideological upheavals happen in the same measure as man's intelligence grows. But in the last eighty years Russia has not witnessed any great debate, any upsurge of thought, any explosion of ideas, or a cultural revolution that might have stirred the psyche of the country to its roots. Let alone a tidal wave, not even a ripple could rise in these eighty years in the psychic sea of Russia. Why? If you ask the socialists why, they will simply say, "Because we were engaged in building a socialist society, we could not allow debates, discussions and oppositions; we could not tolerate any revolt and rebellion." They also say "Right now we don't have any space for free thinking, we cannot afford it. So we will suppress freedom of thought for the present, but we will certainly allow it when everything is okay." But then it will be too late. It will be impossible for Russia to think again, and to think boldly, after thinking has been gagged for eighty years. Suppose a man's feet have been in shackles for eighty years and then the man is released one fine morning and told, "Now you are free, so run and climb the mountain." Do you think he can climb the mountain? It will be impossible for him even to walk a few steps inside his own courtyard. Man's mind begins to wither and die if it is enslaved for a length of time. The greatest danger facing man and his quest for the soul is that the politician all over the world is, by and by, out to concentrate all power -- political and economic -- in the hands of the state, and thereby, he is going to capture and control man's mind and soul. So it is imperative that we think it over, debate it, and raise our voices against it. When the socialists attack freedom they do it with cunning and tact. Their tactics are appealing. They say they want equality and therefore curbs on freedom become necessary. With freedom, they argue, they cannot achieve equality. Socialists don't talk of freedom, they lay all their emphasis on equality. Equality, for them, comes first; without equality freedom is a myth. And as long as inequality remains, freedom will remain a dream. So equality has to be had first, they argue, even if freedom has to be destroyed for its sake. Now we have to make our choice. We have to decide clearly which has the highest value, equality or freedom. We have to settle our preference. And all of mankind has to decide, and to decide soon: What is more valued, freedom or equality? Remember, if freedom lives, it makes it possible for equality to happen in the future. But if we sacrifice freedom for equality, then there is no possibility for regaining freedom in the future. Because once we lose freedom, it will be extremely difficult to regain it. And this matter called equality is very unscientific and anti-psychological. Men are not equal. And so, if we impose equality on man with force, it will only destroy him. Man should have full opportunity to be unequal and different; he should be free to differ, to dissent, to deny, to rebel. Then only will he grow and blossom and bear fruit. Socialism today, is the loudest voice against man's spirit, soul, against Tao and religion.

read the tao

2005-07-11T16:44:00.000+02:00

In ancient China, the keeper of the Imperial Library, Lao Tzu, was famous for his wisdom. Perceiving the growing corruption of the government, he left for the countryside. On his way, the guard at the city gates asked Lao Tzu to write out the essence of his understanding to benefit future generations. Lao Tzu wrote the Tao Te Ching, left, and was never heard of again.
The Tao Te Ching (also called "The Tao", "The Dao" or the "Dao De Jing"), by Lao Tzu, is one of the most influential books in history. It is the source of famous Chinese sayings such as "Those who know do not speak, those who speak, do not know" and "Even a 1,000 mile journey starts with a single step".

I recommend you read only 1 or 2 at a time and give them some thought.

People conform to
the Laws of the Earth.
The Earth conforms to
the Law of Heaven.
Heaven conforms to
the Way (Tao)
The Tao conforms to
its own nature.

-Lao Tzu

Erdähnlichster Planet in 15 Lichtjahren Entfernung entdeckt!

2005-06-14T23:15:00.000+02:00

Die "Planetenjäger" die bislang eher jupiterähnliche Welten entdeckten, konnten im System Gliesse 876 (mit sonnenähnlichem Stern) in etwa 15 Lichtjahren Entfernung zum ersten Mal einen erdähnlichen (weil felsigen) Planeten identifizieren, der - mit etwa doppeltem Duchmesser - nur siebenmal die Masse der Erde besitzt. Allerdings ist die "dicke Schwester" der Erde die den Heimatstern in nur 2 Tagen umkreist eine recht ungemütliche Welt mit Temperaturen über 200 Grad.
Theoretisch gibt es endlos viele Planeten, die der Erde ähnlich sind und auf denen Leben entstehen könnte. Es ist nicht lange her, dass Astronomen erstmals überhaupt außerhalb unseres Sonnensystems Planeten entdeckt haben. Und nun erklären Astronomen der University of California, Santa Cruz, dass sie den ersten Planeten ausfindig gemacht haben, der auch in seinen Dimensionen erdähnlich ist und um einen Stern kreist, die wiederum unserer Sonne ähnlich ist.
Die bislang entdeckten 155 Planeten waren stets sehr viel größer als die Erde. Der jetzt gefundene Planet, der den von unserem Sonnensystem 15 Lichtjahre entfernten Stern Gliese 876 umkreist, ist nur doppelt so groß als die Erde. Er dreht sich in 1,94 Tagen einmal um sich selbst und soll auf der der Sonne zugewandten Seite eine Temperatur von 200-400 Grad Celsius haben. Für Leben, wie wir es auf der Erde kennen, wäre dies natürlich viel zu heiß. Die Wissenschaftler gehen davon aus, dass es ein steiniger Planet ist. Daneben gibt es noch zwei weitere, aber größere Planeten. Aus deren Interaktion schlossen die Astronomen auf die Existenz eines dritten Planeten zurück. Gliese 876 ist ein roter Stern, der ein Drittel der Masse unserer Sonne besitzt.
Immerhin war es bislang der kleinste Planet, der mittels der "Wobble"-Technik" gefunden wurde. Diese basiert darauf, dass die Gravitationskraft eines Planeten ein "Wackeln" des Zentralsterns verursacht.
Vor über 2.000 Jahren haben die griechischen Philosophen Aristoteles und Epikur sich gefragt, ob es erdähnliche Planeten gibt. Jetzt haben wir das erste Mal einen Beweis für einen steinigen Planeten, der um einen normalen Stern kreist.
Ein Planet, der eine siebeneinhalb mal so große Masse wie die Erde besitzt, kann leicht eine Atmosphäre halten. Er würde als steiniger Planet gelten. Wahrscheinlich mit einem Kern aus Eisen und einem Mantel aus Silikat. Er könnte sogar eine dichte Wasserdampfschicht. besitzen. Was wir hier haben ist ein Mittelding zwischen einem wirklichen terrestrischen Planeten wie der Erde und einer heißen Version der Eisgiganten Uranus und Neptun.

Yoga and Tao

2005-05-30T12:55:00.000+02:00

The opposite sex is attractive because the polarity of the bodies helps; it gives energy. The very polarity gives a tension and energy. You feed through it; you become strong through it.
This is natural, nothing is wrong in it, but when one becomes pure -- through nonviolence, nonpossessiveness, authenticity -- when one becomes more and more pure, the focus of consciousness shifts from the body to the being. The being can remain absolutely alone.
That's why a man deeply attached to the body can never become free. The very attachment will lead him into many types of bondages, imprisonments. You may love a woman, you may love a man, but deep down you resist also -- because the lover is also the bondage. It cripples you, the relationship: feeds you also, imprisons you also. You cannot live without it, and you cannot live with it. This is the problem of all the lovers. They cannot live separately and they cannot live together. When separate they think of each other; when together they fight each other.
Why this happens? The mechanism is simple. When you are not with a woman whom you can love and who loves you, you start feeling starved of the warmth that flows from a woman's body. When you are with the woman you are no longer starved, you are no longer hungry, you are well fed. And soon you be come fed up. Soon you have taken too much: now you would like to separate and be aloof and alone. All lovers, when together, think, "How beautiful it will be to be alone." And when they are alone, then sooner or later they start feeling the need of the other and they start imagining and dreaming, "How beautiful it will be to be together."
The body needs togetherness; and your innermost soul needs aloneness. That is the problem. Your innermost soul can remain alone -- it is a Himalayan peak standing alone against the sky. Your innermost soul grows when it is alone, but your body needs relatedness. The body needs crowds, warmth, clubs, societies, organizations; wherever you are with many people the body feels good. In a crowd your soul may feel starved because it feeds on aloneness, but your body feels good. In aloneness your soul feels perfect, but the body starts feeling hungry for relationship.
And in life, if you don't understand this, you become very, very miserable, unnecessarily. If you understand it you create a rhythm: you fulfill the bodily need and you fulfill the soul need also. Sometimes you move in relationship, sometimes you move out of it. Sometimes you live together, sometimes you live alone. Sometimes you become peaks -- so absolutely alone that even the idea of the other is absent. This is the rhythm.
But when somebody has attained to aloneness and the focus of consciousness has changed.... That's what yoga is all about: how to change the focus from the body to the soul, from matter to nonmatter, from the visible to the invisible, from the known to the unknown -- from the world to Tao.

