THERE IS NO SHORTCUT

One thing has to be remembered about meditation; it is a long journey and there is no shortcut. Anyone who says there is a shortcut is befooling you.

It is a long journey because the change is very deep and is achieved after many lives - many lives of routine habits, thinking, desiring. And the mind structure; that you have to drop through meditation. In fact it is almost impossible - but it happens.

A man becoming a meditator is the greatest responsibility in the world. It is not easy. It cannot be instant. So from the beginning never start expecting too much and then you will never be frustrated. You will always be happy because things will grow very slowly.

Meditation is not a seasonal flower which within six weeks is there. It is a very very big tree. It needs time to spread its roots.

What is meditation?

"Meditation is a single lesson of awareness, of no-thought, of spontaneity, of being total in your action, alert, aware. It is not a technique, it is a knack. Either you get it or you don't."

Meditation is not concentration

MEDITATION is not concentration. In concentration there is a self concentrating and there is an object being concentrated upon. There is duality. In meditation there is nobody inside and nothing outside. It is not concentration . There is no division between the in and the out. The in goes on flowing into the out, the out goes on flowing into the in. The demarcation, the boundary, the border, no longer exists. The in is out, the out is in; it is a no-dual consciousness.

Concentration is a dual consciousness; that's why concentration creates tiredness; that's why when you concentrate you feel exhausted. And you cannot concentrate for twenty-four hours, you will have to take holidays to rest. Concentration can never become your nature. Meditation does not tire, meditation does not exahaust you. Meditation can become a twenty-four hour thing - day in, day out, year in, year out. It can become eternity. It is relaxation itself.

Meditation is in the present, pure present. Meditation is immediacy. You cannot meditate, you can be in meditation. You cannot be in concentration, but you can concentrate. Concentration is human, meditation is divine.

Spiritual closeness.....

The question is not whether or not you are in the presence of the master, but whether or not you are filled with love and trust for the master. Physical closeness means nothing. Only spiritual closeness is significant. Your love, your trust is enough. You can be on the moon and the master will be by your side -- really, the master will be inside you -- because as your love deepens, something of the master, his energies, start melting and merging with you. The fear of physical distance is the fear of lack of love and trust. Mahakashyap alone is not the answer. Everybody has to be an answer unto himself. Mahakashyap remained with Buddha, and after Buddha's death he died; he could not survive separately. But that is Mahakashyap's uniqueness. It is not the only answer. I will tell you a few other stories around Buddha so you can understand. Ananda lived with Buddha for forty-two years. Nobody else lived with Buddha so long, nobody was allowed to live with him so long. But there was a problem. Ananda was Buddha's cousin-brother, and older than him, and just the Eastern tradition.... Before taking initiation -- Ananda was the elder brother -- and he said to Gautam Buddha, "Siddharth" -- Siddharth was his family name -- "Listen: after initiation, whatever you say I will have to do. I will be your disciple, you will be my master. Right now I am your elder brother, you are my younger brother; whatever I say you have to do. Three things you have to remember -- don't forget them when I become a disciple." It is a beautiful story. Buddha said, "What are the three things?" Ananda said, "First, I will always live with you; you cannot send me anywhere else to spread the message. Second, if I want anybody to meet you -- even in the middle of the night -- you cannot say no; that is my personal privilege. And thirdly, I will sleep in the same room where you sleep. Even in sleep, you cannot make me stay in a different place." Buddha promised, and these three conditions were followed for forty-two years. But Ananda did not become enlightened. You can understand his pain and his anguish -- people who had come long after him became enlightened, and he remained in his ignorance just the same as before. The day Buddha died he said, "What will happen to me? I could not become enlightened even though I was with you for forty-two years, day in, day out, twenty-four hours a day. Without you, I don't see any hope." Buddha said, "You don't understand the dynamics of life. Perhaps you will become enlightened only when I am gone; I am the barrier. You take me for granted. The day you had asked those three conditions, I had thought that those conditions were going to be a barrier for you. You cannot forget that you are my elder brother, even now. You cannot forget that you have certain privilege over others. You cannot forget that I have agreed on three conditions only for you, for nobody else. Perhaps my death will help." Buddha died. And after twenty-four hours, there was a great meeting of all the enlightened disciples to write down whatever Buddha had said in these forty-two years. But the problem was that nobody had been with him continuously for forty-two years except Ananda -- but he could not be allowed in the meeting because he was not enlightened. An ignorant man, unenlightened -- you cannot rely on what he is saying, whether he heard it or imagined it, whether he has forgotten something, whether he has put his own interpretation in it. It is difficult. And the scene is really tragic. The conference is inside a hall and Ananda is sitting outside on the steps crying, because he lived with Buddha for forty-two years; he knows more than anybody else. Each single moment he remembers, but he is unenlightened. Crying, sitting there outside the hall, something transpired. He had not cried his whole life. With those tears, his ego disappeared; he became like a child. They opened the door to see whether Ananda was still sitting outside -- because they had told him, "You sit outside. If we need some confirmation from you, we will ask you, but you cannot enter the conference." They saw a transformed being. The old Ananda, the old egoist was gone. An innocent being with tears of joy... and they all could see the light surrounding him. They invited him -- "You come in. Now there is no need for us to be worried. But it is strange... you could not become enlightened for forty-two years, and just after twenty-four hours you have attained that state" -- and this was continuously emphasized by Gautam Buddha. Ananda said, "It was my fault. His death became the death of my ego too." All the scriptures that are in existence are related by Ananda. There were other enlightened disciples who did not die with Gautam Buddha. It was asked -- when Mahakashyap died, it became a very significant question -- it was asked to other enlightened disciples, "If Mahakashyap has died, how are you living?" One of the disciples, Moggalayan, said, "I have to live now for my master's message. I am not living anymore -- I died with him; now he is living in me. That was one way, the way of Mahakashyap -- to dissolve in Gautam Buddha. This is another way. I have also dissolved, but dying is not going to help anybody. And there are so many blind people in the world who need eyes, there are so many people in darkness who need light. I will live. I will live as long as it is possible; I will live for Buddha." So it is not a question of one person being decisive. Each person has to be unique in his own way. Somebody dies for the master, somebody lives for the master, and you cannot say who is greater -- perhaps no comparison is right. Both are themselves. Just remember one thing -- your love. Then wherever you are, space and the distance in space does not matter. And at a certain depth, even time does not matter. And when time and space both are immaterial, then you have really touched the feet of the master. Then whatsoever transpires in you -- to live for the message or to die, whatever comes naturally and spontaneously -- let it happen.

