STORY OF THE DAY

[Ramesh Ramnani]

God is available only to lovers...........


Enlightenment is not something against nature. It is the fulfillment of nature, it is the crescendo of nature, the climax. It is optimum nature. It is through being with nature that you arrive at it -- not being against it.

It is not going against the current, it is flowing with the current. The river is already going to the sea, you need not start swimming against it. And that's what you have been doing.

Now you ask 'What should I do?' Give up suffering, give up your attachment to suffering. You are not in search of enlightenment, you are in search of suffering -- enlightenment is just an excuse.

Love life, be more happy. God can come only to a happy soul. Only when you are utterly happy is there a possibility, otherwise not -- because misery closes you, bliss opens you up. Have you not watched it, observed it, in your own life? Whenever you are miserable you become closed; a hard shell surrounds you. You start protecting yourself, you surround yourself with a great arm our -- because you know you already have so much pain, you cannot afford any more hurt from anywhere. You have to harden your surface.

Miserable people always become hard; they lose softness, they become like rocks. A happy person is a flower -- he is so happy, he is so blessed, that he can bless the whole world. He is so blessed that he can afford to be open. He has nothing to fear. All is so good, all is so friendly, the whole existence is befriending him -- why should he be afraid? He can open up. He can invite existence, he can become a host to existence. Only in that moment, God enters you. Only in that moment, light penetrates you and you become enlightened.

Enlightenment is not something that has to be fought for, it is something that you have to allow. It comes in a moment of let-go. In surrender it comes.

Now, you have been a warrior. And to warriors God is not available. God is available only to lovers. God is the Beloved, He is available only to a loving heart. Love life, love His creation -- that is the only way to love God. Creation is the visible God. He is green in the trees and red in the roses and gold in the rays of the sun. He is silver on the surface of a lake when the moon is mirrored. He is laughter, He is tears. He is this life in its totality. Don't become an escapist and don't brag about your masochism as spirituality. Give up suffering and start a joyous journey. If you want to enter into my temple then it has to be not celibacy but celebration, not a fast but a feast.
 

[Astrid]

Sai Ram

beloved Ramesh Bhai, this is just *the story*. If we always remember this, then there's nothing else we need. You are such a wonderful instrument God plays upon to make us listen blissfully to the melody of HIS words.

If I may humbly try and join in to your song ...

Where do you find the love and the joy that make life a feast?
It is not given to you at a point in life
You can't work for it nor deserve it
You already have it
It was given to you the very moment you were first created
You are made of it
It is the essence of life
It is underneath all our daily worries
It is underneath every happiness
It is underneath every pain
Right there
At the bottom of your heart
And when distress befalls you
when happiness elates you
when pain creeps up, old and new
just remember
you can always go
deeper.

Om Sai Ram

Astrid

Restless was my heart till it found rest in THEE

[Ramesh Ramnani]

Trust is God.........Trust itself is divine!!

Even if your trust becomes a possibility that people can deceive you, that is good. Even if you are deceived because of your trust, it is better than not to trust.

It is very easy when everybody is loving and beautiful and nobody is deceiving you -- then to trust is easy. But even if the whole world is deceptive and everybody is bent on deceiving you -- and they can only deceive you when you trust -- then too, go on trusting. Never lose trust in trust, whatever the cost, and you will never be a loser, because trust in itself is the ultimate end. It should not be a means to anything else, because it has its own intrinsic value.

If you can trust you remain open. People become closed as a defense measure so that nobody can deceive them or take advantage of them. Let them take advantage of you! Just think of the beauty of it. Let them take advantage, but if you insist on going on trusting, then a beautiful flowering happens, because then there is no fear.

The fear is only that people will deceive, but once you accept that, there is no fear, so there is no barrier to your opening. The fear is more dangerous than any harm anybody can do to you. This fear is a poison and can poison your whole life. So remain open, and just trust innocently, unconditionally.

I'm not saying that nobody will deceive you or take advantage of you. They will, that is accepted, but it is worth it.