The documents of the Majestic Twelve

2005-05-28T23:38:00.000+02:00

One document contained multiple reports of the complete disappearance on men and equipment. It stated that disappearances were rare but warranted consideration and the UFO hypotheses seemed to be the only explanation. It went on to state that 4000 soldiers, weapons and equipment (horses included) disappeared during the Spanish war. In 1885 about 600 French colonial soldiers vanished without a trace. In 1939 over 2900 Chinese Nationalists troops were reported missing though campfires and mess tents were undisturbed. These statistics seem to give the MJ-12 group unsure feeling about the potential UFO/alien threat.
A meeting was called to address the issue of preparing the Airforce in case of a UFO attack, there had been so many UFO sightings over the United States. Theodore von Karmon who chaired the meeting persuaded the panel to establish a separate panel free from pentagon control to deal with this scenario.
The government was not unfounded, the Roswell wreckage opened a very large can of worms for it to deal with. It was the conclusion that the Roswell UFO crash incident was the result of two unidentified interplanetary objects having a mid-air collision. At first there was speculation that the crashed craft was a well-elaborated hoax by the Russians, but that was quickly ruled out. There was a summary assessed by the (IPU) Interplanetary Phenomena Unit.
Their final conclusion was that further investigation should be expanded outside the realm of contemporary science. It was also the recommendation that the appropriate budgets be allocated for future assignments that the unit may be called on to perform, and that the investigation needs to continue. Perhaps the budget funded projects such as PROJECT SIGN and PROJECT GRUDGE as the research arm. As well as retrieval operations that ran under the names of PROJECT STORK, PROJECT MOON DUST and tactical personnel known as the BLUE TEAM.
The most disturbing part of the Roswell investigation was the bodies found not far from the crash site which were recorded as having been dissected. Oddly enough, a paper documenting the investigation noted there were animal parts discovered inside the craft. The document stated that judgement had been reserved on these issues.

WHAT IS INTELLIGENCE ?

2005-05-10T10:54:00.000+02:00

Intelligence is just an openness of being -- capacity to see without prejudice, capacity to listen without interference, capacity to be with things without any a priori ideas about them -- that's what intelligence is. Intelligence is an openness of being.
That's why it is so utterly different from intellectuality. Intellectuality is just the opposite of intelligence. The intellectual person is constantly carrying prejudices, information, a prioris, beliefs, knowledge. He cannot listen; before you have said anything, he has already concluded. Whatsoever you say has to pass through so many thoughts in his mind that by the time it reaches him it is something totally different. Great distortion happens in him, and he is very closed, almost blind and deaf.
All experts, knowledgeable people, are blind. Do you know the old story of the five blind people going to see an elephant?
A teacher was telling her students, small girls and boys, the old ancient fable. She told the whole story, then she asked a small boy, "Can you tell me who the people were who went to see the elephant and then started quarreling?" She wanted to know whether the boy had heard while she was teaching the story.
And the boy stood up and said, "Yes, I know. They were the experts."
She was thinking he would answer, "They were five blind people." But the small boy said, "Those were the experts." He is far more right; yes, they were experts.
All experts are blind. Expertise means you become blind to everything else. You know more and more about less and less, and then one day you arrive at the ultimate goal of knowing all about nothing. Then you are completely closed and not even a window is open; then you have become windowless.
This is unintelligence. Intelligence is to be open to wind, rain and sun, to be open to all. Not to carry the past is intelligence, to die to the past every moment is intelligence, to remain fresh and innocent is intelligence.
Donald was driving his sports car down the main avenue when suddenly he noticed to his rear a flashing red light. It was a police car.
Quickly Donald pulled over to the side. "Officer," he blurted, "I was only doing twenty-five in a thirty-five-mile zone."
"Sir," said the officer, "I just..."
"Furthermore," interrupted Donald indignantly, "as a citizen I resent being frightened like this!"
"Please," continued the officer, "calm down, relax..."
"Relax!" shouted Donald, overwrought. "You're going to give me a traffic ticket, and you want me to relax!"
"Mister," pleaded the officer, "give me a chance to talk. I am NOT giving you a ticket."
"No?" said Donald, astonished.
"I just wanted to inform you that your right rear tire is flat."
But nobody is ready to listen to what the other is saying. Have you ever listened to what the other is saying? Before a word is uttered, you have already concluded. Your conclusions have become fixed; you are no more liquid.

Heilende Hände

2005-05-09T17:14:00.000+02:00

Die Sequenz der Buddha Hand:
Die Fähigkeit zu geben steht proportional zu unserer Fähigkeit anzunehmen. In der Chi-Nei-Tsang-Massage sind die Hände unser wichtigstes körperliches Instrument. Sie sind der Übertragungspunkt, wo die Energie, die durch unsere Struktur fließt, den anderen berührt. Die Sequenz der Buddha-Hand ist eine Bewegungsabfolge der Arme und Hände im Einklang mit der richtigen Körperstruktur, um den Energiefluss in den Händen zu verstärken. Einige Bewegungen helfen, die verschiedenen Energiepunkte auf dem Energiekreislauf zu öffnen und von Blockaden zu befreien. Manche der Arm- und Fingerpositionen dehnen die mit den Zehen und der Erde verbundenen Muskelsehnenmeridiane. Das Ergebnis ist, dass wir in der Lage sind, eine Leitung für die kreative Energie zu werden, um sie in ein anderes Wesen, einen anderen Menschen, ein Tier oder eine Pflanze zu leiten. Die Sequenz der Buddha-Hand kann mit der Knochenatmung, dem Energiekreislauf, den Sechs Heilenden Lauten, der Ausrichtung in der Position des "Baum umarmen", der zentrierten Ruhe der Fusion und dem selbstlosen Standpunkt des I Ging verbunden werden.
Fusion - Das Meridiansystem für höhere Frequenzen durchlässig machen:
Durch die höhere Frequenz des Mitgefühls und ausdauernden positiven Emotionen wird in dieser Stufe das ganze Meridiansystem harmonisiert. Unter normalen Umständen ist der Mittlere Kanal das einzige Gefäß, wo Yin und Yang interagieren und kreative Energie erzeugen. Der Rest des Meridiansystems ist polarisiert, also entweder Yin oder Yang. In der Fusion wird die schöpferische Energie durch das ganze Meridiansystem verbreitet, das die Frequenz des ganzen Systems rasch anhebt. Das Meridiansystem und die Lebenskraft sind verschiedene Namen für unser Bewusstsein. Die Frequenz des Meridiansystems anzuheben bedeutet, das Niveau des Bewusstseins über die Ebene des gewöhnlichen Zustandes anzuheben. Diese Stufe bringt die Übenden zur eigentlichen Grenze der Yang-Übungen, wo persönliche Bemühung und persönliche Initiative die treibende Kraft in der Praxis sind. Die Schöpfung findet nicht nur mit Yang-Energie statt. Es gibt auch noch die Yin-Kraft oder Aufnahmefähigkeit. Nach der Fusion beginnt die Stufe der Aufnahmefähigkeit, wo unsere vorherigen Taten beginnen, eine Reaktion vom Universum zu erzeugen. Diese Stufe nennen wir die 'die Yin-Übung'.

Tai Chi Chuan

2005-05-05T14:56:00.001+02:00

T'ai Chi Ch'uan is known as a soft style martial art, an art applied with as complete a relaxation or "softness" in the musculature as possible, to distinguish its theory and application from that of the hard styles which use a degree of tension in the muscles.
T'ai Chi Ch'uan is best known as the slow motion routines groups of people practice every morning in hundreds of parks across China and, increasingly, other parts of the world. In T'ai Chi classes one is taught awareness of one's own balance and what affects it, awareness of the same in others, and appreciation of the practical value in one's ability to moderate extremes of behavior and attitude at both mental and physical levels.
While its practitioners have historically considered it primarily a style of martial art, T'ai Chi Ch'uan is also called an art of moving meditation. T'ai Chi theory and practice is formulated in agreement with many of the principles of traditional Chinese medicine. Besides general health benefits and stress management attributed to beginning and intermediate level T'ai Chi training, many therapeutic interventions along the lines of traditional Chinese medicine are taught to advanced T'ai Chi students in traditional schools. T'ai Chi Chuan as physical training is characterized by its requirement for the use of leverage through the joints based on coordination in relaxation rather than muscular tension. The slow, repetitive work involved in that process is said to gently increase and open the internal circulation (breath, body heat, blood, peristalsis, etc.). Over time, proponents say, this enhancement becomes a lasting effect, a direct reversal of the physical effects of stress on the human body. This reversal allows much more of the students' native energy to be available to them, which they may then apply more effectively to the rest of their lives; families, careers, spiritual or creative pursuits, hobbies, etc.
The study of T'ai Chi Ch'uan involves three primary subjects:
· Health - an unhealthy or otherwise uncomfortable person will find it difficult to meditate to a state of calmness or to use Tai Chi as a martial art. Tai Chi's health training therefore concentrates on relieving the physical effects of stress on the body and mind.
· Meditation - the focus meditation and subsequent calmness cultivated by the meditative aspect of T'ai Chi is seen as necessary to maintain optimum health (in the sense of effectively maintaining stress relief or homeostasis) and in order to use it as a soft style martial art.
· Martial art - the ability to competently use T'ai Chi as a martial art is said to be proof that the health and meditation aspects are working according to the dictates of the theory of T'ai Chi Ch'uan.