Contentment..........

An ancient Sufi story:

A man was very much burdened by his suffering. He used to pray every day to God, "Why me? Everybody seems to be so happy, why am only I in such suffering?" One day, out of great desperation, he prayed to God, "You can give me anybody else's suffering and I am ready to accept it. But take mine, I cannot bear it any more."

That night he had a beautiful dream -- beautiful and very revealing. He had a dream that night that God appeared in the sky and he said to everybody, "Bring all your sufferings into the temple." Everybody was tired of his suffering -- in fact everybody has prayed some time or other, "I am ready to accept anybody else's suffering, but take mine away; this is too much, it is unbearable."

So everybody gathered his own sufferings into bags, and they reached the temple, and they were looking very happy; the day has come, their prayer has been heard. And this man also rushed to the temple.

And then God said, "Put your bags by the walls." All the bags were put by the walls, and then God declared: "Now you can choose. Anybody can take any bag."
And the most surprising thing was this: that this man who had been praying always, rushed towards his bag before anybody else could choose it! But he was in for a surprise, because everybody rushed to his own bag, and everybody was happy to choose it again. What was the matter? For the first time, everybody had seen others' miseries, others' sufferings -- their bags were as big, or even bigger!

And the second problem was, one had become accustomed to one's own sufferings. Now to choose somebody else's -- who knows what kind of sufferings will be inside the bag? Why bother? At least you are familiar with your own sufferings, and you have become accustomed to them, and they are tolerable. For so many years you have tolerated them -- why choose the unknown?

And everybody went home happy. Nothing had changed, they were bringing the same suffering back, but everybody was happy and smiling and joyous that he could get his own bag back.

In the morning he prayed to God and he said, "Thank you for the dream; I will never ask again. Whatsoever you have given me is good for me, must be good for me; that's why you have given it to me."

@b !tna to b@nta hai...lolzzz!!!

Seated in restaurant ,a priest is scrutinizing the beauty of a young lady escorted ny her male companion.A layman kids him about his female interest .
"just becoz...m on a perpetual diet does not mean i cant study the menu once in while..!!'''says the priest.

"Do we create relationship because we miss love??"

Relationship means something complete,finished,closed.Love is never relationship;love is relating.It is always a river flowing unending.Love knows no full stop.It is not like a novel that starts at a certain point and ends at a point.It is an ongoing phenomenon.Lovers end love continues.It is a continnum.It is a verb not noun..
Why do we reduce the beauty of relating to relationship??Why are we in such a hurry??...
.......well because to relate is insecure,,and relationship has security,,relationship has certainty..
You are in love with a man or a woman and immediately you start thinking of getting married.You make a legal contract.Why??How does the law comes into love??The law comes into love because love is not there.It is only a fantasy and you know the fantasy will disappear.Besides it disappear settle down.Before it disappears do something so it becomes impossible to separate...
In a better world, with more meditative people ,with a little more enlightenment spread over the earth,people will love immensely,,but there love will remain a relating not a relationship.I am not saying that there love will be only momentaryThere is every possibilty there love may go deeper than your love.may have a higher quality of intimacy,may have something more than poetry more than divine in it.And there is every possibility that there love may lasts longer than your so called relationship ever lasts. But it will not be guaranteed,by the law,by the court,by the police man,the guarantee will b inner .