You will laugh at their foolishness, and that they could not destroy your trust. You trust somebody's humanity so tremendously that it is irrelevant what a person does. You trust them ultimately, so what they do doesn't make any difference.
 
You will flower, and you will help others to flower once they become aware that they have not been deceiving you a bit, but that it is themselves they have deceived. You cannot go on deceiving a person endlessly if he continues to trust you. His very trust will throw you back to yourself again and again.

Just watch it, allow it, and enjoy it. Cherish the very idea of trust, and then there is no need for any god. People say 'Trust in God.' I say 'Trust is God.' It is not that people have lost their trust in God. They have lost their trust -- and that is why they have lost their God. Trust is God. It is not a question of trusting some power called God. Trust itself is divine. So, good !

[Ramesh Ramnani]

Renounce Thinking, Don't renounce Action.

I have heard about one Jewish philosopher. He was an ordinary peasant but very philosophic. His name was Yossel. He would think about everything, as philosophers do.

It was very difficult for him to do anything because thinking would take all his time, and by the time he was ready the opportunity was lost.

Once he went to the market, to a nearby village, to sell his wheat. He told his wife, "As soon as I am able to sell the wheat, immediately I will send you a telegram."

He sold the wheat with much profit so he wrote a telegram, went to the post office, filled in the form -- and then started thinking about it.

He wrote: "Wheat sold profitably. Coming tomorrow. Love and kisses, Yossel."

Then he started thinking and he thought, "My wife will think I have gone mad. Why 'profitably'? Am I going to sell my wheat at a loss?" So he crossed out the word 'profitably.' Then he became more concerned, because if he could miss and write a wrong word he may have made other errors also. So he looked, started thinking about each word.

Then he said, "Why 'coming tomorrow'? Am I going to come next month? Or next year? My wife knows that I will come as soon as the wheat is sold." So he crossed out the words 'coming tomorrow.'

Then he thought, "My wife already knows that I have come to sell the wheat, so why write, 'sold wheat'?" He crossed that out too.

And then he started laughing. He said, "I am writing to my own wife. Why should I write 'love and kisses'? Am I writing to somebody else's wife? And is it her birthday or Yom Kippur or something?" He crossed out that too.
 
Now only his name remained: Yossel. He said to himself, "Yossel, have you gone mad? Your wife already knows your name." So he tore up the telegram, happy that he had saved much money and foolishness.

But this is how it happens: if you go on thinking 'about', you miss the whole life -- everything is crossed out by and by. In the end you are also crossed out -- not only is the word crossed out, you are also in the end crossed out. Thinking becomes smoke; everything moves into it and everything is finished.

And action becomes impossible -- even to send a telegram is not possible. Action becomes impossible because action is direct and thinking is indirect. They never meet.

Awareness plus action, and you will attain reality immediately. And not only you -- you will create a situation in which others can also attain reality. You will become a milieu, a climate around which things will start happening. That's what happened with a Buddha, with a Sosan, with a Chuang Tzu.

Remember: action is good, thinking is a vicious circle; it never leads anywhere. So thinking has to stop but not action. There are people who will go on thinking; action will stop. That's how it happens when a person renounces life, moves to the forest or the Himalayas. He renounces action, not thinking. He renounces the world where action was needed. He is renouncing reality itself, because through action you come in contact with reality. Seeing is action, moving is action, dancing is action, painting is action. Whatsoever you do, you come in contact with reality.

You have to become more and more sensitive in your doing. Doing is not to be renounced; action should be totally there, because that is the passage through which you move into reality and the reality moves into you. Try to understand, because this is very basic -- basic to me: renounce thinking, don't renounce action.

[Ramesh Ramnani]

"It is very easy, when life is going comfortably, to thank God. -
That thankfulness means nothing.

I have often told you the story of a Sufi mystic, Junnaid. He was the master of Al Hillaj Mansoor and because of Mansoor he became very famous. Mansoor was killed by the orthodox, traditionalist fanatics, and because of Mansoor, Junnaid's name also became famous -- Mansoor was Junnaid's disciple.

