Osho’s Enlightenment: His Own Words


Osho („Rajneesh“ Chandra Mohan Jain)

Osho („Rajneesh“ Chandra Mohan Jain) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Osho, in his own words, as it appeared in The Discipline of Transcendence, Volume 2, Chapter 11. Its also republished as The Buddha Said, Chapter 11. Watkins Publishing, London.

I am reminded of the fateful day of twenty-first March, 1953. For many lives I had been working — working upon myself, struggling, doing whatsoever can be done — and nothing was happening.Now I understand why nothing was happening. The very effort was the barrier, the very ladder was preventing, the very urge to seek was the obstacle. Not that one can reach without seeking. Seeking is needed, but then comes a point when seeking has to be dropped. The boat is needed to cross the river but then comes a moment when you have to get out of the boat and forget all about it and leave it behind. Effort is needed, without effort nothing is possible. And also only with effort, nothing is possible.

Just before twenty-first March, 1953, seven days before, I stopped working on myself. A moment comes when you see the whole futility of effort. You have done all that you can do and nothing is happening. You have done all that is humanly possible. Then what else can you do? In sheer helplessness one drops all search.

And the day the search stopped, the day I was not seeking for something, the day I was not expecting something to happen, it started happening. A new energy arose — out of nowhere. It was not coming from any source. It was coming from nowhere and everywhere. It was in the trees and in the rocks and the sky and the sun and the air — it was everywhere. And I was seeking so hard, and I was thinking it is very far away. And it was so near and so close.

Just because I was seeking I had become incapable of seeing the near. Seeking is always for the far, seeking is always for the distant — and it was not distant. I had become far-sighted, I had lost the near-sightedness. The eyes had become focussed on the far away, the horizon, and they had lost the quality to see that which is just close, surrounding you.

The day effort ceased, I also ceased. Because you cannot exist without effort, and you cannot exist without desire, and you cannot exist without striving.

The phenomenon of the ego, of the self, is not a thing, it is a process. It is not a substance sitting there inside you; you have to create it each moment. It is like pedalling bicycle. If you pedal it goes on and on, if you don’t pedal it stops. It may go a little because of the past momentum, but the moment you stop pedalling, in fact the bicycle starts stopping. It has no more energy, no more power to go anywhere. It is going to fall and collapse.

The ego exists because we go on pedalling desire, because we go on striving to get something, because we go on jumping ahead of ourselves. That is the very phenomenon of the ego — the jump ahead of yourself, the jump in the future, the jump in the tomorrow. The jump in the non-existential creates the ego. Because it comes out of the non-existential it is like a mirage. It consists only of desire and nothing else. It consists only of thirst and nothing else.

The ego is not in the present, it is in the future. If you are in the future, then ego seems to be very substantial. If you are in the present the ego is a mirage, it starts disappearing.

The day I stopped seeking… and it is not right to say that I stopped seeking, better will be to say the day seeking stopped. Let me repeat it: the better way to say it is the day the seeking stopped. Because if I stop it then I am there again. Now stopping becomes my effort, now stopping becomes my desire, and desire goes on existing in a very subtle way.

You cannot stop desire; you can only understand it. In the very understanding is the stopping of it. Remember, nobody can stop desiring, and the reality happens only when desire stops.

So this is the dilemma. What to do? Desire is there and Buddhas go on saying desire has to be stopped, and they go on saying in the next breath that you cannot stop desire. So what to do? You put people in a dilemma. They are in desire, certainly. You say it has to be stopped — okay. And then you say it cannot be stopped. Then what is to be done?

The desire has to be understood. You can understand it, you can just see the futility of it. A direct perception is needed, an immediate penetration is needed. Look into desire, just see what it is, and you will see the falsity of it, and you will see it is non-existential. And desire drops and something drops simultaneously within you.

Desire and the ego exist in cooperation, they coordinate. The ego cannot exist without desire, the desire cannot exist without the ego. Desire is projected ego, ego is introjected desire. They are together, two aspects of one phenomenon.

The day desiring stopped, I felt very hopeless and helpless. No hope because no future. Nothing to hope because all hoping has proved futile, it leads nowhere. You go in rounds. It goes on dangling in front of you, it goes on creating new mirages, it goes on calling you, ‘Come on, run fast, you will reach.’ But howsoever fast you run you never reach.

That’s why Buddha calls it a mirage. It is like the horizon that you see around the earth. It appears but it is not there. If you go it goes on running from you. The faster you run, the faster it moves away. The slower you go, the slower it moves away. But one thing is certain — the distance between you and the horizon remains absolutely the same. Not even a single inch can you reduce the distance between you and the horizon.

