The last poem !

One of my most-loved books is by Rabindranath Tagore, AKHARI KAVITA, ”The Last Poem.” It is not a book of poetries, it is a novel – but a very strange novel, very insightful.

A young woman and a man fall in love and as it happens, immediately they want to get married. The woman says, ”Only on one condition....” She is very cultured, very sophisticated, very rich.

The man said, ”Any condition is acceptable, but I cannot live without you.”

She said, ”First listen to the condition; then think it over. It is not an ordinary condition. The condition is that we will not live in the same house. I have a vast land, a beautiful lake surrounded by beautiful trees and gardens and lawns. I will make you a house on one side, just the opposite from where I live.”

He said, ”Then what is the point of marriage?”

She said, ”Marriage is not destroying each other. I am giving you your space, I have my own space. Once in a while, walking in the garden we may meet. Once in a while, boating in the lake we may meet – accidentally. Or sometimes I can invite you to have tea with me, or you can invite me.”

The man said, ”This idea is simply absurd.”

The woman said, ”Then forget all about marriage. This is the only right idea – only then can our love go on growing, because we always remain fresh and new. We never take each other for granted. I have every right to refuse your invitation just as you have every right to refuse my invitation; in no way are our freedoms disturbed. Between these two freedoms grows the beautiful phenomenon of love.”

Of course the man could not understand, and dropped the idea. But Rabindranath has the same insight as Kahlil Gibran... and they were writing at almost the same time.

If this is possible – to have space and togetherness both – then the winds of heaven dance between you. Love one another, but make not a bond of love.

It should be a free gift, given or taken, but there should be no demand. Otherwise, very soon you are together but you are as apart as faraway stars. No understanding bridges you; you have not left the space even for the bridge.

-OSHO

{Chap 8,The Messiah, Vol 1}

Stop listening !

The self is a shadow of unconsciousness, of darkness, of blindness !

It happened once ... Kahlil Gibran has a beautiful story.

In an ancient village there were two wells. One was in the palace, which was not available for anybody else than the royal family, and the other well was in the marketplace, which was available for everybody else except the royal family.

But one day a witch came into the town, and she chanted some gibberish and threw something inside the well. People watched but they could not understand what was happening. But by the time the sun was setting, everybody had drunk water from the well -- except the royal family -- and everybody had gone mad. The whole capital was mad, from the smallest child to the oldest man -- except the king and the queen and the prince.

And a strange thing happened .... The whole crowd gathered around the palace and they started shouting that the king has gone mad. They were all mad, obviously, and they all agreed on the point that "The king does not seem to be the same as we are."

The king immediately asked his prime minister what to do. "Even our armies have gone mad. They are all dancing and they are asking, `Come out of the palace! We will choose a new king who is sane just like us!'"

The prime minister was very old, an ancient wise man. He told the king, "The only way is to run from the back door. I will keep them engaged at the front door, telling them that `I am bringing the king, he is getting ready.' You run to the well that they have been drinking the water from. Drink the water -- you, your wife, your son -- and you all get drunk. Unless you are mad this crowd is going to kill you!"

The advice was absolutely correct. The king and his family ran from the back door, drank quickly the water of the well that the witch had changed with a certain alchemical phenomenon. They did not come to the back door, they came dancing and rejoicing to the front gate, and the crowd was very happy that their king had become sane.

That night there was a great festival in the capital. "Our king, our queen, our future king - - all have become sane!"

The crowd is living so unconsciously. You cannot expect from this crowd any act of virtue, any act of unselfishness. It is simply not possible. It is categorically impossible. First comes meditation, then everything else follows.

So when your parents or your priests tell you that you are doing a selfish act, tell them clearly that you are the only one who is going to drop the self, and there will be no selfishness left, and out of that state virtue will follow -- "not from your prayers, not from your Bible or your Koran or your Gita, not from your teachings, but from my own exploration into whether there is a self."

The self is a shadow of unconsciousness, of darkness, of blindness. It has never been found by those who have entered deeper into themselves.

-OSHO

(Chapter 3, Christianity: The Deadliest Poison and Zen: The Antidote to All Poisons)

YOU KNOW YOUR OWN WORTH !

This is the whole process that we call our life!!

IF YOU KNOW YOUR OWN WORTH you need not be worried what others think about you, whether they accept you or reject you.

If you are worried about others’rejection and acceptance, that simply shows one thing – that you don’t know your own worth, that you don’t know your own being, that you don’t know God resides in you, that you are an abode ofthe divine.

Hence you are worried what people are thinking about you – because on their thinking, on their opinion, will depend much.

Your ego depends on others’ opinions: your being depends on nobody.

That’s why the man of being is always a rebel, and the man who lives in the ego has to compromise very much with the society.

The egoist has to compromise, because if he does not compromise,nobody is going to fulfill his ego.

The ego needs others’ support, it needs props from others: the more people like you, the better and more polished and refined an ego you can have.

That’s why people read books like Dale Carnegie’s HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE, or Napoleon Hill, and others.

There are thousands of these so-called philosophers who go on teaching people how to polish the ego in a better way, how to decorate it.

The modern mind is very much concerned about it, how you look to others.

Why?
Because we have lost all sense of our own being. Now all that we have is the ego, and the ego needs others’ support.

If you don’t fulfill their expectations about you, they will withdraw their support. and the more you fulfill their expectations, the more of a slave you become.

Whatsoever they want you to do, you do.
You are just obedient, constantly compromising.

Whether you like it or not does not matter to you; the whole question is whether others like it.

If they want you to smile, you smile.
The smile may be phoney, but that is not the point – because people like it.

And when they like your smile, they will love you. And when they love you, they will give attention to you, they will respect you.

They will fulfill your need to be needed.

