Being simple....

“Drink water from the spring where horses drink. The horse will never drink bad water. Lay your bed where the cat sleeps. Eat the fruit that has been touched by a worm. Boldly pick the mushroom on which the insects sit. Plant the tree where the mole digs. Build your house where the snake sits to warm itself. Dig your fountain where the birds hide from the heat. Go to sleep and wake up at the same time with the birds – you will reap all of the days' golden grains. Eat more green – you will have strong legs and a resistant heart, like the beings of the forest. Swim often and you will feel on earth like the fish in the water. Look at the sky as often as possible and your thoughts will become light and clear. Be quiet a lot, speak little – and silence will come in your heart, and your spirit will be calm and full of peace.”

Saint Seraphim of Sarov

Nature is talking to you, are you listening?

The desire...

There is a beautiful story, a great parable in the Upanishads:

One of the great kings, Yayati, was dying. He was a hundred years old, ripe enough to die — one should be ready by that time — but not grown-up enough; the seed of renewing life was not yet burnt. So when death came, Yayati fell at the feet of Death — a great king, a great conqueror! — and he said to Death, “Spare me only one hundred years more. I don’t ask for more, just one hundred years more. And it is nothing for you, you can do it. All my desires are still unfulfilled because I had never thought about you. I was simply preparing and preparing. I have not enjoyed my life. Now that everything is ready — I have conquered the whole world, I have all the riches, the most beautiful women, the most intelligent and courageous sons, the best army in the world, everything is settled, all enemies killed — I was just thinking to relax and enjoy. Is this the time to come? All these hundred years have been spent simply in preparing for these moments. Spare me just one hundred years more so that I can live to my heart's content.”

Death laughed and said, “I am ready to spare one hundred years more to you, but I will have to take one of your sons because I have to go with somebody who resembles you; if not you, at least one of your sons. I can’t go empty-handed, I have to give the account to my boss himself. He will ask, ‘Where is Yayati?’ What am I going to say? Such a thing has never been done before, but I feel sorry for you. Just ask one of your sons.”

Yayati had a hundred sons; he must have had a hundred wives too. He asked his sons. The oldest was eighty, but he started looking downwards, was not ready to say yes. Why should he? He had lived only eighty years; if his father is not contented with a hundred years, how can he be contented with only eighty years? At least twenty years more he is entitled to live. In those days, the story says, people used to live a hundred years. Why should he die a premature death, an untimely death? And this old fellow has lived enough! He did not want to hurt the old man so he didn’t say anything, he kept quiet.

The father was very much shocked; he used to think that his sons were ready to sacrifice themselves. But in this world nobody is ready to sacrifice himself for anybody else. He looked around. His sons also started looking at each other, meaning “Why don’t YOU go?”

The youngest, who was only twenty years old, stood up and he said, “I am ready. Take me with you, I am coming with you.”

Even Death felt sorry for the boy. Death came close to the young man and said, “Are you a fool or something? Your other brothers — one is eighty, one is seventy-five, one is seventy, sixty, sixty-five, fifty — these people are not ready to go and you are the youngest, you have not lived at all. Why are you ready to go?”

The young man said, “If my father could not live in a hundred years, if my eldest brother could not live in eighty years, if my other brothers… nobody has been able to live, then the whole project is nonsense. I don’t want to waste time. If I have to die it is better to die now. Why wait for eighty years? If THESE people have not been able to manage, it is absolutely certain it is unmanageable. And let my father try a hundred years more.”

Death tried to convince him, but he wouldn’t listen. Death had to take him away.

After a hundred years, Death came back and the situation was the same. Again Yayati fell at his feet and started crying and weeping and he said, “I know that now I should be ready, but nothing is fulfilled yet; all the desires are the same. I have LIVED all the desires, I cannot say that I have not lived them, but nothing is fulfilled. I want more! Now that I have lived a hundred years a new desire has arisen — I want more! I want to live at least one time more, a hundred years more, just one time more.”

