28.04.2007 um 18:49 Uhr
Concentration is not meditation. They are totally different things, in fact, diametrically opposite. In concentration you narrow your consciousness to one point; in meditation you open up your consciousness to all directions. For example, when you listen to the sounds... a bird starts calling, a child cries, and a thousand and one things are happening -- you have to be just open to all, with no choice. Concentration is a choice; meditation is a choiceless awareness. If you concentrate then you will just concentrate on the sound of this bird and you will not allow any other sound to interfere. You narrow down your mind completely so that everything else is excluded, and you are only focussed on one sound. Then it is concentration. But concentration is a kind of tension; it is unnatural, and it will tire you, it will exhaust you. You will be distracted again and again. And when you are distracted, you will feel miserable because you are failing, you are not up to the mark, you have not been able to concentrate. But you are trying to do something unnatural, that's why you are failing. You will feel guilty, inferior, and these are the dangers of it. And even if you succeed -- one can succeed if one is stubborn enough -- in creating an unnatural state, then too you will not be getting anywhere really. If you succeed in concentration your mind will become more powerful. You will be able to do mathematics in a better way, your memory will become better; your calculation, your logic will become more sophisticated. But these are not the spiritual things. You will become more skillful in the mind, more efficient; but the real thing is how to go beyond the mind. You will be polishing the mind more and more, and polishing is not going beyond it. The mind has to be transcended, and the only possibility of transcending is: just relax and let things be as they are. A very very passive awareness -- that is the meaning of meditation. A passive awareness sitting silently, watching... and that too has not to become a tension. If sometimes you forget watching, perfectly good! When you remember, you watch again; when you forget, you forget. This is relaxation, this is accepting life as it comes. Then great joy arises out of it. You are never tired and you are never distracted because nothing can distract you. Distraction is possible only when you are trying to concentrate. When you are in meditation there is no distraction. Somebody shouts; you listen to that too. Somebody sings a song; you listen to that too -- whatsoever happens. You have no fixed idea of how things should be; you allow things to be as they are. Who are you to fix that things should be like this? Being in that state of silence, of passive awareness.... Lying on your bed or sitting on your chair, or just on a morning walk -- anywhere you can do it. Try that! 24.04.2007 um 17:46 Uhr
Zarathustra has many original insights. Just a single, original insight could have made him one of the greatest men that has ever lived, but he has so many, about each and everything. His vision is not of the ordinary. Perhaps that is the reason why people have forgotten him. He has been giving tremendous insights and truths, but they have passed over people's heads. It seems very easy to understand when Jesus says: "Love your neighbor as yourself." There is nothing original in it. Buddha has said it, Mahavira has said it. There is not anything that you cannot understand. With Zarathustra, you have to be very silent, remembering that you are encountering an utterly unique person who speaks to the depths of your very being, of which you are not aware. He is not a moral teacher in the usual sense; he is a perfect master. He is not interested in the trivia; his interest is in transforming you into a new man. The world is too burdened with the small man. He wants the whole of humanity to have wings for the heights, to have courage to go deep down in the earth to find water for its roots. Zarathustra expects too much, but whatever he expects is possible. He exposes man too much, but whatever he says is absolutely true. It may hurt you, it may destroy your old conceptions, it may destroy you -- because only upon your destruction can this new man arrive. His each word is a seed. If you allow it to settle in your heart, you will never be the same man again. Zarathustra is the most potential man the world has ever known. It has known great men, and many of them, but they were in a certain way still understandable. They used your language, they used your prejudices. Rather than giving you a new light they have supported you as you are. You call them great because they have supported you, they have made you comfortable with yourself. Zarathustra creates discomfort, discontent, because without a great discontent the man of tao is not possible. Your other great men have been teaching you to be contented, to be desireless. Zarathustra teaches you a divine discontent, and a longing for the stars. And taoism