You cannot reduce the distance between you and your hope. Hope is horizon. You try to bridge yourself with the horizon, with the hope, with a projected desire. The desire is a bridge, a dream bridge — because the horizon exists not, so you cannot make a bridge towards it, you can only dream about the bridge. You cannot be joined with the non-existential.

The day the desire stopped, the day I looked and realized into it, it simply was futile. I was helpless and hopeless. But that very moment something started happening. The same started happening for which for many lives I was working and it was not happening.

In your hopelessness is the only hope, and in your desirelessness is your only fulfillment, and in your tremendous helplessness suddenly the whole existence starts helping you.

It is waiting. When it sees that you are working on your own, it does not interfere. It waits. It can wait infinitely because there is no hurry for it. It is eternity. The moment you are not on your own, the moment you drop, the moment you disappear, the whole existence rushes towards you, enters you. And for the first time things start happening.

Seven days I lived in a very hopeless and helpless state, but at the same time something was arising. When I say hopeless I don’t mean what you mean by the word hopeless. I simply mean there was no hope in me. Hope was absent. I am not saying that I was hopeless and sad. I was happy in fact, I was very tranquil, calm and collected and centered. Hopeless, but in a totally new meaning. There was no hope, so how could there be hopelessness. Both had disappeared.

The hopelessness was absolute and total. Hope had disappeared and with it its counterpart, hopelessness, had also disappeared. It was a totally new experience — of being without hope. It was not a negative state. I have to use words — but it was not a negative state. It was absolutely positive. It was not just absence, a presence was felt. Something was overflowing in me, overflooding me.

And when I say I was helpless, I don’t mean the word in the dictionary-sense. I simply say I was selfless. That’s what I mean when I say helpless. I have recognized the fact that I am not, so I cannot depend on myself, so I cannot stand on my own ground — there was no ground underneath. I was in an abyss… bottomless abyss. But there was no fear because there was nothing to protect. There was no fear because there was nobody to be afraid.

Those seven days were of tremendous transformation, total transformation. And the last day the presence of a totally new energy, a new light and new delight, became so intense that it was almost unbearable — as if I was exploding, as if I was going mad with blissfulness. The new generation in the West has the right word for it — I was blissed out, stoned.

It was impossible to make any sense out of it, what was happening. It was a very non-sense world — difficult to figure it out, difficult to manage in categories, difficult to use words, languages, explanations. All scriptures appeared dead and all the words that have been used for this experience looked very pale, anaemic. This was so alive. It was like a tidal wave of bliss.

The whole day was strange, stunning, and it was a shattering experience. The past was disappearing, as if it had never belonged to me, as if I had read about it somewhere, as if I had dreamed about it, as if it was somebody else’s story I have heard and somebody told it to me. I was becoming loose from my past, I was being uprooted from my history, I was losing my autobiography. I was becoming a non-being, what Buddha calls anatta. Boundaries were disappearing, distinctions were disappearing.

Mind was disappearing; it was millions of miles away. It was difficult to catch hold of it, it was rushing farther and farther away, and there was no urge to keep it close. I was simply indifferent about it all. It was okay. There was no urge to remain continuous with the past.

By the evening it became so difficult to bear it — it was hurting, it was painful. It was like when a woman goes into labour when a child is to be born, and the woman suffers tremendous pain — the birth pangs.

I used to go to sleep in those days near about twelve or one in the night, but that day it was impossible to remain awake. My eyes were closing, it was difficult to keep them open. Something was very imminent, something was going to happen. It was difficult to say what it was — maybe it is going to be my death — but there was no fear. I was ready for it. Those seven days had been so beautiful that I was ready to die, nothing more was needed. They had been so tremendously blissful, I was so contented, that if death was coming, it was welcome.

But something was going to happen — something like death, something very drastic, something which will be either a death or a new birth, a crucifixion or a resurrection — but something of tremendous import was around just by the corner. And it was impossible to keep my eyes open. I was drugged.

I went to sleep near about eight. It was not like sleep. Now I can understand what Patanjali means when he says that sleep and samadhi are similar. Only with one difference — that in samadhi you are fully awake and asleep also. Asleep and awake together, the whole body relaxed, every cell of the body totally relaxed, all functioning relaxed, and yet a light of awareness burns within you… clear, smokeless. You remain alert and yet relaxed, loose but fully awake. The body is in the deepest sleep possible and your consciousness is at its peak. The peak of consciousness and the valley of the body meet.

I went to sleep. It was a very strange sleep. The body was asleep, I was awake. It was so strange — as if one was torn apart into two directions, two dimensions; as if the polarity has become completely focused, as if I was both the polarities together… the positive and negative were meeting, sleep and awareness were meeting, death and life were meeting. That is the moment when you can say ‘the creator and the creation meet.’

It was weird. For the first time it shocks you to the very roots, it shakes your foundations. You can never be the same after that experience; it brings a new vision to your life, a new quality.