just a wrong interpretation

2005-05-02T15:56:00.000+02:00

The basic fears are more primary than fears from the outside. Everything is going to hurt, but by and by through those hurts, through your real response for the first time without any mask, you will start growing in strength; you will become more integrated.
That doesn't mean that when a man becomes really integrated he is never disturbed. He is disturbed but that is momentary... he is totally disturbed, but that is momentary. He is innocently disturbed but he is total in it: it comes and it goes and after one second he is out of it. These disturbances disappear only when you are no more.
These are the three stages of human life: the disintegrated human being -- a crowd, split... a polypsychic state, many minds, many selves, not one self. Then there is the second state -- the integrated human being: one self has arisen, strong, really strong, self-confident, trustful, loving, alert, aware. All those small selves have dissolved into it; a big self has arisen. Those small selves are no more there; a new self with a capital 'S' has arisen. This is the second state -- that has to happen to you if you allow: if you give this gift to yourself this will happen.
And then the third state is when the self disappears and no-self arrives; then there is no disturbance, nothing. There is no outside, no inside: all has disappeared... the whole drama has disappeared. This is the total end... this is what nirvana is, but on the way to nirvana, from the third stage one cannot jump to this highest state of no-self. From many selves one cannot jump to no-self -- from many selves one has to come to one self and from one self to no-self.
... Really be courageous and allow the wounds to heal on its own -- don't create any armour for it!
Sitting back and watching won't help; that will just be a trick. When you really start growing, first you regress to the point where natural growth stopped....
If you really want to grow, you will have to move back to the point where you stopped being natural. That is the whole point of primal therapy.
If you become associated with taoism, to become associated with taoism, you will have to fall back to your reality. Now this is the beginning....
All those years that were false are a barrier between tao and you, and you think those years are of wisdom, strength, knowledge, hence you are feeling weak, otherwise you are not weak at all; this is just a wrong interpretation.

the message of Tao

2005-05-01T15:25:00.000+02:00

Benjamin Hoff does a wonderful job of describing how our busy Westernized lives resist the message of Tao. We do not simply allow ourselves to be where we are – we are always rushing and trying to be somewhere else. If we are sad, we take a pill or watch a funny movie or get busy doing something to distract ourselves. If we are at the Post Office, where we really are in our minds is at the grocery store, and when we are at the grocery store, we send our minds home to do housework. When we are young we rush toward our adulthood; when we are older, we sometimes fantasize of other days. If you follow the Way of Tao, you allow yourself to be where you are. Let’s talk for a moment about the Bisy Backson, as Hoff calls them, drawing from Christopher Robin’s misspelling of "Busy, Back soon."
"The Bisy Backson is almost desperately active. If you ask him what his Life Interests are, he will give you a list of physical activities, such as:
"Skydiving, tennis, jogging, racquet-ball, skiing, swimming, and water-skiing."
"Is that all."
"Well, I (gasp, pant wheeze) think so," says Backson.
"Have you ever tried chasing cars?"
"No,I – no, I never have."
"How about wrestling alligators?"
"No…I always wanted to, though."
"Roller-skating down a flight of stairs?"
"No, I never thought of it."
"But you said you were active."
At this point, the Backson replies, thoughtfully, "Say, do you think there’s something…wrong with me? Maybe I’m losing my energy."
…A way of life that keeps saying, "Around the next corner, above the next step," works against the natural order of things and makes it so difficult to be happy and good that only a few get to where they would have naturally been in the first place – Happy and Good –and the rest give up and fall by the side of the raod, cursing the world, which is not to blame but there to show the way."

we can make this earth a paradise

2005-04-30T23:54:00.000+02:00

Man has come of age, he is mature.
He can see how he has been deceived, and he has to destroy everything that has deceived him.
But the priests are very cunning; cunningness is their profession. They are professional exploiters, parasites, because for centuries they have done nothing else; they have become very skillful. So rather than allowing you to burn the Bible, to burn the Vatican, to kill God, they go on diverting you -- Christians against Mohammedans, Mohammedans against Hindus, Hindus against Buddhists. And you are so full of rage that you have lost all reason, you simply want to destroy. And the priests are using this situation. If they don't use it, you will destroy them!
So all over the world religions are fighting, nations are fighting, races are fighting. Who is creating all this? The people who have dominated you for centuries know perfectly well that your anger, your hatred has to be diverted; otherwise, they will be the targets.
Meditate and in silence see what has been done to man in the whole history. And out of your silence and peace, if you feel that something has to be destroyed because it has been hindering the growth of man, his consciousness, that destruction will be totally different.
It will not be of people. If will be of your holy books, it will be of your holy places, it will be of your synagogues, churches, mosques. It will not be directed to other human beings who belong to other groups. It will not be between Americans and communistic people -- they both have been exploited by different kinds of priests.
Communism is the latest religion.
It has its own priests, it has its own holy DAS KAPITAL. It has its own trinity -- Marx, Engels, Lenin. It has replaced the old religion.
There is no need for Americans to destroy Russians, or Russians to destroy Americans. If we are intelligent, all the politicians -- Russians and Americans -- should be imprisoned immediately. And the masses can do it! They just have to be awakened as to who is the real enemy.
Boundaries of the countries should be dissolved. They don't exist on the earth, only on the map. The whole humanity is one, and the whole humanity should pool all its energies. And we can make this earth a paradise....

Tao Te King

2005-04-28T19:56:00.000+02:00

43. Vom Wirken ohne Tun
Das Nachgiebige überwindet das Starre
Das Formlose durchdringt die Form
Deshalb weiß ich :
Wirken entsteht durch Nicht-Tun
Lehren ohne Worte
Wirken ohne Tun
wenigen gelingt dies
69. Von der Vorsicht
Im Kampf gilt das Sprichwort:
Besser angegriffen werden
als selber anzugreifen
besser einen Fuß zurückweichen
als einen Zoll vorrücken
Das heißt:
Vorangehen ohne vorzugehen
zurückhalten ohne zu halten
abwehren ohne sich zu wehren
siegen ohne Waffen zu gebrauchen
Kein größeres Unheil
als leichtfertig anzugreifen
Wer leichtfertig angreift
verliert leicht seine Schätze
Darum:
Wo Waffen aufeinanderprallen
siegt der Nachgebende
12. Vom Überfluss
Zuviele Farben gefährden das Sehen
Zuviele Töne töten das Hören
Zuviele Kost kostet den Geschmack
Zuviel Zerstreuung erzeugt Verwirrung
Zuviel Besitz besitzt den Besitzenden
Darum der Weise:
achtet auf das Innere
nicht auf das Äußere
Er gibt jenes auf
und erhält dieses
17. Vom Herrscher
Die besten Herrscher waren kaum gekannt
die folgenden geliebt und geehrt
die folgenden gefürchtet
die letzten verachtet
Wer selbst kein Vertrauen hat
wird auch kein Vertrauen finden
Wählt er seine Weisung mit Bedacht
werden die Werke vollendet
dem Willen willfahren
und das Volk sagt:
Wir sind frei
75. Von der Habgier
Das Volk hungert
weil die Oberen prassen
Darum hungert das Volk
Das Volk ist ungehorsam
weil die Oberen Gehorsam erpressen
Darum ist das Volk ungehorsam
Das Volk achtet das Leben gering
weil die Oberen nach dem Leben gieren
Darum achtet das Volk das Leben gering
Wer nicht an seinem Leben hängt
ist würdiger als jener
der nach seinem Leben giert

Milchsäurebakterien schützen gegen Aids

2005-04-27T17:39:00.000+02:00

Nützliche Milchsäurebakterien könnten vor einer HIV-Infektion schützen: Zwei spezielle Lactobacillus-Stämme verzehren bevorzugt einen bestimmten Zucker, mit dem die Oberfläche der Viren überzogen ist.
Deshalb greifen die Bakterien die Erreger an und fangen sie ein, haben amerikanische Forscher entdeckt. Milchsäurebakterien sind für den Menschen nicht schädlich und besiedeln gewöhnlich zum Beispiel die Schleimhäute im Mund und Vaginalbereich. Die Schleimhäute mit den Bakterien zu beimpfen, könnte somit einen Schutz vor HIV bieten, berichteten die Wissenschaftler auf der American Society for Microbiology Conference on Beneficial Microbes in Lake Tahoe.

