Priests and Politicians

Question: “It seems that politicians talk like priests, and priests act like politicians. Is there any separation between church and state?

They are not different people. They are the same type of people, with the same desire, the same lust for power. But they have chosen different areas.

The politician has chosen the mundane world. It has been an unspoken contract that they will not interfere in the religious realm, and they hope that religion will not interfere in their world. The contract has been good, and they are both trying to dominate humanity. … The priest has been blessing the politicians, the politicians have been praising the priests…
Who bothers about God?

In fact, the priests are the most atheistic people in the world. They know perfectly well that there is no God. They know better than anybody, because that is their business. But they have to pretend that there is a God. Without God they lose authority. It is in the name of God that they are archbishops, popes and shankaracharyas. If there is no God, then who are they? – just ordinary people, suddenly reduced to nothing. So the lie has to be kept alive…

And this has been the same all along. Political ideologies have changed – kings and queens have disappeared, presidents, prime ministers have appeared – but the basic contract is still carried.

…The poor people don’t have any idea what kind of contract has been going on down the ages. And the contract was possible because both priest and politician are desirous of power. .. For five thousand years the politician and the priest have been in the same business….

The politicians and priests are ambitious for power. There is another ambition – the ambition for money, because that is also a power. So there are three power lines. 

One is that of the priest – that he has a direct relationship with God; that he knows and you don’t know; that he is wise and you are ignorant; that he is virtuous, and that is why he is born a brahmin – and you have committed sins in the past, that’s why you are not in the first class. Everybody according to his actions.

The second line of power is the political power, which in the past in India – and everywhere else, too – was the power of the sword. 

And third is the power of money.

These are the only three powers. And these three kinds of people, rather than fighting with each other, have divided their areas, which is simply intelligent. 

They have divided their areas and they don’t interfere in each other’s area. The great mass which is exploited by all the three in different ways remains enslaved: goes on working for others, lives poor, dies poor, never knows anything of beauty, of music, of poetry. These things are not for the poor masses.

My effort is to make it absolutely clear to the intelligent people of the world that these three are criminals. 

Anybody who has a will to power is a criminal. That is my definition of a criminal: will to power. And why do I say the will to power is criminal? Because will to power simply means power over others. The others have to be enslaved and exploited." 

- Osho (excerpted from The Last Testament)

3 steps to TATHATA

OSHO EXPLAINS THE PROCESS OF GROWING AWARENESS :

1) From DOER Become WITNESS
2) From WITNESS To AWARENESS
3) From AWARENESS To TATHATA (SUCHNESS) 

"It will be useful to understand these three words -- WITNESS, AWARENESS, and TATHATA (total acceptability/SUCHNESS) for the sadhana or Practice of Awareness.

The WITNESS is the FIRST step. To WITNESS means to pass through LIFE as a WITNESS. It means I shall live like an ONLOOKER, a SEER, a WITNESS in my LIFE. 

If you abuse me, I should not feel or experience that you abused me or I was abused. You abuse him who is 'I'. If you hurt me with a stone, I should not feel so I threw the stone and I was hurt, but I should feel you threw the stone and this person was hurt.

I should always stand at the THIRD CORNER OF THE TRIANGLE. I should always jump to the THIRD CORNER. 

If my house catches fire I should not feel MY house is on fire, I should feel that his house is burning and I am looking at it. 

The commencement of Sadhana for a WITNESS is to SEPARATE LIFE INTO THREE PARTS. 

We do it in TWO PARTS. I am here and you are there. You are the abuser, I am the receiver. That's all, there are only TWO WAYS, the THIRD IS NOT THERE. 

In being a WITNESS, we ADD THE THIRD PERSON. 

I should always be a THIRD PERSON and NOT A SECOND PERSON, under all circumstances.

As this THIRD CORNER becomes clearer both the other corners seem fit to be laughed at -- the person who abuses and the person who was abused.................................

The WITNESS is the FIRST step of the Sadhak. It is not the easiest, but compared to other higher steps it is certainly easy. But if you practice a little, it is not all that difficult. While swimming in a river observe how the others swim. 

While walking on the road, observe how others walk. This is not difficult. You will get a spark sometimes. And as soon as you get the spark-experience of the third corner, you will, all of a sudden, see that the whole world is changed. Everything will be changed, things will now have a different colour. The whole world is as we look at it. When the vision is changed, the world is changed.

The SECOND step of Sadhana is AWARENESS. 

It goes deeper than the act of being a WITNESS. While in the act of WITNESSING, we take TWO PEOPLE, YOU and I, & in that act STAND APART from oneself as a THIRD PERSON. 

We DIVIDE the WORLD into THREE PARTS in being a WITNESS. We make a TRIANGLE. 

In AWARENESS, NO SUCH DIVISION is made. We live in AWARENESS. While walking, one is AWARE that one is walking, one is doing it consciously.........................................................