Near about twelve my eyes suddenly opened — I had not opened them. The sleep was broken by something else. I felt a great presence around me in the room. It was a very small room. I felt a throbbing life all around me, a great vibration — almost like a hurricane, a great storm of light, joy, ecstasy. I was drowning in it.

It was so tremendously real that everything became unreal. The walls of the room became unreal, the house became unreal, my own body became unreal. Everything was unreal because now there was for the first time reality.

That’s why when Buddha and Shankara say the world is maya, a mirage, it is difficult for us to understand. Because we know only this world, we don’t have any comparison. This is the only reality we know. What are these people talking about — this is maya, illusion? This is the only reality. Unless you come to know the really real, their words cannot be understood, their words remain theoretical. They look like hypotheses. Maybe this man is propounding a philosophy — ‘The world is unreal’.

When Berkley in the West said that the world is unreal, he was walking with one of his friends, a very logical man; the friend was almost a skeptic. He took a stone from the road and hit Berkley’s feet hard. Berkley screamed, blood rushed out, and the skeptic said, ‘Now, the world is unreal? You say the world is unreal? — then why did you scream? This stone is unreal? — then why did you scream? Then why are you holding your leg and why are you showing so much pain and anguish on your face. Stop this? It is all unreal.

Now this type of man cannot understand what Buddha means when he says the world is a mirage. He does not mean that you can pass through the wall. He is not saying this — that you can eat stones and it will make no difference whether you eat bread or stones. He is not saying that.

He is saying that there is a reality. Once you come to know it, this so-called reality simply pales out, simply becomes unreal. With a higher reality in vision the comparison arises, not otherwise.

In the dream; the dream is real. You dream every night. Dream is one of the greatest activities that you go on doing. If you live sixty years, twenty years you will sleep and almost ten years you will dream. Ten years in a life — nothing else do you do so much. Ten years of continuous dreaming — just think about it. And every night…. And every morning you say it was unreal, and again in the night when you dream, dream becomes real.

In a dream it is so difficult to remember that this is a dream. But in the morning it is so easy. What happens? You are the same person. In the dream there is only one reality. How to compare? How to say it is unreal? Compared to what? It is the only reality. Everything is as unreal as everything else so there is no comparison. In the morning when you open your eyes another reality is there. Now you can say it was all unreal. Compared to this reality, dream becomes unreal.

There is an awakening — compared to THAT reality of THAT awakening, this whole reality becomes unreal.

That night for the first time I understood the meaning of the word maya. Not that I had not known the word before, not that I was not aware of the meaning of the word. As you are aware, I was also aware of the meaning — but I had never understood it before. How can you understand without experience?

That night another reality opened its door, another dimension became available. Suddenly it was there, the other reality, the separate reality, the really real, or whatsoever you want to call it — call it god, call it truth, call it dhamma, call it tao, or whatsoever you will. It was nameless. But it was there — so opaque, so transparent, and yet so solid one could have touched it. It was almost suffocating me in that room. It was too much and I was not yet capable of absorbing it.

A deep urge arose in me to rush out of the room, to go under the sky — it was suffocating me. It was too much! It will kill me! If I had remained a few moments more, it would have suffocated me — it looked like that.

I rushed out of the room, came out in the street. A great urge was there just to be under the sky with the stars, with the trees, with the earth… to be with nature. And immediately as I came out, the feeling of being suffocated disappeared. It was too small a place for such a big phenomenon. Even the sky is a small place for that big phenomenon. It is bigger than the sky. Even the sky is not the limit for it. But then I felt more at ease.

I walked towards the nearest garden. It was a totally new walk, as if gravitation had disappeared. I was walking, or I was running, or I was simply flying; it was difficult to decide. There was no gravitation, I was feeling weightless — as if some energy was taking me. I was in the hands of some other energy.

For the first time I was not alone, for the first time I was no more an individual, for the first time the drop has come and fallen into the ocean. Now the whole ocean was mine, I was the ocean. There was no limitation. A tremendous power arose as if I could do anything whatsoever. I was not there, only the power was there.

I reached to the garden where I used to go every day. The garden was closed, closed for the night. It was too late, it was almost one o’clock in the night. The gardeners were fast asleep. I had to enter the garden like a thief, I had to climb the gate. But something was pulling me towards the garden. It was not within my capacity to prevent myself. I was just floating.

That’s what I mean when I say again and again ‘float with the river, don’t push the river’. I was relaxed, I was in a let-go. I was not there. IT was there, call it god — god was there.

I would like to call it IT, because god is too human a word, and has become too dirty by too much use, has become too polluted by so many people. Christians, Hindus, Mohammedans, priests and politicians — they all have corrupted the beauty of the word. So let me call it IT. IT was there and I was just carried away… carried by a tidal wave.