"Ich glaube, dass jede Lebensform ihren natürlichen Feind hat", erklärte Lin Tao von der University of Illinois in Chicago. "Wenn wir den natürlichen Feind von HI-Viren finden können, können wir die Verbreitung des Virus auf eine natürliche Weise und kostengünstig kontrollieren -- so wie wir Katzen einsetzen, um Mäuse in Schach zu halten." Tao und seine Kollegen isolierten Lactobacillus-Arten von den Mund- und Vaginal-Schleimhäuten gesunder Menschen und untersuchten die Vorliebe verschiedener Stämme der Bakterien für Bäckerhefe. Die Oberfläche dieser Mikroorganismen ist ebenso wie die von HI-Viren mit dem Zucker Mannose bedeckt. Eine kleine Gruppe der Milchsäurebakterien setzte sich tatsächlich an dem Zucker und damit an der Hefe fest. In weiteren Tests mit HI-Viren fanden die Forscher dann zwei Stämme, die speziell die AIDS-Viren angriffen und festsetzten und damit eine Infektion verhindern könnten.
Bislang ist es äußerst schwierig, eine Impfung gegen AIDS zu entwickeln, da das Virus äußerst schnell mutiert. Die Schleimhäute, über die typischerweise eine Ansteckung mit dem Virus vonstatten geht, mit diesen nützlichen Bakterienstämmen zu behandeln, könnte die Ausbreitung des Virus jedoch eindämmen, hoffen die Forscher. "Wenn die Methode erfolgreich weiterentwickelt und tatsächlich angewandt werden kann, könnte die weltweite Verbreitung von HIV schnell, effektiv und kostengünstig kontrolliert werden", sagt Tao. "Die Bakterien könnten etwa Säuglinge vor HI-Viren in der Muttermilch bewahren. Frauen könnten sich durch spezielle Lebensmittel oder Frauenprodukte dezent und unauffällig vor einer Ansteckung beim Geschlechtsverkehr schützen."

Experiment: Kein Leben auf Saturnmond Titan

2005-04-26T19:55:00.000+02:00

Das haben erste Ergebnisse eines Experimentes der Universität Innsbruck, bei dem die Evolution des Titan im Zeitraffer simuliert worden war, gezeigt. Ein am Freitag gestartetes Langzeitexperiment soll weitere Erkenntnisse liefern.
Derzeit ist es zu kalt für Leben auf dem Saturnmond, erklärte der Leiter des Experiments, Bernd M. Rode vom Institut für Theoretische Chemie in Innsbruck, vor Journalisten. Am Titan herrsche eine Temperatur von rund minus 180 Grad.
Grundlagen für das Experiment waren Daten der Raumsonde Huygens über die Atmosphäre und Oberfläche des Saturnmondes. Diese waren der Innsbrucker Forschergruppe rund um Rode vom Grazer Institut für Weltraumforschung zur Verfügung gestellt worden.
Die Daten hatten gezeigt, dass es Eisbrocken und Blitzentladungen auf dem Saturnmond gebe. Durch die Blitze komme es zu einer kurzzeitigen Verdampfung von Wassermolekülen. Diese können dann mit anderen chemischen Elementen reagieren.
So habe das Experiment gezeigt, dass sich unmittelbar nach dem Auftreten einer elektrischen Entladung, dem Blitz, zahlreiche höhere Kohlenwasserstoffe bilden. Ihre Kettenlänge nehme mit der Dauer der Entladung zu, erklärte Rode.
Zudem würden Wassermoleküle aus dem Eis in die Atmosphäre geschleudert. Diese gingen mit der Methan-Stickstoff-Atmosphäre chemische Reaktionen zu sauerstoff- und stickstoffhaltigen Verbindungen ein.
Welche Moleküle und Molekülfragmente sich genau entwickeln, müsse noch ausgewertet werden. Ob es zur Entstehung von Aminosäuren - den Grundbausteinen Proteine - komme, könne erst das Langzeitexperiment zeigen.
Mindestens weitere sechs Wochen werden daher Blitze auf der simulierten Titan-Oberfläche in der Reaktionskammer - einer umgebauten Tiefkühltruhe - einschlagen.
Keine Beweise...
... man hat kein Leben gefunden, und die Wahrscheinlichkeit für uns bekanntes Leben ist sehr gering, aber die absolute Unwahrscheinlichkeit von Leben werden wir nie beweisen können. Nicht einmal in der Sonne!
was beweist das???

Dhammapada: the way of the buddha

2005-04-23T23:36:00.000+02:00

WE ARE WHAT WE THINK.
ALL THAT WE ARE ARISES WITH OUR THOUGHTS.
WITH OUR THOUGHTS WE MAKE THE WORLD.
SPEAK OR ACT WITH AN IMPURE MIND
AND TROUBLE WILL FOLLOW YOU
AS THE WHEEL FOLLOWS THE OX THAT DRAWS THE CART.

WE ARE WHAT WE THINK.
ALL THAT WE ARE ARISES WITH OUR THOUGHTS.
WITH OUR THOUGHTS WE MAKE THE WORLD.
SPEAK OR ACT WITH A PURE MIND
AND HAPPINESS WILL FOLLOW YOU
AS YOUR SHADOW, UNSHAKABLE.

HOW EASILY THE WIND OVERTURNS A FRAIL TREE.
SEEK HAPPINESS IN THE SENSES,
INDULGE IN FOOD AND SLEEP,
AND YOU TOO WILL BE UPROOTED.

THE WIND CANNOT OVERTURN A MOUNTAIN.
TEMPTATION CANNOT TOUCH THE MAN
WHO IS AWAKE, STRONG AND HUMBLE,
WHO MASTERS HIMSELF AND MINDS THE LAW.
One moment this woman looks beautiful and another moment another woman. If you just decide by the senses, you will be a constant turmoil -- you cannot decide because senses go on changing their opinions. One moment something seems so incredible, and another moment it is just ugly, unbearable. And we depend on these senses.
Buddha says: Don't depend on senses -- depend on awareness. Awareness is something hidden behind the senses. It is not the eye that sees. If you go to the eye specialist he will say it is the eye that sees, but that is not true. The eye is only a mechanism -- through which somebody else sees. The eye is only a window; the window cannot see. When you stand at the window, you can look outside. Somebody passing in the street may think, "The window is seeing me." The eye is only a window, an aperture. Who is behind the eye?
The ear does not hear -- who is behind the ear who hears? Who is the one who feels? Go on searching for that and you will find some foundation; otherwise, your life will be just a dry leaf in the wind.

THE WIND CANNOT OVERTURN A MOUNTAIN.
TEMPTATION CANNOT TOUCH THE MAN
WHO IS AWAKE, STRONG AND HUMBLE,
WHO MASTERS HIMSELF AND MINDS THE LAW.

Meditation will make you awake, strong and humble. Meditation will make you awake because it will give you the first experience of yourself. You are not the body, you are not the mind -- you are the pure witnessing consciousness. And when this witnessing consciousness is touched, a great awakening happens -- as if a snake was sitting coiled up and suddenly it uncoils, as if somebody was asleep and has been shaken and awakened. Suddenly a great awakening inside: for the first time you feel you are. For the first time you feel the truth of your being.
And certainly it makes you strong; you are no longer fragile, not like a frail tree that any wind can overturn. Now you become a mountain! Now you have a foundation, now you are rooted -- no wind can overturn a mountain.

The Tao of Star Wars

2005-04-23T21:54:00.000+02:00

May the Force be with you. Utter this famous line and there's no mistaking it. You're referring to the driving force (pardon the pun) behind the Star Wars world of exploding planets and intergalactic wars. But what exactly is it? In the words of the character Obi-wan Kenobi, a Jedi knight:
"The Force is what gives the Jedi his power. It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together."
Neat. A power in all of us that we can manipulate to, say, blow up an evil empire or control the galaxy. Played out in a world of Jedi knights, princesses and evil Imperial troops, it's a tantalizing basis for a hyper-tech fairy tale. But, as synonymous as the Force is with the make-believe world of Star Wars, some of its basic principles can be found in a real-life, ancient Chinese philosophy called Taoism.
"The Tao is kind of, well, a force that pervades the universe," says Anne Collins Smith, a philosophy and classical studies professor at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania. "It is the source of the universe, but it also IS the universe."
There are enough similarities between the Force and the Tao that Smith, an avid Star Wars fan, uses the movie to help explain concepts in Taoism in her classes. Taoism is one of the two major indigenous religio-philosophical traditions that has shaped Chinese life for more than 2,000 years. A mysterious, master Taoist named Lao-tzu, an archivist at the court of the Chou dynasty (c. 1111-255 BC) and an instructor of Confucius, is said to be one of its founders, after writing a series of poems called the Tao-te Ching.
Tao, often translated as the way or the path, is the ineffable, eternal, creative reality that is the source and end of all things. Te refers to the manifestation of Tao within all things. Thus, to fully possess Te, one must be in perfect harmony with one's original nature.
Put another way, the Tao can be understood in three ways, explains Smith. It is the nature of the universe. It is also your true essence. And it is the way to lead your life. "Really this meaning ties the other two together, because the way to lead your life is to get your personal Tao in touch with the Tao of the whole universe."
Sound familiar? "Be one with the force, Luke," advises his teacher Obi-wan Kenobi, as our hero learns the "ways of the Force".

The Tao of Spam

2005-04-22T13:57:00.000+02:00

The Tao of Spam is an inspiring mix of philosophy, religion and psychology.

All the great sages are represented, including Gandhi ("An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind"), Aesop ("No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted"), Ben Franklin ("Love your enemies, for they tell you your faults") and Al Capone ("You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than with a kind word alone").