Junnaid used to go for a pilgrimage every year to the Mohammedan holy place, Kaaba. It was not very far from his place, and Mohammedans are expected by their tradition at least once in a life to go to Kaaba; otherwise they are not complete Mohammedans. But Kaaba was so close to his place that every year he used to go with his disciples. He was the revolutionary kind of saint. In fact, any kind other than the revolutionary are not saints -- just facades, actors, pretenders, and hypocrites.

The people in the villages where Junnaid had to pass were very angry with him. A few villages were so angry that they would not give him anything to eat, or even water to drink and would not allow him to stay in the village.

It was Junnaid's usual prayer -- Mohammedans pray five times a day -- and after each prayer he would raise his hands to God and he would say, "I am so grateful to You. How should I express my gratefulness? You take care of me in every possible way; Your compassion is infinite, your love knows no bounds."

The disciples were tired because five times every day, and in situations where they could see there is no care taken by God -- they have not received food, they have not received water, they have not received shelter from the hot sun in the desert.... Once it happened that for three days continually they were thrown out, stoned, given no food, no water, no shelter; but Junnaid continued his prayer the same way.

On the third day, the disciples freaked out. They said, "Enough is enough. Why are you saying, `You are compassionate', `Your love is great', `You take care of us in every possible detail?' For three days we have not eaten a single thing, we are thirsty, we have not slept under shelter, we have been sleeping in the desert, shivering in the cold night. For what are you being grateful?"

The answer that Junnaid gave to his disciples is worthy of being remembered. He said, "For these three days, do you think I cannot see that food has not been given to us, that we have been thrown out, that we have been stoned, that we are thirsty, that for three days we had to remain in the open desert...? Don't you see that I am also aware of it? But this does not mean that he is not taking care of us. Perhaps this is the way he is taking care of us; perhaps this is what we need at this time.

"It is very easy, when life is going comfortably, to thank God.

That thankfulness means nothing. These three days I have been watching. slowly, slowly, all of you have stopped thanking Him after the prayer; you failed the test. It was a beautiful test. Even if death comes to me, I will die with gratefulness. He gave me life; He took it away. It was His, it is His, it will be His. Who am I to interfere in His affairs?"

So there will be times when you will not find any moment of peace, silence, meditation, love, blissfulness. But do not lose hope. Perhaps those moments are needed to crystallize you, to make you strong. Be grateful not only when things are going good, but be grateful when everything is going wrong. A man who can be grateful when everything is going wrong is really grateful; he knows the beauty of gratefulness. For him, things can go wrong forever, but his gratefulness is such a transforming force, it is going to change everything.

[Ramesh Ramnani]

Go beyond no, try to reach to the ultimate yes....... That is prayer and that is true religion.

The religions in the past have been teaching people a kind of negative attitude. The old religions depend on the don't: don't do this, don't do that. Their whole approach is: How to negate life? They think that by negating life they will be a coming closer to god, and that is just absurd. Life is god -- to negate it is to negate god himself.

One needs a great yea-saying heart. And the yes has to be so total that it can contain the no in itself. The light has to be so total that darkness becomes just a part in it. Life has to be so total that death becomes just an episode in it. And when one can say the great yes to all that is -- to the darkness, to the light, to the agonies of life and to the ecstasies of life, to the body and to the soul, to the earth and to the sky -- when one can say yes to all that is, it becomes a sacred yes. And my vision is based on the sacred yes. It is a totally new vision.

No has to be dissolved into yes. The old religions were somehow suicidal. They shrank peoples' lives. They were escapist. They did not allow love, they did not allow relationship, they did not allow the multiplicity and the richness of life to be lived, to be enjoyed, to be experienced. They taught people to escape from life and its multiple experiences, to move to the monasteries, to renounce. They were based on no.

Their whole philosophy is contained in no-saying, and the person who was very skilful in no-saying became a great saint in their eyes. He was just a kind of masochist, he was neurotic, but because of the philosophy of no, neurotics became saints; they were worshipped. They were slowly poisoning themselves, because when you say no you poison yourself.
 