The moment I entered the garden everything became luminous, it was all over the place — the benediction, the blessedness. I could see the trees for the first time — their green, their life, their very sap running. The whole garden was asleep, the trees were asleep. But I could see the whole garden alive, even the small grass leaves were so beautiful.

I looked around. One tree was tremendously luminous — the maulshree tree. It attracted me, it pulled me towards itself. I had not chosen it, god himself has chosen it. I went to the tree, I sat under the tree. As I sat there things started settling. The whole universe became a benediction.

It is difficult to say how long I was in that state. When I went back home it was four o’clock in the morning, so I must have been there by clock time at least three hours — but it was infinity. It had nothing to do with clock time. It was timeless.

Those three hours became the whole eternity, endless eternity. There was no time, there was no passage of time; it was the virgin reality — uncorrupted, untouchable, unmeasurable.

And that day something happened that has continued — not as a continuity — but it has still continued as an undercurrent. Not as a permanency — each moment it has been happening again and again. It has been a miracle each moment.

That night… and since that night I have never been in the body. I am hovering around it. I became tremendously powerful and at the same time very fragile. I became very strong, but that strength is not the strength of a Mohammed Ali. That strength is not the strength of a rock, that strength is the strength of a rose flower — so fragile in his strength… so fragile, so sensitive, so delicate.

The rock will be there, the flower can go any moment, but still the flower is stronger than the rock because it is more alive. Or, the strength of a dewdrop on a leaf of grass just shining; in the morning sun — so beautiful, so precious, and yet can slip any moment. So incomparable in its grace, but a small breeze can come and the dewdrop can slip and be lost forever.

Buddhas have a strength which is not of this world. Their strength is totally of love… Like a rose flower or a dewdrop. Their strength is very fragile, vulnerable. Their strength is the strength of life not of death. Their power is not of that which kills; their power is of that which creates. Their power is not of violence, aggression; their power is that of compassion.

But I have never been in the body again, I am just hovering around the body. And that’s why I say it has been a tremendous miracle. Each moment I am surprised I am still here, I should not be. I should have left any moment, still I am here. Every morning I open my eyes and I say, ‘So, again I am still here?’ Because it seems almost impossible. The miracle has been a continuity.

Just the other day somebody asked a question — ‘Osho, you are getting so fragile and delicate and so sensitive to the smells of hair oils and shampoos that it seems we will not be able to see you unless we all go bald.’ By the way, nothing is wrong with being bald — bald is beautiful. Just as ‘black is beautiful’, so ‘bald is beautiful’. But that is true and you have to be careful about it.

I am fragile, delicate and sensitive. That is my strength. If you throw a rock at a flower nothing will happen to the rock, the flower will be gone. But still you cannot say that the rock is more powerful than the flower. The flower will be gone because the flower was alive. And the rock — nothing will happen to it because it is dead. The flower will be gone because the flower has no strength to destroy. The flower will simply disappear and give way to the rock. The rock has a power to destroy because the rock is dead.

Remember, since that day I have never been in the body really; just a delicate thread joins me with the body. And I am continuously surprised that somehow the whole must be willing me to be here, because I am no more here with my own strength, I am no more here on my own. It must be the will of the whole to keep me here, to allow me to linger a little more on this shore. Maybe the whole wants to share something with you through me.

Since that day the world is unreal. Another world has been revealed. When I say the world is unreal I don’t mean that these trees are unreal. These trees are absolutely real — but the way you see these trees is unreal. These trees are not unreal in themselves — they exist in god, they exist in absolute reality — but the way you see them you never see them; you are seeing something else, a mirage.

You create your own dream around you and unless you become awake you will continue to dream. The world is unreal because the world that you know is the world of your dreams. When dreams drop and you simply encounter the world that is there, then the real world.

There are not two things, god and the world. God is the world if you have eyes, clear eyes, without any dreams, without any dust of the dreams, without any haze of sleep; if you have clear eyes, clarity, perceptiveness, there is only god.

Then somewhere god is a green tree, and somewhere else god is a shining star, and somewhere else god is a cuckoo, and somewhere else god is a flower, and somewhere else a child and somewhere else a river — then only god is. The moment you start seeing, only god is.

But right now whatsoever you see is not the truth, it is a projected lie. That is the meaning of a mirage. And once you see, even for a single split moment, if you can see, if you can allow yourself to see, you will find immense benediction present all over, everywhere — in the clouds, in the sun, on the earth.

This is a beautiful world. But I am not talking about your world, I am talking about my world. Your world is very ugly, your world is your world created by a self, your world is a projected world. You are using the real world as a screen and projecting your own ideas on it.