Some of the quotes are like Zen koans, paradoxes that must be meditated upon to unlock their cosmic significance. A recent example: "When beyond mastodon ceases to exist, defendant related to ocean daydreams rebel aquatic zing armpit."

Once I figure out what it means, I'm sure life will be nonstop nirvana.

In the meantime, my Microsoft Outlook continues to overflow with e-mail epiphanies. The messages cover nearly every facet of life, from dental hygiene ("Be true to your teeth and they won't be false to you") to politics ("A bureaucrat is a Democrat who holds some office a Republican wants") to social skills ("I drink to make other people interesting") to marriage ("The men may be the head of the house, but the women are the neck and they can turn the head any way they want").

Occasionally, these eternal truths are attributed. Voltaire gets credit for "Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung," and Charles de Gaulle gets the nod for "The graveyards are full of indispensable men."

But most spam aphorisms come with no name attached other than the sender's — Arbutus J. Deform, Solitude M. Cabinetmakers, Electrocutes G. Fluff, Dickered U. Sailfish. Who are these spam savants and why do they feel compelled to use middle initials? Is Electrocutes G. Fluff worried about being mistaken for some other Electrocutes Fluff? Perhaps such questions aren't meant to be answered in this life.

Dhammapada, the way of the Buddha

2005-04-19T17:01:00.000+02:00

THE BUDDHA SAID:
THE HOMELESS SHRAMANA CUTS OFF THE PASSIONS, FREES HIMSELF OF ATTACHMENTS, UNDERSTANDS THE SOURCE OF HIS OWN MIND, PENETRATES THE DEEPEST DOCTRINE OF BUDDHA, AND COMPREHENDS THE DHAMMA, WHICH IS IMMATERIAL.
HE HAS NO PREJUDICE IN HIS HEART. HE HAS NOTHING TO HANKER AFTER. HE IS NOT HAMPERED BY THE THOUGHT OF THE WAY NOR IS HE ENTANGLED IN KARMA. NO PREJUDICE, NO COMPULSION, NO DISCIPLINE, NO ENLIGHTENMENT AND NO GOING UP THROUGH THE GRADES AND YET IN POSSESSION OF ALL HONOURS IN ITSELF. THIS IS CALLED THE WAY.

... NO DISCIPLINE, NO ENLIGHTENMENT, AND NO GOING UP THROUGH THE GRADES.
And Buddha says there are no grades. People are there who say, 'I am advanced but still not yet attained.'
Buddha says in fact there are no gradations. There are only two types of people -- enlightened and unenlightened. There is no in between. It is not that a few people are there who are just in the middle. Either you are alive or you are dead, there is no in between. Either you know or you don't; there is no in between. Grades don't exist.
All grades are tricks of the ego. The ego says, 'Yes, I am not yet enlightened, but I am far advanced. Just ninety-nine degrees. One degree more and I will be enlightened. I am not far behind -- far advanced.' Drop all that nonsense. If you are not enlightened you are simply not enlightened.
All unenlightened people are the same and all enlightened people are also the same. The difference is just as if you are sleeping and somebody is sitting by your side fully alert and aware. This is the only difference. If you are awake, you are awake. You cannot say, 'I am just in between.' There is no state like that. If you are asleep, you are asleep; if you are awake, you are awake.
And the difference is small and yet tremendous. A man fully alert sitting awake and a man snoring by the side -- both are the same human beings, same consciousnesses, but one is in deep darkness, lost, oblivious of itself; another luminous, alive, attained to its own inner flame.
If something happens then they both will react in different ways. The alert person is bound to react in a different way. His reaction will be a response; he will respond, knowing well what he is doing. If the sleepy person reacts, his reaction will be a mechanical reaction, not knowing what he is doing.
Buddha says:
... NO DISCIPLINE, NO ENLIGHTENMENT, NO GOING UP THROUGH THE GRADES, AND YET IN POSSESSION OF ALL HONOURS IN ITSELF -- THIS IS CALLED THE WAY.

Die Kalligraphie tao und das Symbol für den weg

2005-04-17T22:46:00.000+02:00

Beim chinesischen Schriftzeichen für tao in der klassischen Schreibweise ist links ein Fuß abgebildet, der drei Schritte tut. Das rechte Zeichen ist die stilisierte Darstellung eines Kopfes mit drei Haaren. Der Kopf, der die Wahrnehmungsorgane beinhaltet, symbolisiert auch den Geist,
das Bewußtsein, der Fuß in der Bewegung bezieht sich auf das Wandern. Gängige Übersetzungen für das tao sind: der weg, eine Straße, ein Kurs, ein Pfad, das Prinzip, ein Lehrsystem und auch das Sprechen. Das bewußte Gehen im Studium des tao, gründet sich auf alle unsere Motivationen, die darauf zielen, das Leben in uns aufzunehmen: Wir beobachten die Phasen der Sonne, des Mondes, der Sterne (Wege des Himmels) und der Erde, der Gezeiten. Wir erkennen, daß die natürlichen Wege den Grundgesetzen des Kreises und des Flusses folgen. Dem weg der Natur zu folgen, die Natur zum Vorbild zu nehmen, heißt, daß wir unsere Bewegungen ausbalancieren und Kraft schöpfen aus dem Rad der Zeit.
In einer anderen Deutung wird der Kopf mit dem Meister oder dem Universum gleichgesetzt. Das tao verweist dann auf die Spur der alten Meister oder auf den weg des Himmels.
Der Wert dieses Wissens, welches wir uns durch Übungen zu eigen machen, ist nicht an der Menge der uns übermittelten Informationen abzulesen.

So üben die Schwertmeister zuerst viele einzelne Techniken, mit dem Ziel ihre Muskeln zu kräftigen und Geschmeidigkeit im ganzen Körper zu erlangen, bis ihr Können Teil ihrer Reflexe geworden ist. Sie üben weiter, mit dem Ziel, Energie und Geist zu klären und zu stabilisieren. Schließlich gewinnt die Übung auf dem weg eine neue Dimension: der Geist kann leer werden und das Können wird Teil eines höheren Bewußtseins. Erst wenn das Wissen ein Bestandteil unserer eigenen Seele geworden ist, so sagen die Lehren der altehrwürdigen Meister, kann von Wissen gesprochen werden, Wissen, welches mehr ist als reine Informationsübermittlung.

Original von Lao-Tze

2005-04-14T18:48:00.000+02:00

Tao-Te King (15)
Aus dem Handbuch des alten Meisters Lao-Tze
" Vom Weg und der Kraft "

Die alten Meister, die fähig waren, den weg anzuwenden,
geheimnisvoll und verborgen waren sie,
tiefgründig und eindringlich.
Ihre Tiefe nur schwer zu ergründen.
So bemühen wir ein Modell, um ihr Äußeres zu beschreiben :
So achtsam, des Winters einen Strom zu überqueren,
So wachsam, als wenn auf der Hut vor den Nachbarn,
So gediegen, als wären sie nur Gäste,
So nachgiebig, wie schmelzendes Eis,
So ungekünstelt, wie unbearbeitetes Holz,
So ausgedehnt, wie die Wasserscheide,
So vermischt, wie die trüben Flußläufe.
Wer ist noch fähig, wie ein trüber Flusslauf ruhig zu werden
und in den Höhen der Klarheit anzukommen.
Wer ist noch fähig, in Frieden, stark zu werden
Und die Tiefen der Kraft auszuschöpfen.
Wer immer diesen weg bewahrt,
verlangt nicht mehr nach Fülle.
Allein die, die nicht überfüllt sind,
können verborgen bleiben, ohne Anfang und ohne Ende.

Time is just a trap of the mind

2005-04-14T03:26:00.000+02:00

THE most important thing: never think of the future, and never be entangled with the past.
The mind is playing games. You are not enjoying. You are not delighted -- you are creating a worry for yourself. Now the worry is about the future -- who are you to be worried about the future? And how can you manage to control it? -- there is no way. The future will take its own course. We cannot manage the future in a certain way, that it should be so or should not be so. All efforts have always failed.
Buddha tried that there should not exist any organized religion in his name. He tried that there should not be any image made of him, but there are more images of Buddha than anybody else in the world. There are a few temples which are called 'thousand Buddha temples' -- one thousand images and one. There is one temple in China, a cave temple, which has ten thousand Buddha images.
Even Buddha couldn't manage it. There is no way to manage it. The only way is to use the present, and leave the future for the future. There will be people; we will not be here -- what they are going to do, it is their freedom. If they want to make chains, that is their freedom. If they want to be liberated, that is their freedom. If they want to make a prison out of the temple, then it is their freedom! and it is their choice. Who are we to interfere?
Now, Krishnamurti tried to interfere with the future. He thought continuously about what will happen in the future, so no clue should be left for the future, so the religion cannot be organized. But to be constantly concerned so much about the future is wrong. Who are we? The future belongs to the future and will belong to future generations -- they will do whatsoever they like to do.
If they want to live in prisons, they will live in prisons. They will find a way to make a prison out of anything -- they have always done so.
Time is just a trap of the mind.
Even organized religions play a positive role. The positive role consists in provocation, in challenge. Even the prison plays a positive role: it provokes the spirit of the courageous; it becomes a challenge for freedom -- it has its role, its function.