And this went on happening again and again. When Yayati became one thousand years old and Death came, he was just going to fall at his feet. Death said, “Wait — enough is enough! Can’t you see the point, Yayati? Are you so blind? You have lived one thousand years, and you have been doing the same things again and again. You have done nothing new in these one thousand years, and still you want more? Can’t you see the simple point that mind lives in the more, it goes on asking for more? There is no end to it. Now you come with me — I am not going to listen anymore. Now even my boss is feeling angry with me. He says, ‘This is too much! This man has been given too much time.’ But I also wanted to try — let us see what you can make out of one thousand years. You have not made any progress, you are exactly in the same place, going in circles.”

Prayer....

Jesus says if you go to the temple to pray and you remember that you have hurt somebody, insulted somebody, that you are angry at somebody or if you have angered somebody, first go and ask to be forgiven, only then come to pray; otherwise, you will not be able to relate with God. First go and apologize. First clear things.

It happened when Michelangelo was working in the Sistine Chapel... He was making a painting of Jesus. The painting was almost complete – just the last finishing touches – but he was finding those last finishing touches very difficult. Jesus was not coming out Jesus-like; something was missing in Jesus’ face – that softness, that feminineness was not there, that love quality was not there. He tried and tried for days, and then he remembered that he had quarreled with a friend and he was carrying it in himself.

And then he remembered the saying of Jesus, that if you go to pray and you are not feeling good about a friend or a brother, then first go and ask forgiveness. He rushed out of the chapel, went to the friend, asked his forgiveness and told the whole story. ’For days together I have been working, but I cannot bring out Jesus’ face as it should be. Something angry remains in it’ – because something was angry inside him.

If there is anger and hard feeling and you are going to paint, your hands will paint, your painting will represent you, your painting will basically reflect you. And the day he asked forgiveness and was forgiven, he came into a totally different mood. And just a few minutes’ work, and the painting was complete. And it is one of the most beautiful paintings of Jesus. Just a few strokes and the painting came alive and Jesus surfaced, because now Michelangelo’s heart was in tune.

When such experience happend we should be more open to the universe. I cannot copy any of my paintings. I tried sometime, but that never worked. I don't know the color theory or I know nothing, though all painitings just happened. Like I was just a medium and something passed through me. Like electric current passed through the bulb.

Everyone please forgive me for all my deeds, I am not seeing the faults, as everything is happening here. I will keep praying for everyone.....

The Song Unsung

The song that I came to sing remains unsung to this day.

I have spent my days in stringing and in unstringing my instrument.

The time has not come true, the words have not been rightly set;

only there is the agony of wishing in my heart.

The blossom has not opened; only the wind is sighing by.

I have not seen his face, nor have I listened to his voice;

only I have heard his gentle footsteps from the road before my house.

The livelong day has passed in spreading his seat on the floor;

but the lamp has not been lit and I cannot ask him into my house.

I live in the hope of meeting with him; but this meeting is not yet.

Rabindranath Tagore

A friend came to see Rabindranath when he was about to die, just two days before his death. He said, ”Yours has been a very successful life. There is nothing to worry about or to regret now.” Both of them were friends since their childhood and now both of them were old. He said: ”You can die peacefully. I did not attain anything in this life, I have wasted it so I will not die peacefully. You have sung so many songs!”

Rabindranath has sung six thousand songs. No other poet in this world has sung so many songs. The poet Shelley is very famous in the West but his songs number about three thousand, while Rabindranath’s are six thousand, and all these six thousand songs can be put to music.

The old friend said, ”You were given the Nobel prize; honors have been showered on you, you can die peacefully. Of course I will die without peace but you can thank God while saying goodbye to the world.”

Rabindranath listened to what his friend was saying. Then he said, ”Well, I have not been able to sing the song which I wanted to sing, it is still within me like a seed. These six thousand songs are the unsuccessful efforts to sing that one song. I have tried many times to sing that one song which is in me like a seed but I have failed every time. You may have liked those songs but they are the stories of my failure. My song has not been sung yet. I have not sung it yet, and God has come to take me away. Just now I was tuning my instruments; with great difficulty I was able to tune my sitar. People thought I was singing. No, I was tuning my instruments. Now I have become mature enough, the instruments are ready, my spirit is ready, the moment of singing has come just now, but now it is time to go. Yes, I am complaining to God.”

OSHO