agrees with him absolutely, that unless you have a longing for the stars, you cannot grow, and you cannot become your true self; you cannot achieve your potential to its fullness. Hence, listen to his words, not just as words, but as seeds. Zarathustra says, YOU FLEE TO YOUR NEIGHBOR AWAY FROM YOURSELVES. Nobody has said that before him, and nobody has said it with exactly the same emphasis even after him. And it is such a great truth, that once you have understood it, you will see how blind we are. We are not even aware of what we are doing or why we are doing it. YOU FLEE TO YOUR NEIGHBOR AWAY FROM YOURSELVES. It is not for the love of the neighbor; it is just the emptiness of yourself. You want somehow to remain engaged, because to be alone, unengaged... a great fear of one's aloneness, a great fear of one's emptiness, a great fear of one's darkness, and finally the ultimate fear of death, grips everybody. To avoid all these, one has to avoid coming home. Keep yourself engaged. It does not matter in what. 18.04.2007 um 00:27 Uhr
Der Taoismus (von dao, wörtlich der Weg) ist ursprünglich eine chinesische Philosophie, die sich aber später auch zu einer Volks-Religion entwickelt hat. Das dao als das zentrale Element dieser Lehre ist am ehesten als ein umfassendes Weltprinzip zu verstehen, das dem Menschen nicht rein rational zugänglich ist. Der Mensch soll dieses Prinzip möglichst wenig durch bewusstes Handeln und Streben stören, sondern in mystisch-intuitiver Weise im Einklang mit diesem Gesetz leben. Dabei spielt der Grundsatz des 'Handelns durch Nichthandeln' (wei wu wei) eine entscheidende Rolle. Sowohl der Ausdruck dao als auch das wu wei finden sich bereits im Konfuzianismus. Dort steht jedoch dao eher für den moralisch richtigen Weg, und der Grundsatz des Nicht-Handelns wird primär auf das Verhalten des Herrschers bezogen: So wird in den Gesprächen des Konfuzius der Herrscher mit dem Polarstern verglichen, um den sich alle übrigen Sterne zu drehen scheinen. Das Ideal des Herrschens besteht darin, nicht aktiv einzugreifen, sondern allein durch das Vorbild zu wirken. Der Taoismus ist in der Zeit vom 6. - 4. Jahrhundert v. Chr. in China entstanden, die legendenumwobene Gründergestalt ist Lao-Tse. Ihm wird das grundlegende Werk 'Tao Te King' (Buch vom Tao und seinem Wirken) zugeschrieben. Als der Buddhismus im 5. Jahrhundert nach China kam (der Legende nach durch Bodhidharma) entwickelte sich unter starkem Einfluss des Taoismus der Chan-Buddhismus, der dann später in Japan zum Zen wurde. Ein weiteres wichtiges Werk des Taoismus ist das 'Nan Hua Chen Ching' (das wahre Buch vom südlichen Blütenland) seines Nachfolgers Dschuang Dsi (365 - 290 v. Chr.), in dem das Wesen des Taoismus in Parabeln, Anekdoten und Streitgesprächen des Lao-Tse mit Konfuzius erläutert wird. Im chinesischen Volk waren lange Zeit taoistische Richtungen mit weniger philosophischem als vielmehr alchemistischem und magischen Charakter recht verbreitet. (Z.B. die Ch'üan Chen Schule (Schule der vollkommenen Verwirklichung) im 13. Jahrhundert nach Christus. Abkömmling der magischen Linie des Taoismus ist das Feng Shui.
Die philosophische Richtung des Taoismus hat auch im Westen eine gewisse Beachtung und Anhängerschaft gefunden, u.a. da sie mit der naturwissenschaftlichen Weltsicht gut vereinbar scheint.
But nobody is distributing these things to you, there is no personality in the world -- it is a law, impersonal. This is more scientific. It creates less complexities and solves more problems. The Hindu concept about the law of nature, rit, is also in every way compatible with the scientific attitude towards the world. Then what can you do? You committed bad, you committed good; pleasure or pain will follow like a shadow.
And one should also take note of the fact that socialism is a by-product of Christianity; it has not happened in Hinduism, it has not happened in Buddhism, it has not happened in Jainism, it has not happened in Taoism. Christianity has given birth to the idea of socialism, because basically Christianity has been a consolation for the poor. Socialism is now the ultimate consolation for the poor. Socialism does not make them rich, it simply destroys the rich people, but then the poor feel happy because there is no comparison left.
Don't seek shelter in any philosophical lean-to to try to get away from the sin and darkness that have enshrouded you. Know them. Become familiar with them. They are there. Don't forget they exist. Even though they are like dreams, they are still there. And don't think that dreams don't exist. Even a dream has an existence. It can also overwhelm us, disturb us. Saying "It was just a dream" leads nowhere. There is no other solution than waking up. But if he likes, a man can even dream he has woken up. A false philosophy, a philosophy-without sadhana does the very same thing. It does not awaken you, it simply causes a dream of awakening. This is a dream within a dream. Haven't you had dreams where you have seen yourself as awake?