Die Kraft der Natur

2005-04-12T14:51:00.000+02:00

Das sich entfaltende Tao

Das Grosse Tao erstreckt sich überallhin.
Zur Linken ist es und zur Rechten.

Alle Dinge hängen in ihrem Gedeihen von ihm ab,
Und es verweigert ihnen nichts.
Es vollbringt seinen Zweck,
Und es hat keinen Namen.
Es kleidet und befördert alle Dinge,
Und es tritt nicht auf als ihr Herr.

Immer ohne Begehren:
Gering mag man's darum nennen.
Alle Dinge verschmelzen mit ihm,
Und es tritt nicht auf als ihr Herr.
Gross mag man es nennen.

Schliesslich sucht es nicht Grösse:
Dergestalt wird das Grosse vollbracht.

Der Inbegriff des Tao

Danach geschaut doch nicht erblickt:
Es heisst gestaltlos.
Darauf gehorcht, doch nicht erlauscht:
Es heisst geräuschlos.
Danach gefasst, doch nicht erlangt:
Es heisst ungreifbar.

Diese drei kann der Verstand nicht scheiden.
So mischen sie sich und wirken als Eines.

Sein Aufgang ist nicht hell,
Sein Untergang nicht dunkel.
Endlos strömt das Namenlose dahin,
Und kehrt ins Nichts zurück.

Darum nennt man es
Die Form des Formlosen.
Das Abbild des Wesenlosen.
Darum nennt man es schemenhaft, entgleitend.
Wer ihm gegenübersteht, sieht nicht seinen Anfang.
Wer ihm nachfolgt, sieht nicht sein Ende.

Halte fest am uralten Tao:
Beherrsche und lenke die Dinge das Tags.
Sei dir des uralten Quellgrunds bewusst:
Dies nennt man den Inbegriff des Tao.

Der Angriff des Ziegensaugers

2005-04-11T01:28:00.000+02:00

Im Spätsommer 1995 kam es in Campo Rico, einem Vorort von Casanova, angeblich zu einer ersten, direkten Begegnung mit einem Chupacabra. Die Zeugin Madelyne Tolentino hielt sich zwischen drei und vier Uhr am Nachmittag im neu bezogenen Haus ihrer Mutter auf, als sie beiläufig aus dem Fenster blickte. Dort sah sie eine seltsame Szene: unweit des Hauses stand ein geparkter Wagen, dessen Fahrer voller Entsetzen und fluchtartig aus seinem Auto sprang. Noch ehe sich Tolentino fragen konnte, was den Mann so in Angst und Panik versetzte, sah sie eine 1,20 bis 1,50 Meter kleine Kreatur mit Stachelrücken und allen oben genannten Attributen des Ziegensaugers.
Ein namentlich nicht bekannter Zeuge, ein Freund der Familie Tolentino, war ebenfalls am Ort des Schreckens und nahm die Verfolgung der Bestie auf. Er berichtet, dass sich der Ziegensauger mit einer fast unnatürlichen Geschwindigkeit einen schmalen Weg in Richtung des Dschungels entlang bewegte. Fast hatte er das Tier eingeholt, da drehte es sich unvermittelt um, stellte seine Stacheln auf dem Rücken auf und fletschte die Zähne. Der lokale Phänomene-Forscher J. Martín fertigte anhand der Zeugenaussagen dieser Begegnung das hier zu sehende, „klassische" Bild des Chupacabra an.
Im Jahr 1995 häuften sich nun die Berichte über den Ziegensauger. Allein um die Stadt Casanova wurden mehr als 150 verstümmelte Tiere aufgefunden. Im November 1995 wurden in der Gegend bei Caguas Dutzende Tiere Opfer des Chupacabra, denn dort wurden Pferde, Kaninchen, Hühner, Kühe, Hunde, Katzen, Ziegen und andere Kleintiere tot und ohne einen Tropfen Blut im Körper gefunden. Etwas Unheimliches schien sich auszubreiten. Die Bevölkerung wurde langsam unruhig und schob alles auf den Ziegensauger. In Zahlen ausgedrückt sollen mehr als 2000 verstümmelte Tiere innerhalb von zwei Jahren auf Puerto Rico gemeldet worden sein, wie es das angesehene „UFO-Magazin" in der März/April-Ausgabe 1996 berichtete.

one anecdote:

2005-04-03T20:23:00.000+02:00

In Burma, one Buddhist monk was ordered to make a design for the new temple, particularly for the gate. So he was making many designs. He had one very talented disciple, so he told that disciple to be near him. While he made the design the disciple was simply to watch, and if he liked it he had to say that it was okay, it was right. If he didn't like it then he had to say no. And the master said, `When you say yes, only then will I send the design. If you go on saying no, I will discard the design and will create a new one.'
Hundreds of designs were discarded in this way. Three months passed. Even the master became afraid, but he had given his word so he had to keep it. The disciple was there, the master would make the design, and then the disciple would say no. The master would start another one.
One day the ink was just about to be finished, so the master said, `Go out and find more ink.' The disciple went out. The master forgot him, his presence, and became effortless. His presence was the problem. The idea was constantly in his mind that the disciple was there, judging. He was constantly wondering whether he was going to like it or not, whether he would discard it again. This created an inner anxiety and the master could not be spontaneous.
The disciple went out. The design was completed. The disciple came in and he said `Wonderful! But why couldn't you do it before?'
The master said, `Now I understand why -- because you were here. Because of you -- I was making an effort to get your approval. The effort destroyed the whole thing. I couldn't be natural, I couldn't flow, I couldn't forget myself because of you.'
Whenever you are doing meditation, the very effort that you are doing it, the very idea of succeeding in it, is the barrier. Be conscious of it. Go on doing, and be conscious of it. A day will come... just through patience a day comes when effort is not there. Really, you are not there, only meditation is. It may take a long time. It cannot be predicted, no one can say when it will happen. Because if something is to be achieved by effort, it can be predicted -- that if you do this much effort you will succeed -- but meditation is going to succeed only when you become effortless. That's why nothing can be predicted. Nothing can be said about when you will succeed. You may succeed this very moment, and you may not succeed for lives.
The whole thing hinges on one thing -- when your effort drops and you become spontaneous, when your meditation is not an act but becomes your being, when your meditation is just like love....
You cannot do anything about love, or can you? If you do anything, you falsify it. It will become artificial. It will not go deep. You will not be in it. It will become an acting. Love IS -- you cannot do anything about it.
You cannot do anything about meditation also. But I don't mean don't do anything, because then you will remain whatsoever you are. You have to do something, perfectly conscious that by only doing you will not achieve. Doing will be needed in the beginning. One cannot leave it; one has to go through it. But one has to go through it, one has to transcend it, and an effortless floating has to be achieved.
The path is arduous and very contradictory. You cannot find anything more contradictory than meditation. Contradictory because it has to be started as an effort and it has to end as effortlessness. But it happens. You may not be able to conceive logically hot it happens, but in experience it happens. A day comes when you just get fed up with your effort. It falls.

Taoism is absurd

2005-04-01T02:10:00.000+02:00

What is understanding? It is an intellectual effort. What taoism is trying to communicate to you has nothing to do with the intellect. You can feel it, but you cannot understand it. You can live it, and only by living it will you be able to understand it.
But people try just the opposite -- first they want to understand. The idea is: Unless we understand a thing, how can we try it, how can we live it? It is logical that first one should understand and only then should one try to live.
But life is not logical; life is far deeper than logic, and many times life is absolutely illogical. If you try to cling to logic you will miss many things, and those many things are the most precious. You will miss love, you will miss meditation, you will miss joy, you will miss Tao, you will miss freedom. You will miss all that makes life significant, that gives life beauty, splendor. You will miss the presence of godliness that surrounds you. Logic is a barrier, not a bridge.
If you want to misunderstand taoism then the head is the right instrument; then you can go on misunderstanding taoism forever and forever. But if you want to understand taoism, then you have to forget all about your old patterns of understanding things. Taoism is not mathematics and it is not philosophy.
Taoism is teaching something absolutely existential. You have to live it, you have to take the quantum leap. You have been told again and again that before you take the jump, think twice. And what taoism is saying to you is: Take the jump first and then think as many times as you want, because then thinking cannot do anything, it cannot do any harm. But let the jump happen first.
Meditation has to be experienced. If you try to figure it out, what it is, you will miss the point because it is not a question of mind at all. Meditation means a state of no-mind. Taoism is constantly pulling you towards the state of no-mind, in every possible way.
Taoism is absurd, it is not logical. You will have to put logic aside; otherwise taoism will say one thing and you will understand something else.

The judge asked the philosopher who was produced in court, "Now tell me, sir, why did you park your car where you did?"
The professor said, "There was a sign saying, FINE FOR PARKING."