Yes is life-giving. And yes has not to be partial; it has to be total. Yes has not to be something against the no, otherwise it will be partial. Yes has to be so huge that it contains the no in itself. And when the yes is so huge, so enormous, so infinite, that it is capable of containing its opposite, then it becomes a sacred yes.

Spirituality is a sacred yes to life and all that is contained in life. And to live with this yes needs courage!

To live with this yes dew, that one is ready to dissolve into the existence, that the dew drop is ready to drop into the ocean. But the moment the dew drop drops into the ocean it also becomes the ocean. Go beyond no, try to reach to the ultimate yes. That is prayer and that is true religion.

[Ramesh Ramnani]

Love - The door into the divine..........

Prem means love, and sheila means virtue. Love is the real virtue. Love is not one of the virtues; it is the virtue. All other virtues arise out of it -- compassion, charity, character. All those virtues arise on their own accord if love is flowing in one's being. And if love is not flowing then the so-called vices arise. So love is the very decisive factor. If love is there all the virtues are bound to follow, and if love is not there, then all the vices -- hate and anger and greed and possessiveness. They are all symbols of the absence of love.

So love is not one of the virtues -- it is the virtue. And this is one of the greatest calamities of humanity, that we have praised all other virtues except love. In fact the society has been against it, has been very very alert about it, cautious about it. It has not allowed love to have its natural growth. Love is very stunted in every being because society knows love is a great energy, a great reservoir of energy. If you can possess a person's loving energy, you possess the person. If his loving energy is given absolute freedom then the person cannot be possessed by the society, by the church, by the state.

Nobody can possess him; then he becomes his own master.

Love brings freedom; freedom is another aspect of love. And the society exists on slavery, not on freedom, although much is talked about freedom. But the society's structure is such that it exploits. It does not allow the individual to have his whole say, it does not allow the individual to be himself, or it allows only conditionally, only so far. And love knows no conditions, love knows no limitations. Hence down the ages all the societies of the world have been very cautious about love; it is dangerous ground. But now the time has come: man has become mature enough to move into the world of love.

And the earth can become a paradise if each individual is given total freedom about his or her love and no conditions are imposed on love. Love freed from all conditions is the ultimate in freedom and becomes the door into the divine.

[Ramesh Ramnani]

Destruction or creation, both are double-edged swords.

Prem means love, nikash means criterion. Love is the criterion, the touchstone. One has to test everything in life from the criterion of love. If love says it's okay, then it is okay; if love says no, then you are going astray. If one simply follows the subtle indications of love one arrives at god naturally, without any effort. There is no need to search for god; all that is needed is to go on judging yourself on the criterion of love. Love is decisive.

The man of knowledge will fail on the criterion of love. That means that knowledge is not wisdom, because knowledge does not release love energy in you. Wisdom immediately releases love energy. Wisdom expresses itself as love, as compassion. Knowledge may even make you more cruel. Rather than making you more loving, it may even destroy the love that you already had, because the more the head becomes burdened by knowledge, the more the passage towards the heart is blocked.

Wisdom arises in the heart, and the shadow of wisdom is love. When wisdom arises in you, you will know that the light has arisen in you; others will see only love growing in you, not your light. Light is an interior experience, love is its outward expression. Only the person will know that the light has happened in him, but everybody else will become aware of his love.

Love is the outer reality of the light which is the inner reality.

So if you try the criterion of love you will never go astray. Do whatsoever you want to do; always remember 'Is it going to help my love more? Is it going to make my love more intense, deeper, more valid, more authentic?' Then it is good, then it is virtuous. If not, then it is evil; it is better to avoid it. It will be destructive to others and it will be destructive to you too.

Destruction or creation, both are double-edged swords. If you destroy others you will be destroyed automatically. You cannot be destructive to others without being destructive to yourself. In fact, to be destructive to others you will have to be destructive to yourself in the first place. Before the anger reaches to the other and burns the other, it will have to burn you; it will arise in you like a fire, like a poison. It will reach the other only later on; first it will be destructive to you.