This is the whole process that we call our life.

And if this life remains a constant frustration, it is not a wonder.

The society, from the very beginning, teaches you, ”Listen to what others say about you, because that is what you are.”

Now this is so stupid, the whole idea.

Others don’t know themselves, and they decide who I am.

I don’t know about myself, who I am, and I decide about others, who they are.

This Is a mutual deception. 
I don’t know who I am, you don’t know who you are: you decide about me, I Decide about you.

Blind people deciding about each other. Blind people telling each other, ”You are beautiful; your face is so beautiful, or so ugly.”

Blind people deciding who is a sinner and who is a saint.

And such great fear is created from the very beginning in every child that your whole life you are tortured by it.

If somebody does not think well of you, you lose your whole night – you cannot sleep:somebody doesn’t think well of you.

How does it matter?
Who is he to decide about you?
But the reason is that you have forgotten yourself; you don’t know who you are.

You depend on him – if he doesn't think well of you, then something is wrong with you; you start losing self-respect.

When nobody respects you, how can you respect yourself?

Your self-respect is just a cumulative effect of many people pouring their respect towards you.

And these are the ignorant people, as ignorant as you are.

They know nothing, but this is their way of manipulating each other.

”I respect you, I am paying you, I am bribing you, to be manipulated by me.

You respect me because you want to manipulate me.”This is how it goes on.

The man who knows his self-worth, the man who knows who he is, will remain absolutely unconcerned.

And just see the point: when you are absolutely unconcerned with what people say about you, you have a freedom, a psychological freedom, you are out of the psychological slavery of the society.

Your soul is born.

OshO 
CHAPTER 3. THE DEATH OF THE SEED
Unio Mystica, Vol 2

Dont Judge Others !

I have told you the story of a Zen master ....

A thief entered his house without knowing that it was a Zen master's house -- it contained nothing. The Zen master felt very embarrassed. The night was cold and he had only one blanket that he used in the day to cover his body, and in the night to cover his body to go asleep. That was all that he had, and the whole house was empty.

He felt so compassionate towards the thief that when the thief was going out he threw the blanket on his shoulders and told him: "Please accept it. You came without informing me. If you had just informed me at least three days before, I would have gathered something for you. I feel for the first time really poor. I cannot give you anything; this house is empty."

And the thief was very much afraid of this man. He was standing naked in the cold winter night and he had given his only possession, the blanket. But the man was strange, he was saying to him, "You should first inform me and then you can come. But give me a little time so I can beg from people and keep something for you. This is not right for you to come so suddenly without any information."

The man certainly was strange. The thief had come across hundreds of people -- everybody was angry, everybody was handing him over to the police. He had suffered in jails so many times. Everybody was abusive, everybody was insulting. Out of jail, life was difficult. Nobody was ready to give him a job, so finally, he had to commit another crime just to enter into jail because that became his home. At least he had food, shelter, clothes.

This man was strange. He became afraid of this man -- he rushed out of the door. And the Zen monk shouted, "Stop! That's not right, come back. First give me a `thank you' so that you don't feel guilty that you have stolen anything -- I have given it to you. "And then close the doors. You have opened the doors, at least this is your responsibility to close the doors. I am naked, the door is open, and the cold wind is blowing ... and you don't have any compassion."

So he gave him a "thank you," and while he was leaving and closing the door, the saint said, "Perhaps some day this `thank you' will save you, this closing the door will be of much help to you."

He could not understand what help it could be .... But that night, looking from the window to the full moon in the sky, the Zen master wrote a small haiku which said:
I AM SO POOR.
I WOULD HAVE LOVED
TO GIVE THIS MOON TO THAT THIEF,
BUT I DON'T POSSESS IT.

Two years afterwards the thief was caught again in a very dangerous case -- perhaps he would get a life-long imprisonment.

The judge asked him, "Can you bring anybody as a witness that you are not a criminal? We don't have any evidence, only circumstantial evidence, that you have committed a crime. If you can produce a man of dignity to support you in that you are a man who is not capable of doing such a crime ..."

He remembered the Zen master because that was the only person who could support him. He told the judge the name of the Zen master.

The judge said, "You are referring to a Zen master -- I know him. If he says you are not a criminal the case is finished."

And the Zen master came and he said, "This man you are saying is a criminal -- this man is so nice. When I gave him a blanket he thanked me, and when I told him to close the door, he closed the door. He is so obedient, such a nice person. The blanket was not much, it had holes, it was old, but he received it as if I was giving him an empire. He was so grateful -- just leave him."

The case was dropped ... the Zen master was well known, even to the emperor.

The thief followed the Zen monk, and the Zen monk asked him, "Where are you going?" The thief said, "I am not going anywhere, I am coming with you. I have found a man who has no judgments and who has returned my dignity to me. For the first time I feel I am a human being and there is someone who loves me, there is someone who feels for me, and there is someone who has compassion even for a man who has never done anything good."

The Zen master said, "Don't judge yourself."

This is the trouble. People judge others and they judge themselves too. When they judge themselves they feel guilty; when they judge others they take people's dignity and honor. This judgmental mind is a double-edged sword, it cuts both the ways. It cuts you, it cuts others. It has destroyed the whole humanity.

Drop this judgmental mind, and with this judgmental mind you will drop all your religions, all your moralities. You will become an innocent child, rejoicing in everybody and his uniqueness.

-OSHO

(Chapter-3,I Celebrate Myself: God Is No Where, Life Is Now Here)

Leela !

A BIG BUBBLE??? P/E 24 Earnings Growth 0.76%. What does it mean ?

Charts: Things suck – with the P/E at nearly 24, the Earnings have grown a minuscule 0.76%

Courtesy: capitalmind.in