In this state of full consciousness one is always TOTALLY AWARE of every action being performed. One is always AWARE of what is being done. It may be eating, talking anything. 

In being a WITNESS, the THIRD POINT manifests itself, and he who becomes a WITNESS, will find AWARENESS easy, because a WITNESS has got to be AWARE to be a WITNESS. 

One does not stand aloof. Whatever is happening, is happening in the LIGHT OF AWARENESS burning within. Even if I raise my foot, I do it consciously. Even a word is uttered in a state of full consciousness. If I say yes, I mean to say yes. I have said that consciously. And if I say no, I mean to say no. I have certainly said so with awareness.

In this state of AWARENESS everything that is meaningless in life stops because nobody can do anything worthless and meaningless while being aware of it. 

The web of meaningless things in life which we spin like a spider and often get ourselves caught, is at once broken.............................. Awareness means I am totally aware of what I am doing at the time of doing it. After having experimented with it you will realize and experience that peace which you never new before.

The THIRD maxim of TATHATA -- total acceptability is still mere difficult. If one can master AWARENESS, he can master TATHATA (total acceptability). 

TATHATA means SUCHNESS what is is. There are no complaints, and I am pleased. 

In the case of a WITNESS, I am the observer of whatever happens. In AWARENESS we are fully awakened. 

In TATHATA (total acceptability), we are pleased with whatever there is, whether it is misery, death, a meeting with a loved person or annuity etc. There is no rejection, there is tranquility. 

Tathata is the supreme belief in God. He is not a believer who says I believe in God. He is not a believer, who says I have trust in God. He is a believer who does not complain. He says, whatever is, is all right. Every breath is full of willingness. Total acceptability is the throbbing of his heart......................................

TATHATA (SUCHNESS) means total acceptability. Such an acceptability can take place when one is TOTALLY AWARE. It is possible only after being a WITNESS. When such an acceptability is fixed in the heart of anyone, the dance of endless bliss begins in his life. The music of that flute, which is void, begins to play in his life. That dance which has no rhythm to it, enters his life. That smell which has no flower, begins to come in his life. But total acceptability is a very difficult thing to achieve................................................................

TATHATA is the THIRD maxim for a Sadhak.
To reach the state of full of AWARENESS, one has to begin with being a WITNESS and finish with TATHATA (total acceptability). 

At first separate yourself an as observer from being a DOER, combine your knowledge with your action and then like your acceptability with the whole. 

Awareness becomes stronger and goes deeper slowly by following these three steps. Buddha is called tathata. He liked this name very much, whenever he passed through a village he said that tathata is passing. It means one who has achieved the mental attitude of total acceptability. Thus came thus gone. 

Just as the swans fly over a lake, and cast their shadows and are gone, neither the swans nor the lake know about these reflections. There is no desire to do anything other than what is happening. Whatever happened, just happened, no account is kept, there is no hope for success or failure, no frustration is entertained and no victory is considered.

Tathata is an individuality, is emptiness -- in a void. It should be said, it is a living void within. It is a void which is surrounded by bones, flesh and tissues. He is a tathata who becomes like this void. He reaches the fourth stage. 

To be a TATHATA is to jump from collective unconsciousness to cosmic unconsciousness. In the condition of a WITNESS, we go from the outer world, and the individual enters the unconscious. In AWARENESS, the individual goes beyond unconscious, and enters collective unconscious. In collective unconscious the individual has to practise to be a TATHATA, then he enters the cosmic unconscious. There is no Sadhna left after cosmic unconscious. There is no Sadhana in tathata. 

In this stage, everything in life goes on by itself, no effort is needed to work it up. The effort to go within is no longer there, what one was within is lost. TATHATA is the achievement to sink deep down the abyss of life. Religion is the door. Yoga is the process of going up to that door. And TATHATA is the presiding God in that temple."
OSHO
Book - The Perennial Path , Chapter # 8 , Chapter Name : Perfect Knowledge

“ There is a road to emptiness;
Everyone arrives.
Those who arrive then realize
The excellence of their aim.
The mind ground does not grow
Useless plants and trees;
Naturally the body spontaneously
Radiates clear light. “
Foyan

God showering on you like rain

So just think of god showering on you like rain. ….

“ Deva means divine, varsha means rain - and you have to keep that continuously in your awareness, that god is raining on you. And it is not imagination, it is the truth: god is raining every moment. 

We live only because he goes on raining; the moment the rain stops, we disappear. It is a subtle energy rain - it is invisible, but life is continuously being given to you.

It is not that one day life was given to you and then god stopped giving life to you, and that a certain quota has been given, so when you finish it, you are finished - no. Each moment life is being renewed.

We are given only one moment at a time, so to live rightly one needs only to know how to live rightly in the moment. One need not worry about the whole life. 

If you can take care of the present moment you have taken care of your whole life; then everything will fall into line by itself. 