And so is the case with creativity: if you are creative in your relationships with people, with the world, simultaneously you are creating yourself. To be creative means that one is giving birth to oneself constantly, and that is real life: to be born anew each moment, every moment. Love is creativity, love is virtue, love is prayer, love is freedom. And in the ultimate sense, love is god.

[Ramesh Ramnani]

It is all your birthright............

Atita means the transcendental. Reality is not finished at that which is apparent, at that which is obvious. Reality goes far deeper. Reality is not confined to the known, it reaches into the unknown. Reality is not only that which is available to the senses; it is far bigger. All that we know of reality is through our five senses. There are animals who have only three senses; their reality is confined to three. They cannot even become aware that there are people who have five senses and whose reality is bigger. There are animals who have only one sense; their reality is even more small. If man had ten senses his reality would be far richer.

Just think of a blind man. In his reality there is no place for light, no place for colour; his reality is very poor.

Without colour, without light, he is living in a very small cell. He is missing great beauties. He will not be able to see the splendour of a rainbow, he cannot even imagine it. You cannot explain it to him -- there is no way! And whatsoever you say he will misunderstand because he will be constantly translating it according to his understanding, and his understanding is confined to his ears. Now, what the eyes can know cannot be translated into the language of the ears; you cannot see music and you cannot hear beauty.

Don't think that we are confined to five senses. This is the beginning of religion. There is far more to be known, to be explored, and once you start exploring it, you start growing new senses, new sensibilities, in you, and that is the whole miracle of the religious search.

Once you start exploring something, some potential in you which has been dormant starts functioning. Now the brain surgeons say that half of the brain is almost non-functioning. The ancient Yoga scriptures say that that half is far more important than the other half which is functioning. The lower half is functioning, the higher half is non-functioning. It will function only if you start doing something for which it is needed. For example, when a person starts meditating some new centres in his brain start functioning. They were never needed, they remained dormant.

There is no end to human potentialities.

Man has all that is needed to know the whole. But the basic thing is to remember that we are just at the beginning of the journey and much has to be done, much has to be known, much has to be loved, much has to be lived.

That is the meaning of the transcendental: that there is always something beyond us, waiting, calling. Hear the call of it! It is significant only if you start moving into the transcendental, into that which is not available to the ordinary senses. It is all your birthright, but one has to grow new sensibilities, and meditation is a new sensibility. It makes you aware of the beyond, of the infinite, of the eternal.

[Astrid]

Sai Ram,

what a great post to read today, on your birthday, beloved Ramesh!
Heartfelt congratulations and may you feel showered with BABA's blessings endlessly.

Om Sai Ram

Astrid

Restless was my heart till it found rest in THEE

[Ramesh Ramnani]

Befriend yourself, fall in love with yourself.......

Sva means self, samvado means communion -- to be in communion with oneself. That's the whole process of meditation. People are divided against themselves; everybody is living a split life. The difference is only of degree, otherwise everyone on this earth is schizophrenic. Nobody is really healthy because health means wholeness and nobody is whole; everybody is divided.

For centuries the society has been using that strategy to destroy the integrity of the individual. It gives you ideals, it tells you how you should be. It never allows you to love yourself as you are. It creates division: you are one thing, the society says you have to be something else; you become two. Your ideal self creates a constant tension in you.

Your real self also becomes a burden because you don't want it; the society says that it is worthless: Drop it. The real is denied and the unreal is imposed. Now this is the whole misery of man: how can one ever be in bliss if the real is denied, rejected, condemned, and the unreal is appreciated, valued?

The unreal remains unreal but it hovers above your head continuously torturing you: You should be this. And you cannot be anybody else other than who you are, so it becomes a heavy burden. You constantly have to deny your reality. That creates a state of split; one is no more in communion with oneself. This conflict is the root cause of all neurosis, all psychosis, all madness.