When I say the world is real, the world is tremendously beautiful, the world is luminous with infinity, the world is light and delight, it is a celebration, I mean my world — or your world if you drop your dreams.

When you drop your dreams you see the same world as any Buddha has ever seen. When you dream you dream privately. Have you watched it? — that dreams are private. You cannot share them even with your beloved. You cannot invite your wife to your dream — or your husband, or your friend. You cannot say, ‘Now, please come tonight in my dream. I would like to see the dream together.’ It is not possible. Dream is a private thing, hence it is illusory, it has no objective reality.

God is a universal thing. Once you come out of your private dreams, it is there. It has been always there. Once your eyes are clear, a sudden illumination — suddenly you are overflooded with beauty, grandeur and grace. That is the goal, that is the destiny.

Let me repeat. Without effort you will never reach it, with effort nobody has ever reached it. You will need great effort, and only then there comes a moment.when effort becomes futile. But it becomes futile only when you have come to the very peak of it, never before it. When you have come to the very pinnacle of your effort — all that you can do you have done — then suddenly there is no need to do anything any more. You drop the effort.

But nobody can drop it in the middle, it can be dropped only at the extreme end. So go to the extreme end if you want to drop it. Hence I go on insisting: make as much effort as you can, put your whole energy and total heart in it, so that one day you can see — now effort is not going to lead me anywhere. And that day it will not be you who will drop the effort, it drops on its own accord. And when it drops on its own accord, meditation happens.

Meditation is not a result of your efforts, meditation is a happening. When your efforts drop, suddenly meditation is there… the benediction of it, the blessedness of it, the glory of it. It is there like a presence… luminous, surrounding you and surrounding everything. It fills the whole earth and the whole sky.

That meditation cannot be created by human effort. Human effort is too limited. That blessedness is so infinite. You cannot manipulate it. It can happen only when you are in a tremendous surrender. When you are not there only then it can happen. When you are a no-self — no desire, not going anywhere — when you are just herenow, not doing anything in particular, just being, it happens. And it comes in waves and the waves become tidal. It comes like a storm, and takes you away into a totally new reality.

But first you have to do all that you can do, and then you have to learn non-doing. The doing of the non-doing is the greatest doing, and the effort of effortlessness is the greatest effort.

Your meditation that you create by chanting a mantra or by sitting quiet and still and forcing yourself, is a very mediocre meditation. It is created by you, it cannot be bigger than you. It is homemade, and the maker is always bigger than the made. You have made it by sitting, forcing in a yoga posture, chanting ‘rama, rama, rama’ or anything — ‘blah, blah, blah’ — anything. You have forced the mind to become still.

It is a forced stillness. It is not that quiet that comes when you are not there. It is not that silence which comes when you are almost non-existential. It is not that beautitude which descends on you like a dove.

It is said when Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River, god descended in him, or the holy ghost descended in him like a dove. Yes, that is exactly so. When you are not there peace descends in you… fluttering like a dove… reaches in your heart and abides there and abides there forever.

You are your undoing, you are the barrier. Meditation is when the meditator is not. When the mind ceases with all its activities — seeing that they are futile — then the unknown penetrates you, overwhelms you.

The mind must cease for god to be. Knowledge must cease for knowing to be. You must disappear, you must give way. You must become empty, then only you can be full.

That night I became empty and became full. I became non-existential and became existence. That night I died and was reborn. But the one that was reborn has nothing to do with that which died, it is a discontinuous thing. On the surface it looks continuous but it is discontinuous. The one who died, died totally; nothing of him has remained.

Believe me, nothing of him has remained, not even a shadow. It died totally, utterly. It is not that I am just a modified RUP, transformed, modified form, transformed form of the old. No, there has been no continuity. That day of March twenty-first, the person who had lived for many many lives, for millennia, simply died. Another being, absolutely new, not connected at all with the old, started to exist.

Religion just gives you a total death. Maybe that’s why the whole day previous to that happening I was feeling some urgency like death, as if I am going to die — and I really died. I have known many other deaths but they were nothing compared to it, they were partial deaths.

Sometimes the body died, sometimes a part of the mind died, sometimes a part of the ego died, but as far as the person was concerned, it remained. Renovated many times, decorated many times, changed a little bit here and there, but it remained, the continuity remained.

That night the death was total. It was a date with death and god simultaneously.

The Unbreakable Fortress


“The earth will be safe when we feel safe in ourselves”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

I love this quote.  My heart yearns when I read it.  Safety.  How wonderful to feel truly safe, and how fleeting.  Like anything else, it seems, this feeling of safety is temporal.. But why?

The reason is that we seek safety from mundane worldly things in a mundane worldly manner.  This isn’t without its merit.  The world can be a dangerous place sometimes.  But imagine a depth of safety that isn’t transitory.  One that isn’t motivated or supported by the dualistic nature of the world.  By dualistic nature, I mean cause/effect, action/reaction; the elements that cause our feeling of safety to be so impermanent.