If the now is beautiful you have opened the door of the shrine - everything will be beautiful, and more beautiful every moment because the next moment is born out of this moment. If you live god this moment, you become capable of living him more in the next moment - you can contain more of god the next moment.

So just think of god showering on you like rain. And when it is raining sometimes just go out and stand in the falling rain with closed eyes: let that be your meditation. Feel, with every raindrop, god bringing freshness, life, to you. In the morning when the sun rises, feel, mm? - the sunrays are raining on you, in the night the moon. And you can find a thousand and one ways, because he is raining in a thousand and one ways every moment.

If we become aware of all that he is giving, there will be tremendous bliss. Then there is no point in being miserable. Man is miserable because he does not know what he has got, he does not know what is being given to him every moment, he does not know that he deserves nothing and all has been given to him.

The moment we see that we don't deserve anything and yet so much has been given, gratitude arises. That gratitude is prayer. 

“OSHO
Source book : For Madmen Only ( Price of Admission Your Mind )


“ Joy is not happiness, because happiness is always mixed with unhappiness.
Joy is forever, happiness is momentary.
Happiness is caused by the outside, hence can be taken away from the outside.
Joy arises within; it has nothing to do with the outside.
It is not caused by others.
It is not caused at all, it is the spontaneous flow of your own energy.
Live in joy...
Live in your own innermost nature, with absolute acceptance of whosoever you are.
Live in joy, in love...
One who lives in joy naturally lives in love.
Love is the fragrance of the flower of joy. “
BUDDHA

"The whole world is made of miracles, its just we're so used to seeing them we call them ordinary things."
Hans Christian Andersen

“ Not knowing when the dawn will come
I open every door. “
Emily Dickinson

Be playful about meditation

If you can be playful about meditation, meditation will grow in leaps and bounds…..

“ Meditation is not anything of the mind, it is something beyond the mind. The first step is to be playful about it. If you are playful about it, mind cannot destroy your meditation. Otherwise it will turn it into another ego trip; it will make you very serious. 

You will start thinking, 'I am a great meditator. I am holier than other people, and the whole world is just worldly – I am religious, I am virtuous.' That's what has happened to thousands of so-called saints, moralists, puritans: they are just playing ego games, subtle ego games.

"Hence I want to cut the very root of it from the very beginning. Be playful about it. It is a song to be sung, a dance to be danced. Take it as fun and you will be surprised: if you can be playful about meditation, meditation will grow in leaps and bounds. 

But you are not hankering after any goal; you are just enjoying sitting silently, just enjoying the very act of sitting silently – not that you are longing for some yogic powers, siddhis, miracles. All that is nonsense, the same old nonsense, the same old game, played with new words, on a new plane....

"Life as such has to be taken as a cosmic joke – and then suddenly you relax because there is nothing to be tense about. 

And in that very relaxation, something starts changing in you – a radical change, a transformation – and the small things of life starts having new meaning, new significance. Then nothing is small, everything starts taking on a new flavor, a new aura; one starts feeling a kind of godliness everywhere. 

One does not become a Christian, does not become a Hindu, does not become a Mohammedan; one simply becomes a lover of life. One learns only one thing, how to rejoice in life.

"But rejoicing in life is the way towards God. Dance your way to God, laugh your way to god, sing your way to God!"
OSHO,
The Golden Wind. Talk #8

Fear comes if you don’t enjoy life.

Fear comes if you don’t enjoy life.


Become more and more cheerful, enthusiastic about small things, even very small things….

“ Joy is the antidote to all fear. Fear comes if you don’t enjoy life. If you enjoy life, fear disappears.

Be positive and enjoy more, laugh more, dance more, sing more. Become more and more cheerful, enthusiastic about small things, even very small things. 

Life consists of small things, but if you can bring the quality of cheerfulness to small things, the total will be tremendous.

So don’t wait for anything great to happen. Great things do happen-it is not that they don’t –but don’t wait for something great to happen. 

It happens only when you start living small, ordinary day-to-day things with a new mind, with new freshness, with new vitality, with new enthusiasm. Then by and by you accumulate, and that accumulation one day explodes into sheer joy.

But one never knows when it will happen. One has just to go on collecting pebbles on the shore. The totality becomes the great happening. When you collect one pebble it is a pebble. When all the pebbles are together, suddenly they are diamonds. That’s the miracle of life.

There are many people in the world who miss because they are always waiting for something great. 

It can’t happen. It happens only through small things: eating your breakfast, walking, taking a bath, talking to a friend, just sitting alone looking at the sky or lying on your bed doing nothing. These small things are what life is made of. They are the very stuff of life …. “

OSHO
Source book : EVERYDAY , 365 daily meditations for the here and now , Chapter 120


“ Hiding in this cage
of visible matter
is the invisible
life bird
pay attention
to her
she is singing
your song “
~ Kabir ~