The healthy and the whole person is one who has accepted his totality with no rejection, who has never condemned anything, who simply lives the way he is, who has no ideals, who moves moment to moment with the reality that he is as he is. He has tremendous respect for himself, love for himself. He accepts all unconditionally. If he is sad, he accepts his sadness. He doesn't say 'I should not be sad'; he knows nothing of the language that consists of shoulds and oughts. He says 'If I am sad, I am sad; I have to live it. This is me and there is no other me. This is the only me there is.' And the moment you accept your sadness a great communion arises between you and your sadness. You are bridged, and even sadness becomes beautiful, even sadness starts making your life rich.

When there is anger the whole person respects the anger. He does not repress it, he does not condemn it, he does not pretend that he is not angry. Whatsoever reality is there, he is totally in communication with it, and he lives with utter acceptance.

This brings miracles in life. When you accept all you become integrated. When you accept all you don't have any conscious and unconscious division in you; your house is no more divided against itself. When you accept all, through that acceptance a transcendence happens. You are not just the sum total of all that you have accepted; you are something more than the sum total, and that something more is divine.

Once that divineness is tasted then many things disappear on their own accord. Anger simply disappears; not that you drop it, it is no more found. The split person becomes angry. Sadness disappears on its own accord; not that you have done something to change it, to help it go: you have simply accepted. In that acceptance you are no more fighting with yourself. When the fight stops there is a dance, because the energy which was engaged in the fight is there. It becomes a dance, it becomes a song, it becomes a beatitude.

This is the whole teaching, : Total acceptance of oneself and transcendence through that total acceptance. But transcendence is not the goal; it is just a by-product.

You are not to attain it, it happens on its own; whenever It happens, it happens on its own. All that you need to do is to fight with yourself no more. Befriend yourself, fall in love with yourself and that brings harmony, accord, communion.

[Ramesh Ramnani]

That arrival is enlightenment, that arrival is the experience of God.

Anand Dhyano! Anand means bliss; dhyano means meditation.

Bliss has to be the meditation.  Bliss has to be imbibed in as many ways as possible. From nature, drink as much bliss as possible. From the stars and the moon and the sun and the trees and the birds, drink as much as possible. It is still available there in its pure form.

Man has become contaminated; but looking at the sky full of stars you again enter into a totally different dimension which is not human, which is divine. Watching a rose flower opening up is a totally different world.

So through nature imbibe bliss, and then through the many beautiful things that human beings have been doing on the earth.
 
Man has not been wrong all along. The majority has been very very dull, stupid, but a few intelligent people have been doing really significant things: music, poetry, art, literature, sculpture, architecture, a Taj Mahal, a Khajuraho, a pyramid. Listen to great music. Meditate on poetry. Get lost in great literature: Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Rabindranath. Imbibe bliss from these sources.

And then human beings -- the last, because they are the most difficult people! Unless you become very very artful at imbibing bliss you will not be able to take it from human beings. But when you have become accustomed, attuned, to nature, to art, then there is a possibility of touching the human heart. Then love, relationship, friendship... even from strangers.

Think of yourself as constantly searching for new sources of bliss. And be thrilled by small things: the foam on the waves in the sea, shining in the morning sun... Then don't just see: dance, participate in the joy of the waves! Seeing a bird on the wing, feel one with the bird. Create a kind of attunement, at-onement. Slowly slowly you learn the knack, and then, ultimately, bliss arises in your own being. These are just to create space all around you in which your inner bliss can bloom.

The real bliss is going to happen within you.
 
It never comes from anywhere else: not from stars, not from rivers, not from mountains. But first we have to create the context, a space, in which your own bliss can open up. If you are surrounded by all kinds of misery, negativity, darkness, dullness, unintelligence, ugliness, insensitivity, then it is impossible because the context is missing; bliss will not arise in you.

Buddhas may go on saying that you are bliss, your nature is bliss; you will listen, and you will understand the words, but nothing will happen. In fact, deep down you will suspect, you will doubt: what these people are saying seems nonsense, because when you look inside you don't find any bliss. These people go on saying "Know thyself" -- and when you look inside there is nothing worth knowing. The reason is: you look inside without creating the context. That context I call meditation.