An inner safety arises out of a state of harmony with our own being.  Whether this is reached through prayer or meditation, or another way, it’s ours to have if we can reach within and find it.  What is” it”?  It’s that which observes the world and all your thoughts and feelings.  If you find it, call it home.  It’s an unbreakable fortress with an open door.

A Dream of Cloud Movies and Space Capsules


The people on the ground were gathered.  Staring heavenward they were watching movies projected on the clouds.  I tried to speak but my heart sounds couldn’t compete.  The cloud images were far too bright.  No one was listening.  There were no ears to hear.

So I too cast my eyes upon the sky but a hole formed in the clouds.  It pierced the scene.  The night sky looked down through it at me.

With a winking of distant suns, it whispered, “I have ears to listen.  Come and let’s commune.”

Relief flood over me in a tidal wave of joy.  Yes, I wanted that!  I reached out and rose from the ground.  The cloud images passed slowly behind me.  The show no longer apparent,  I trembled leaving the ground behind.

Lines of brilliant light met my ascension like celestial fences.  I passed through each one and as I did they dissolved into tiny glittering falling stars.  On and on I moved, through layer after layer, lost in the wonder of it all, until no more barriers existed.  Nothing but the deep silence of the Universe lay before me.  I floated in blackness accompanied by a sea of twinkling orbs.

I felt dwarfed and insignificant to such a spectacle.  Something inside me skittered and writhed.  A tiny voice moaned, “I don’t want to die.”  But the splendor was too grand.  I stayed floating in my awe.

A space capsule floated nearby on a string.  A single white balloon held it suspended although there was no gravity.  It’s appearance suggested it was decades old.

“Call and see if anyone’s home,” a voice said.

A phone appeared in my hand and I raised it to my ear.  Distantly I heard the sound of an old bell and clapper phone ringing.  It was a lonely sound, a futile sound.  No one home.  Empty.  Useless.

Saddened I plucked the capsule from where it hung and held it in my hands.  I thought it was farther away.  I thought it was larger.  It felt dusty in my hands and I became concerned that it should be returned to the place I found it.  I had disturbed something I shouldn’t have.

But as I released it, instead of floating on its white balloon where it had been, it floated quietly away until the silence and the Universe swallowed it.  Had I committed a wrong by disturbing it?  Had I changed everything?

A golden satellite floated by.

“It’s time to go back,” it said.

And I did, but not completely.

 

This was actually a dream I had that’s been haunting me.  I find the imagery peculiar but interesting food for thought.  I decided to share it hear to see if it spoke anything to anyone else.

The Child and the Handshake


The smallest gestures can have the largest impacts.  These gestures always take me by surprise but I’m left humbled and changed by them.

Today we went for our monthly shopping to Big Bazaar which is the Indian equivalent of Walmart.  Our nearest store is located in Delhi at a large shopping mall so going shopping is an outing for us and something we love doing together.  It always proves to be an adventure.

After we were finished, my husband called the driver to bring the car and we strolled outside to wait.  An afternoon rain shower was just ending and the air was stifling.  I waited with our cart while he ran across the street to get us a bottle of water.  Standing in public is still uncomfortable for me.  People gawk.  I’m a real oddity here; pretty much the only white skinned person to be seen.  I normally handle this by trying to be invisible.

As I was making the attempt, I noticed a young mother walking by carrying a baby with a little girl in tow.  She and the little girl, who was probably around 4 years old, both stared but I smiled and they continued on by.  I went back to waiting for my husband and perfecting my invisibility.  I was suddenly startled by the feeling of little fingers prying my hand from the handle of the shopping cart.

I looked down and there stood the little girl smiling up at me.  She carefully took my hand and gave it a shake.  I shook it back, said “hello” and we both grinned at each other.  That was the extent of the encounter.  She ran back to her momma and we too shared a big smile.  I said “thank you” but I doubt she understood.  Language is a barrier I haven’t managed to haul my clumsy frame over yet.  I really struggle with Hindi so it was all I could offer.

More correctly, spoken language is a barrier.  Body language, and the language of touch is not.  I was so moved, so touched by the innocence and bravery of that small child.  She wasn’t worried about what color I was, what religion I may be, and that I was different in almost every way possible.  She simply wanted to say “hello, I’m curious to meet you.”  I mentally kicked myself several times after we parted.  I mean, here I am the one always preaching that we need honor the uniqueness of the individual without focusing on difference and I was completely busted.  I was the one obsessing over differences.  Ridiculously so.  Facing my own hypocrisy was humbling to say the least.