Computer virus pretends to be FBI e-mail

2005-03-25T23:25:00.002+01:00

The FBI warned Tuesday that a computer virus is being spread through unsolicited e-mails that purport to come from the FBI.
The e-mails appear to come from an fbi.gov address. They tell recipients that they have accessed illegal Web sites and that their Internet use has been monitored by the FBI's "Internet Fraud Complaint Center," the FBI said.
The messages then direct recipients to open an attachment and answer questions. The computer virus is in the attachment.
"Recipients of this or similar solicitations should know that the FBI does not engage in the practice of sending unsolicited e-mails to the public in this manner," the FBI said in a statement.
The bureau is investigating the phony e-mails.
The agency earlier this month shut down fbi.gov accounts, used to communicate with the public, because of a security breach. A spokeswoman said the two incidents appear to be unrelated.

In a bizarre celebration of Belfast's industrial heritage, a Northern Ireland artist is planning to tow an iceberg to the city that built the Titanic.

Tao Te Ching

2005-03-25T23:25:00.001+01:00

60. Allowing potentially disruptive forces to have their place -- within a larger context
61. Lying low to ensure integrity and continuity -- "the meek shall inherit the earth"
62. Honoring the appropriate as a gift -- in contrast to the fashionable
63. Focusing on the challenge of beginnings -- as the foundation for any subsequent achievement, whatever its scope
-- / --
64. Attending to what may have been neglected in the achievement of undertakings
65. Being in ignorance of appropriate action -- as empowering appropriate response to the unexpected in the moment
66. Following rather than leading -- as the key to appropriately sustainable guidance
67. Leading the mightiest by not presuming to do so -- however improbable this may seem
68. Avoiding competition -- to ensure the appropriate use of ability
69. Yielding to antagonism -- thus disempowering the attacker and devaluing any resultant victory
70. Being obscure -- as characteristic of an understanding and mode of action that is not of this world
71. Knowing without knowing -- as the only remedy for the sickness of knowing without not-knowing
72. Fearing the dangers of acting inappropriately
-- / --
73. Acting silently, non-competitively, and non-directively -- to readily ensure the most appropriate consequences
74. Avoiding the presumptuousness of usurping the judgement on others by the larger scheme of things
75. Living for more than the pursuit of wealth -- or solely for the sake of living
76. Bending in response to pressure -- as the essence of strength and the key to survival
77. Redistributing from those who have to those who have not
78. Recognizing the counter-intuitive, paradoxical nature of appropriate action
79. Fulfilling obligations -- as indicative of the subtle power that eludes those focused on their rightful claims
80. Enjoying the freedom of movement in relation to what is to hand, without yearning for elsewhere or elsewhen -- or the use of the facilitating devices they evoke
81. Doing without outdoing -- avoiding the destructive traps of charm, contention, and learning

'sea-serpent'

2005-03-25T23:25:00.000+01:00

In 1847 the Zoologist published a fourteen-year-old story, supported by five witnesses, of an encounter with a sea-serpent off Halifax, N.S. This story, written by Henry Ince, the Ordnance storekeeper at Halifax, runs as follows: "On the 1st May, 1833, a party, consisting of Captain Sullivan, Lieutenants Maclachlan and Malcolm of the Rifle Brigade, Lieutenant Lyster of the Artillery, and Mr. Ince of the Ordnance, started from Halifax in a small yacht for Mahone Bay, some forty miles to the westward, on a fishing excursion. The morning was cloudy, and the wind at S.S.E., and apparently rising. "We had run about half the distance, as we supposed, and were enjoying ourselves on deck, when we were surprised by the sight of an immense shoal of grampuses, which appeared in an unusual state of excitement, and which, in their gambols, approached so close to our little craft, that some of the party amused themselves by firing at them with rifles. . . . Our attention was presently diverted from the whales and 'such small deer' by an exclamation from Dowling, our man-of-war's man, who was sitting to leeward, of "Oh, sir, look here!" We were startled into a ready compliance, and saw an object which banished all other thoughts save wonder and surprise. "At the distance of from iso to 200 yards on our starboard b~w, we saw the head and neck of some denizen of the deep, precisely like those of a common snake, in the act of swimming, the head so far elevated and thrown forward by the curve of the neck as to enable us to see the water under and beyond it. The creature rapidly passed, leaving a regular wake, from the commencement of which, to the fore part, which was out of water, we judged its length to be about eighty feet; and this within rather than beyond the mark. "There could be no mistake, no delusion, and we were all perfectly satisfied that we had been favoured with a view of the 'true and veritable sea-serpent', which had been generally considered to have existed only in the brain of some Yankee skipper, and treated as a tale not much entitled to belief It is most difficult to give correctly the dimensions of any object in the water. The head of the creature we set down at about six feet in length, and that portion of the neck which we saw, at the same; the extreme length, as before stated, as between eighty and one hundred feet. The neck in thickness equalled the bole of a moderate-sized tree. The head and neck of a dark brown or nearly black colour, streaked with white in irregular streaks. I do not recollect seeing any part of the body. "Such is the rough account of the sea-serpent, and all the party who saw it are still in the land of the living-Lyster in England, Malcolm in New South Wales, with his regiment, and the remainder still vegetating in Halifax." Signed by: W. SULLIVAN, Captain, Rifle Brigade.A.MACLACHLAN, Lieutenant, Rifle Brigade.G.P. MALCOLM, Ensign, Rifle Brigade.B.O'NBAL LYSTER, Lieutenant, Artillery.HENRY INCE, Ordnance Storekeeper at Halifax.For some years the 'sea-serpent' was not seen again in these parts; but when he made his next appearance, he 'stayed around' for several seasons.

TAO ist übrigens eine Kugel

2005-03-23T23:24:00.000+01:00

Wie dem Symbol zu entnehmen ist, ist im YIN das YANG und im YANG das YIN enthalten.
Die Wellenlinie zwischen beiden symbolisiert das Wechselspiel, das Fließen der Kräfte (Erotik).
Aus der rhythmischen Aufeinanderfolge dieser beiden Prinzipien entsteht Bewegung und Energie.
Alle Wesen der Schöpfung entsprechen auch wieder dem TAO
l dem sie entsprangen und bestehen aus einem überwiegend männlichen und einem überwiegend weiblichen Teil.rBeide Teile, wenn voneinander getrennt, sehnen sich zueinander. Wir bezeichnen die beiden Teile auch als SEELENPARTNER. Beide sehnen sich aber auch nach ihrem Ursprung, LIEBE-LICHT, dem sie entsprangen.
Das TAO ist übrigens dreidimensional, also eine Kugel.
Jeder Teil, jede Hälfte, die männliche und die weibliche Hälfte, sind in sich zugleich Teil, also zwei Wesen und zugleich Ganzes.
Jeder Teil ist in sich zugleich Geschlecht und zugleich androgyn - also er ist zugleich ein überwiegend männlicher oder ein überwiegend weiblicher Teil und enthält in sich zugleich männliche UND weibliche Aspekte.
Also jeder Mensch ist entweder ein überwiegend männliches oder ein überwiegend weibliches Wesen und hat in sich zugleich sowohl männliche als auch weibliche Aspekte. Dabei wird jeder Mensch aber auch als andersgeschlechtliches Wesen inkarnieren, also jeder von uns muss sowohl als Mann als auch als Frau inkarnieren, denn er muss ALLE Erfahrungen kennen.
Wie können es uns vielleicht besser vorstellen, wenn wir an unsere Gehirnhälften denken, von denen die linke männlich (Verstand, Intellekt) und die rechte weiblich (Intuition) ist.
Jeder MÄNNLICHE Teil einer SEELENGANZHEIT hat eine männliche und eine weibliche Gehirnhälfte, und jeder WEIBLICHE Teil einer SEELENGANZHEIT hat auch eine männliche und eine weibliche Gehirnhälfte.

Sozialismus und das anthropische Prinzip

2005-03-23T12:58:00.000+01:00

der real existierende sozialismus ist bekanntlich überall bereits nach kurzer zeit gescheitert bzw. am scheitern bzw. hat sich langsam in einen sozialkapitalismus verwandelt (Nordkorea).
kubaner nehmen den tod ihrer frauen und kinder im ozean lieber in kauf als in ihrem tollen sozialistischen land bleiben zu müssen...
warum wird der sozialismus von seinen betreibern eigentlich immer umzäunt und eingemauert? hat er doch als tolle sache an sich gar nicht nötig?
vielleicht, weil der mensch eben lieber meinungsfreiheit und wohlstand hat?
es gab niemals gleichheit, nicht mal chancengleichheit, für bestimmte jobs bekam man in der DDR nur ne lehrstelle, wenn man sich bereits mit 16 beim bewerben bereit erklärte, mit 18 dann in die SED einzutreten, jeder hat versucht, auf die seite der privilegierten zu kommen, jeder hat versucht, sein vitamin B (wie beziehungen) auszubauen, um wenigstens mal ab und an an südfrüchte für die kids zu kommen.
glückliche tage waren die, wo westpakete mit lecker kaffee und schokolade und ein paar anziehbaren sachen ankamen....