So whatsoever is helpful to make you blissful, ecstatic, use it. Different people find different things helpful. Somebody may find art, somebody may find nature, somebody may find love -- because people are different. But one thing has to be remembered continuously: anything that triggers the process of bliss in you has to be imbibed, has to be lived with, has to be understood more deeply, more profoundly.

Then one day suddenly, something explodes in you -- when the context is ready and ripe, when the space is created -- something just like a lotus opening.

.. and you have arrived. That arrival is enlightenment, that arrival is the experience of God.

[Ramesh Ramnani]

"Prem means love; pratibha means genius -- genius for love.
 
Love is available only to those who go on sharpening their intelligence. Love is not for the mediocre... love is not for the unintelligent. The unintelligent person may become a great intellectual. In fact unintelligent people try to become intellectuals; that is their way of hiding their unintelligence. Love is not for the intellectual. Love needs a totally different kind of talent: a talented heart, not a talented head.
 
Love has its own intelligence, its own way of seeing, perceiving, its own way of understanding life, its own way of comprehending the mystery of existence. The poet is far closer to it than the philosopher; and the mystic is exactly inside the temple. The poet is on the steps and the philosopher is just outside. At the most he can approach the porch, but never the steps. He goes on round and round. He goes on moving around the temple, studying the outer walls of the temple, and becomes enchanted so much that he forgets completely that the outer walls are not the real temple because the deity is inside.
 
The poet almost reaches the door, but the door is so beautiful that he becomes hypnotized. He thinks he has arrived -- what more can there be? The philosopher is lost in guessing what is inside. He never goes there, he simply thinks, philosophizes. The poet tries to penetrate into the mystery but gets hooked near the door.
 
The mystic enters into the very innermost sanctum of the temple.
 
The way is love and the way is a loving intelligence. When love and intelligence meet together you create the space in which all that is possible to a human being can become actual. A loving intelligence is what is needed. Intelligence alone becomes intellectual, love alone becomes sentimentality, but a loving intelligence never becomes intellectuality or sentimentality. It gives you a new kind of integrity, a new crystallization.
 
And that is where people become awakened: awakened to the truth of existence, awakened to the truth of their own being. That's where one becomes a Buddha. The Buddha simply means the one who is no more asleep, who is no more dreaming, who is fully awake.
 
Simply accept it. It is nothing wrong -- it is the door to the ultimate. But the door has to be empty otherwise how will you enter? You cannot enter through a wall From far away the door looks empty and dark, and you are unnecessarily frightened. Come closer to it, accept it.
 
Emptiness is not emptiness but the beginning of fullness, but you have to take a plunge into it, and you can take the plunge only when you accept. If you reject it from the very beginning you will turn your back towards it, and then you will be continuously afraid and escaping.

And you cannot escape -- nobody can escape from God. Sooner or later one has to come to face the reality, one has to encounter it. So why waste time in escaping and hiding and protecting yourself? -- and protecting yourself from something which is going to be a bliss, a benediction?
 
In the East we have been searching for emptiness for centuries, and the day somebody finds it he is exhilarated. He has come to the door, now the meeting is not far away. Just a few steps more and one will be inside the temple.
 
Emptiness is one side of fullness, one aspect of fullness, the other side of the coin. You will have to accept it, respect it, love it. I can understand: in the West people are afraid of emptiness, hence they are continuously trying to be occupied with something or other. Any nonsense is okay if it keeps you occupied. Remain glued to the chair for five hours, watch the TV, or go to the movie and see some stupid film, or read some detective novel. But go on doing, don't allow gaps, because whenever there is a gap you are reminded of the emptiness.

We in the East have done just the opposite: we have been in search of it and we have found that it contains the greatest treasure of life. And when I am saying this, I am saying it not because scriptures say so but because I know it is so".