I feel blessed by that little encounter.  It gave me a good dose of reality.  It was a real wake-up for me.  It’s always the simple things, the little things that leave such an impact on my heart.  I don’t know if that little girl will remember me, but I know I’ll never forget her and the lesson she brought me.

Are You Breathing?


Have you ever noticed how many times during the day you are actually holding your breath?  If not, take a deep breath right now and feel how it replenishes.  Did it feel like gulping water after a dry thirst?  When we get wrapped up in our thoughts, particularly those that produce tension, we tend to diminish and even hold our breath.  That not only cuts us off from vital life source, but from our own being.  Take several pauses during the day to just take a nice deep relaxing breath that pulls you back into the moment; into the NOW…  and breathe!

Picture courtesy of tarotandsuch.

Muslims In Libya Condemn Violence and Apologize to Americans


I discovered these pictures on the blog Simply Sammi via We Think, We Dream.  They are moving and they’re important.  As American warships are approaching the Libyan coast this is the side of things we don’t get to see.  To quote “WeThink, We Dream”:

“Of course the news won’t show this.  No, they’ll just keep stating over and over that the US is sending two warships to the area because that is more important than showing Americans that not all Muslims are evil like they already believe because that would be asking too much of the media.”

The irony is not lost on the people of Benghazi.  Radical fundamentalists, protesting their prophet being portrayed in a recently-released satirical film called the “Innocence of Muslims” as a crazy murderous barbarian bombed the U.S.Consulate in Benghazi, killing the U.S. Ambassador and three others have responded by acting like crazy murderous barbarians.  Now the Embassies in Cairo and and Yemen have been attacked by protestors who are behaving like crazy murderous barbarians.  The irony, unfortunately, is lost on them.

Please look at the following photos and understand.  Not all Muslims are like those committing these acts.  Please pass this on so their voices may be heard above the din of sensationalist media.  I do not, however, under any circumstance sympathise or condone the actions of violent men and women who hide behind religion to exercise their darker bloodlusts.  I find using any god as an excuse for such things abhorrent.  People like these offenders believe an “eye for an eye” as retribution is their duty, never realizing that it’s nothing but the perpetuation of a never ending cycle of revenge and ultimately destructive.  It solves nothing as is illustrated by U.S warships on the move.  Another war.

Was the movie in poor taste?  Yes, however many such movies exist satirizing different religions and have not led to bloodshed.  People can be mature enough to simply turn away.  People will always inevitably voice opinions we don’t agree with.

Was this film worth bloodshed?  NO.  NO.  NO.  Letting it die in obscurity instead of feeding its publicity would have been the smarter move.  Now it’s going viral as the world’s curiosity has been piqued.  I viewed the trailer.  I’m equally guilty.  It wasn’t worth it.

Let the peaceful voices of these people be heard.  Please pass this on.

 

Opinions?  Do we really need more warlike involvement in the Middle East?  What are your fears?

In a Dog’s Eyes


Sometimes life can reach out and touch you so deeply it can leave you forever changed.  It happens in the most unexpected of ways without fanfare or warning.  And sometimes it’s like being hit but a truck.

Monday morning my husband and I woke early, long before the sunrise.  After puttering around the house for awhile, we decided to take a walk and enjoy what little solitude can be had around here.

The air was heavy and damp making my shirt cling to me the moment we stepped outside.  Always darkest before the dawn, as they say, the sky was a spectacle.  Saturn, Mars, Venus and Jupiter glowed brightly with the crescent of the waning moon as their center piece.  The constellation of Cancer provided the mantle on which it all rested.  We couldn’t help but pause to take it all in to the tune of the heavy trucks rumbling sleepily from the road that was our destination.

The streets were otherwise deserted.  We paused again at the little temple outside the gate.  The bare bulbs dangling from the ceiling gave a golden glow and strings of twinkling lights lent  a happy aura to the place.  The goddess Durga, the divine mother of creation, smiled out at us with breathtaking beauty.  Hanuman watched in stoic silence nearby.  I lingered there.  I couldn’t help myself.  Although I don’t worship these deities, the peace of this place was palpable.  There’s a fragrance there, undetectable by the nose but felt in the heart as delicate as a flower’s perfume.  Two blocks down the road, the irony would almost ruin me.

I was reluctant to leave, but my husband tugged me on.  He wanted milk for his tea.  I recalled the juicy ginger roots waiting in the fridge and salivated.  The sweet tang of ginger tea did sound pretty appealing so I followed along holding his hand as we strolled under grimy street lights reluctant to give up their light.

When we approached the road, humanity trundled sleepily along.  The trucks banged, and the occasional car or motorbike sputtered.  Green rickshaws, almost gray in the darkness, stood slumbering untouched by the diesel fumes. Everything was oblivious to the dust.