Doch selbst bei Absprachen unter Menschen besteht eine ständige Gefahr, dass einzelne Personen *kurzfristig* so viel zu gewinnen haben, wenn sie den Pakt brechen, dass die Versuchung dazu überwältigend wird.
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Trotz weltweiter Kommunikation wirst du heute mehr einsame Menschen finden, als je zuvor. Trotz Wohlstand sind die Leute unzufrieden und wollen immer mehr, immer neuere Sachen. Weshalb auch der Sozialismus nicht funktioniert, es gibt keine Gemeinschaft, jeder ist Egoist und strebt nach mehr Eigentum (um sich von den anderen zu unterscheiden).

Das anthropische Prinzip spricht vom Angelegtsein des Kosmos auf ein Hervorbringen intelligenten Seins. Wie groß ist da noch der Schritt zur theologischen Deutungsweise der Zukunftsbezogenheit allen Seins?

Heilige und Agnostiker

2005-03-22T23:00:00.000+01:00

Mir ist aufgefallen, dass religiöse menschen übersensibel sind, sobald man ihre religion kritisiert....und sich sofort persönlich angegriffen fühlen.
gibt es den menschen, der durch und durch gut ist? ich glaube nicht. beispiel mutter teresa, die millionen der spenden an den vatikan verhökert hat und sich weigert, sterbenskranken schmerzmittel zu geben, weil sie dankbar für die auferlegten leiden sein sollen und sich ihr paradies teuer erkaufen sollen. der supertollen "heiligen" liegt das jenseits mehr am herzen als das diesseits.
weißt du, wie viele der nach außen hin tollen menschen welche dunklen seiten haben und möglicherweise auch ausleben?

aber klar, wir lassen uns immer schön vom äußeren schein blenden. ja nicht hinter die fassade schauen - könnte ja zu viele böse überraschungen geben. die süße heile familie beim sonntagsausflug ist soooo nett anzuschauen, wen interessierts, dass der vater seine kinder öfter mal zusammenschlägt, die mutter sie psychisch terrorisiert. das wollen wir alles gar nicht so genau wissen.
Sie sind mindestens genauso gut trotz ihres Glaubens an Gott wie sie es wegen ihres Glaubens an Gott sind. Sie haben Moral und Gewissen, das ist viel mehr eine Frage der Erziehung und der eigenen Haltung als die des Glaubens an ein "höheres" Wesen. Ob ich meinem Gewissen verantwortlich bin oder meine innere Stimme an ein eingebildetes "Gehör" verleihe, mag in der Wirkung auf das ethische Handeln tatsächlich peripher sein. Dennoch bleibt es nicht egal, ob ich Aberglauben fördere, der immer wieder von Mächtigen und interessierten Kreisen zum Missbrauch genützt wird!
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Ein Agnostiker (eben, ein agnostisches Wesen) ist einer, der glaubt, das übersinnliche Sein sei nicht erkennbar, also eigentlich ein Nicht-Gläubiger.
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Der Agnostiker lässt die Frage nach Gott offen. Er entscheidet sich dafür, sich nicht zu entscheiden. Er "glaubt" insofern nicht, schließt aber auch das Sein Gottes/Götter nicht völlig aus!
Eigentlich eine recht verständliche Position, allerdings im Geruch der "Indifferenz" und Unverbindlichkeit naturgemäß!

trust or trustworthy

2005-03-19T13:56:00.000+01:00

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."
Taoism trusts the potential of the individual, taoism trusts his innermost purity, which no cheating can destroy. Almost everyone is cheating because he has been trained to cheat, the society has forced him to cheat. But he is not responsible, he is only a victim. And won't you trust a victim?
Trust is a very alchemical force.
If you trust somebody, you can transform the person.
Trust is a tremendous force, it is not something small. You don't know about it; your trust is not trust. First you find out the trustworthiness of the person and then you say you trust him. He is trustworthy -- you are not trusting. And trust doesn't care whether he is trustworthy or not. That is his business, that is his problem.
The whole world seems to be loving. Fathers are loving their children, children are kissing their moms, moms are loving their husbands. Brothers, sisters, friends, the whole world is entangled -- loving. And if you look around the world you don't see any fragrance of love. Four billion people loving, and there is no fragrance of love. All that you smell is nuclear weapons, Hiroshima still burning, Nagasaki. When the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there was seven hundred times less atomic energy in the whole world than there is today.
And you are living in a society which is continuously preparing to commit suicide, where AIDS is spreading like wildfire.
Taoists are not going to write any constitution. Constitutions are written by politicians. Constitutions are written by people who are power-lusty, ambitious. Constitutions are needed because they are all nations.
Taoism is trying to destroy all divisions between man and man.

something about Osho

2005-03-18T13:18:00.000+01:00

It happened in Faridabad, a place near New Delhi, that there was a great Hindu world conference. One shankaracharya told Osho, "There is danger."
He was still being friendly towards Osho, and he said, "In public I cannot be on your side but deep down I feel your authenticity, your sincerity. I cannot say this before the public because I don't have that much courage. But I want you to be warned because there is much conspiracy going on: `Today something has to be done to this man because he has been hammering all our beliefs, all our heritage, all our institutions. Nobody seems to have any answer for him, nobody seems to have any argument.' So they are thinking, just the way idiots will think, `Why not kill this man, why not destroy this man?' So today's meeting can become fatal to you."
Osho said, "Don't be worried. Every moment is fatal because any moment death can come. And this is great: with fifty thousand people I will enjoy my death too!"
He said, "You are incurable. I am just being friendly to you, and I am certain there is something going on."
Osho said, "If you are certain, I trust you. I will do my best to let it happen." And really, in the evening conference there must have been at least one hundred thousand people. In the morning conference there were only fifty thousand; the number had doubled because the gossip that something was going to happen, something was boiling up, brought many more people to the evening meeting.
As Osho started speaking he could see that three persons, strong men, came and sat just behind him. They looked like professional criminals. Perhaps they were borrowed for the occasion. Before speaking Osho said, "I want to say a few things about these three strong men who are sitting behind me." There was deep silence on the stage. They were all great Hindu monks, three shankaracharyas, prominent politicians -- at least fifty people were there. Delhi was so close, so great politicians were available -- and they don't miss such a gathering. One hundred thousand people ... just seeing them on the stage is enough!
Those three people had not expected that Osho was going to speak about them first. And how did he know about them? Osho said, "These three persons are here to kill me, so you all have to be aware -- at least they should be patient. There is no problem in killing, they can kill me, but first let me finish what I want to say to you. If they kill me in the middle you will be at a loss; you will have missed what I was going to say to you."
"So I want to ask you one thing: Do you want me to say all that I have to say? If you want me me to, then please raise your hands. If you don't want me to, then what is the point of saying half the things; half the truth is far worse than a lie. Then I would rather remain silent and tell these three people to kill me."
One hundred thousand hands shot up, with shouts of "We want to hear you, and we will see who can attack you" -- and many people, hundreds of people, came behind me, to prevent those three people. Osho spoke the way he always spoke, he said things as strongly as possible. And the miracle was that Osho was speaking against those people's beliefs!
But somewhere, deep down, man remains innocent. One just has to know the knack of reaching that point, to touch his heart.
All those shankaracharyas and politicians by and by started getting off the stage. Osho had been given only twenty minutes to speak ... but the president had left, the other organizers had left, seeing the situation, that the whole thing had backfired. But the people would not let those three persons go, they were holding them.
The whole meeting became his meeting. Osho spoke for almost two and a half hours because there was nobody else to speak, and nobody to tell him to stop or anything. The chairman was missing -- they had all escaped because they were all part of the conspiracy. And those three men fell at his feet and said, "Somehow save us. If you leave, these people will kill us."
Osho told the crowd, "Just leave them, because they have not done anything; moreover, they are professionals, they have nothing personal against me. They may have got some money, and I am not against that. Have you got the money?" I asked them, "or have you not got it yet?"
And these are the moments when you see realities which are not ordinarily available. They said ... they could not tell a lie. They were professional criminals, murderers, they had been charged with murder before, they had been in jail many times -- but they could not tell a lie. Just seeing his truth, a synchronicity ... something in them also was touched. They said, "Half they have given us and half they have promised after we kill you."
"So," Osho said, "you will lose half. You kill me and get the other half."
They said, "We don't want to kill you. We had no idea who you are. Listening to you we wanted to kill all those people who were trying to kill you."
Osho said to the people, "Leave these simple, innocent people, don't harass them, I would like them to move away before I leave the place because I don't know ... this is such a big crowd and you look so angry."
The conference was going to be for three days; this was the first day, so Osho said, "The conference will continue. Now it is my conference. Every arrangement is here, so for three days we will continue." And he continued for three days. You will be surprised, those three men were continuously coming to listen and sitting in front of me with tears in their eyes.
When Osho was leaving Faridabad, among the people who had come to give him a send-off were those three people, with garlands and with tears. And they said, "You have changed our whole life. We have always played like puppets in the hands of politicians and priests. We are not criminals; these people have made us criminals, they pay us to commit a crime. If we are caught then they try to save us; they give us all legal support, any bribery that is needed for the judges. They do everything to save us because they need criminals for their political careers, for their religious careers."
Osho said, "Yes, a priest is not a religious man, he has a religious career. He is a professional."