[Ramesh Ramnani]

'BABA' is really a very paradoxical word: the holy man;............THE HOLIEST OF HOLY

Baba has three meanings. One is: the small child, the innocent child, the child who cannot yet speak, because the moment a child starts speaking he is no more a child; he has become part of civilisation. Language is the world of civilisation; it is language that makes man different from animals. If language disappears then man will be just as one of the animals; there will be no distinction. It is language that creates civilisation, culture, philosophy, mind. It is out of the bricks of language that the mind is built.

So a child is innocent when he cannot speak. Then he lives in the world of the animals; he is still in the Garden of Eden. The moment he starts speaking he is no more a child. So baba is the small child who cannot speak; that is one meaning.
 
The other meaning is a very old man who has again learned how to be silent -- the grandfather. In the East the grandfather almost always meant the person who has become a sannyasin, because in the East we had four stages of life.

If life is one hundred years, then each stage has to consist of twenty-five years. Twenty-five years for the student: he will be in the university and he will live a life of discipline. Then the next twenty-five years, for the householder. He will get married, he will have children, he will become part of the world. Then the third twenty-five years is getting ready to leave the world, turning towards the forest; twenty-five years in the world and then twenty-five years is getting ready to get out of the world.

And by the time a person is seventy-five he will be a grandfather. He leaves the world, he renounces the world, he goes to the mountains. to the forest. Then he is again called Baba.

Now again he is back to being a child. He learned the language, the ways of the world, and now he has dropped them all. He is again a clean slate. Now he knows nothing. That is the state when Socrates says 'I know only one thing: that I know nothing.' Then Socrates is a baba; again he is a child. That's what Jesus means when he says 'Unless you are like small children you will not be able to enter my kingdom of god.'
 
So 'baba' is really a very paradoxical word: the smallest child and the oldest man. The circle is complete: the old man is falling back into the source, again becoming a child. Hence slowly slowly the third meaning came out of it: the holy man. So it is beautiful.

[Ramesh Ramnani]

Befriend light and light will befriend you..........

Prem means love, ananta means infinite -- infinite love. And remember, that which is finite is not love. Love by its very nature is infinite; it knows no boundaries. Hate knows boundaries. Hate is always addressed; you have to hate somebody. You cannot just hate but you can just love. There is no need to love somebody; love can be unaddressed. Love can become your very state, it need not be a relationship. That is the meaning of love's infinity: that it can be a state of being, you can be simply loving.

Love can become your nature. Hate can never become your nature. It remains foreign, it remains separate. You can go on clinging to it but you are never it. Hate has boundaries, definitions; love has no boundaries and no definitions. Love is like health. Diseases have definitions; you can define what cancer is and what tuberculosis is, but you cannot define what health is. Diseases are many and health is only one, but those many are definable and the one is indefinable. Hatreds are many but love is one.

Love is your inner health. Just as the body feels a well-being, when your inner being feels a well-being there is love. Love has nothing to do with the other. It is something that happens in you, that arises in you and overflows you. Remember it. That remembering will help you infinitely. And when you are sitting silently after meditation or in the morning, evening, night, when you are feeling cool and collected, just remember, just contemplate on love's infinity, overflowing, for nobody in particular.

And one day you will start feeling it. The day one starts feeling love as a state is a great day, the day of celebration! One has started becoming religious.

One does not become religious by becoming a Christian or a Hindu; one becomes religious by becoming religious.

Start contemplating on light. Whenever you have time and a few moments, just sit silently and start feeling a source of light in the belly, behind the navel... a red and bright sun, just as it is early in the morning when the sun is rising. And when you can visualise the sun behind the navel, feel the rays are reaching to every part of the body -- to the feet, to the head, to the hands -- feel full of light.

That will destroy many problems, that will destroy many of your anxieties. Light is going to be your mantra. Whenever you see light anywhere, be very respectful; light is your element. In the early morning see the sun rising and bow down. In the night, the stars -- bow down. Sometimes just light a small candle and bow down. Start getting in tune with all phenomena of light. Befriend light and light will befriend you. And soon, within three, four weeks, you will start feeling a great joy in light.