The little shop was open as we’d hoped.  Some days it isn’t at such an early hour but we lucked out.  As my husband stepped to the window of the little pink shack to ask for our milk and pay, I stood nearby and quietly observed.  Several vehicles were parked there and a few men were loitering around the corner, smoking and talking in low voices.  I tried to be invisible.  As the only white foreign woman living in our area my presence is always met with stares.  It still makes me uncomfortable.  I’m a freakish thing to them, I think.  An unexpected spectacle.  Maybe someday they’ll get used to the fact I exist here.  Or maybe not.  Either way, I was happier not to be seen.

I noticed the dogs.  Stray dogs are plentiful here in India.  They congregate in small groups, claiming a landmark as their home base, and like everything else here they coexist.  Two of them were milling near the men; one black and white and the other a dark brown.  They looked hale and healthy as far as street dogs go.  The third, a young chestnut colored thing, was snuggled tightly against the shack wall away from the others, curled tightly in a ball.  She was a young dog and as I stood trying to be invisible she was watching me.

It was her eyes that held me.  They’re still burned into my mind.  They silently said so much.  Dogs are such intuitive creatures.  I think it comes from their natural need to be social; with each other and with us.  Perhaps she sensed what I was thinking as I stood there.  I was missing my own dog, left behind in the States.  I still mourn her absence.  But I looked into those eyes and I knew the stray dog’s thoughts.

Be kind to me.  Speak gently to me.  Let me feel comfort.

My heart reacted and poured from my mouth before I even realized what I was doing.

“Hi, sweet baby,” I cooed softly, not to attract the attention of the men around the corner.  “Oh, sweetheart.”

She raised her head higher and slightly closer and I wanted to reach out and touch her but I also saw the fear lingering behind her need. Her tail dared not even a wag.

“It’s okay.  I understand,” I told her.  “It’s ok.”

I could see the war within her.  She wanted to come to me yet she wanted to remain invisible too.  That emotion I could relate to.  Her inner conflict made my heart ache.

I pondered whether or not to move closer, to make some overture, but everything exploded.  It all happened in an instant.  One of the men kicked her, sending her into motion with a squeal.  The other two dogs erupted, barking.  They knew well not to trifle with men like these but their need to protect their pack-mate sent them running in sweeping circles, barking sharply; venting their outrage away from its real source for their own safety.

Then I saw the reason for both her need and her conflict.  She was hobbling on 3 legs.  Her hind leg she held up gingerly out of the way.  She was injured.  Not knowing where to go or what to do, she simply plopped down next to a car’s tire, shivering.  This is when my heart broke into two.  She wasn’t watching the men who offended her.  She wasn’t watching her pack-mates pacing here and there.  She was looking at me.  The raw hunger of her fear and her need shattered inside of me like a thousand shards of glass.

Having acquired our milk, my husband jarred me back into myself.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

It was all I could say.  He took my numb hand and we walked away.  I can’t remember when I’ve felt like such a shit leaving her there.  Feeling her eyes on me, I forced myself to turn once.  She was still cowering by the tire, still watching me.  When the lights of the road were behind us, and the privacy of darkness had cloaked us again, I shed a few silent tears.  Her need followed me.

Questions are haunting me now:  Why does suffering like this have to exist in this world?  Why does any being have to live so starved for simple kindness?  I can’t accept “oh, it’s just the way things are” as the rationalization.  Maybe I’m an idealist but complacency like that is also an ideal and it a crummy one.  I refuse to accept that excuse because I know it doesn’t have to be this way.  People choose it.  We could choose to be kind.  Even if it’s only pausing to share a gentle word, to reach out to comfort that hunger in another.  But so many times we make the choice to walk on by, or worse, to kick it and turn callously away.  I guess this is how we delude ourselves that we can be in control of the discomfort suffering in others causes in us instead of allowing our hearts to open and reach out.

But letting the heart open is such a beautiful thing.  There’s immense power in that one simple act.  It’s a power that can move mountains without effort.  It’s so strong that it can leave something forever changed.  That forlorn dog, in return for a few kind words, taught me more in those few moments than years of seeking has.  Love is the most important thing in this world.  Kindness is the light in the deepest night of hopelessness.  And it’s a choice.

Hatred, anger, contempt and frustration are all mired in the material world and we get caught in that habitual mind-muck.  It’s an ugly habit, an unconscious choice.  But love is something else, entirely.  When the heart is open, being in this loving state is pure ease.  You breathe.  Unfurl.  When the heart is opened in an act of kindness it opens the heart of one who is closed.  And being closed is suffering.  In that moment of kindness, natural being is restored, if only for a moment, giving a glimpse of another possibility.  Another choice.

We need to be more mindful of how we choose to be.  We need to choose wisely.

Why do you feel it’s easier for our hearts to be touched by animals?