I have heard:
It happened in Japan. Once a mother visited her son at college and was pained to see suggestive pictures on the walls of his room. She said nothing but hung a picture of Buddha among the others. When she came again to see the boy the other pictures were gone, only the one of Buddha was left. The boy said, ‘Somehow, I could not keep him there and those pictures too — so they had to go.
Just a small thing, just a small picture of Buddha, and all those suggestive, pornographic pictures had to go. What happened? The boy started feeling uneasy. How to put Buddha there with all those pictures? By and by Buddha’s presence was felt; the more and more aware he became, the more pictures disappeared. Just a small ray of light is enough to dispel all darkness. Just allow the first ray!
If you start becoming aware in a small way — nothing to be worried — by and by you will see all other pictures have gone and only awareness has remained. Buddha means awareness, the very word ‘Buddha’ means awareness.
If you really want to be happy and blissful, to be eternally blissful, if you are fed up with all the miseries that you have lived through, then bring awareness to your reactions. And start trusting the good.
In English you have an expression ‘too good to be true’. This expression is very dangerous. Too good to be true??? Just if something is too good you disbelieve it; it can’t be true? Change it, let it be this way: TOO GOOD TO BE UNTRUE.
Believe in goodness, believe in light, believe in higher reality — because whatsoever you believe becomes an opening to you. If you don’t believe that a higher being than you is possible, then finished, all growth is stopped.
Trusting a Buddha or a Mahavira or a Jesus, Zarathustra, is nothing but opening yourself… the very idea that higher beings than you have existed, walked, lived – higher beings are possible. It is not impossible to be a Buddha — the very notion, and a ray of light enters in your being. And that light starts transforming you. Your very chemistry changes.
Hence all the religions insist on trust, shraddha, faith. It has nothing to do with superstitions; it has nothing to do with theological beliefs. It is just an opening of the heart. If you don’t believe, if you insist that roses don’t exist, then even if someday you come across a rosebush, you will not believe. You will say, ‘There must be some illusion, somebody is playing a trick, or I am in a mirage, or I am dreaming, because roses can’t exist.’
In the first place if you don’t believe in the existence of roses the very possibility is you may come across them and you may not look at them because we look only at things we believe are possible. We go on passing, indifferent. Whatsoever you believe becomes effective.
I have heard:
It happened in a hospital. A nurse put a screen round a male patient’s bed, gave him a specimen bottle and said, ‘I will be back in ten minutes for your specimen.’ Then another nurse came and gave the man a glass of orange juice. The man, who was something of a wit, poured the orange juice into the specimen bottle. When the first nurse came back, she looked and said, ‘This specimen is a little too cloudy.’
‘So it is,’ agreed the patient. ‘I will run it through again and see if I can clean it up.’ And as he put the bottle to his lips the nurse fainted.
Just your belief, just the very idea — what is this man doing? He was simply drinking orange juice. But once you believe a certain thing it becomes effective. Now the nurse is thinking he is drinking his urine. It is only in her idea — but ideas are great realities, they change your outlook.
If you are looking for beauty you will find beauty. If you believe beauty does not exist, you may come across it but you will not look for it. You see only that which you are looking for.
Faith, trust, simply means this much — that we are not the last, we are not the crescendo of existence… higher reality is possible. To believe in a Jesus or a Buddha is simply to believe in your own future, that you can grow. To believe in Buddha is to believe in growth, that there is still something which can happen to you.
Remember more and more that you are the cause of your misery, you can become the cause of your bliss. You are the cause of the hell you are living in, you can create the heaven also. You alone are responsible and nobody else.
Never try to do harm to anybody because all will fall back on you. If you can do something good, do. If you can help somebody, help. If you can have some compassion, love, let it flow, because that will be coming back. In moments of need you will have something to depend upon, to fall upon.
Love as much as you can, help, and don’t be bothered whether the help is paying right now or not. It pays, it pays tremendously. You don’t be bothered about the time and the place — it pays. Someday, whenever you are in need, it rushes towards you. It goes on accumulating.
Mulla Nasrudin kept begging the noted pianist to play. ‘Well all right, since you insist,’ he said. ‘What shall I play?’
‘Anything you like,’ said Nasrudin. ‘It is only to annoy the neighbours.’
People go on doing things like that. They may not be enjoying it at all, but if you can annoy the neighbours it is enough enjoyment for them. This is morbid, but this is how people are. People enjoy torturing, and then when they are tortured they cry and they say that life is very unjust and god is not just!
Buddha says there is no god. He simply drops the possibility of god. So that you cannot throw the responsibility on anyone else he says there is a law, no god, and the law follows its own course. If you follow the law you will be happy, if you don’t follow the law you will be unhappy.
So remember it as a fundamental rule that whatsoever you do to others you are really doing to yourself — whatsoever, I say, you do to others you are doing it to yourself. So watch out.
This way, this dhamma, this law, this ultimate law of life, cannot be understood by learning, by knowledge, by reading scriptures and memorising philosophies. You have to live it to know it. The only way to know is to live it. The only way to know is existential, it is not intellectual.
Osho: The Discipline of Transcendence, Vol 1 Chapter #7 Chapter title: Living the dhamma (excerpts)
रहने दे अपनी बंदगी ज़ाहिद
बे-मोहब्बत ख़ुदा नहीं मिलता…………मुबारक अज़ीमाबादी
rahne de apnī bandagī zāhid
be-mohabbat ḳhudā nahīñ miltā……….MUBARAK AZIMABADI
Keep your piety to yourself, O ascetic;
Without love, God is never found.
When you colour your actions with generosity and compassion, you are not losing anything. Love quietly accumulates. And when the moment arrives, it returns – not as repayment, but as grace. Like in “Mohe Rang Do Laal,” true devotion is not about asking, it is about allowing oneself to be dyed in love. Enjoy the song.
Singers: Pandit Birju Maharaj & Shreya Ghoshal Music: Sanjay Leela Bhansali Lyrics: Siddharth – Garima.
Mohe Rang Do Laal – Official Video Song | Deepika Padukone | Bajirao Mastani | Shreya Ghoshal
Lyrics of Mohe Rang Do Laal – मोहे रंग दो लाल mohe rang do laal mohe rang do laal nand ke laal laal chhedo nahi bas rang do laal mohe rang do laal dekhu dekhu tujhko main hoke nihaal dekhu dekhu tujhko main hoke nihaal chhu lo kora mora kaanch sa tann nain bhar kya rahe nihaar mohe rang do laal nand ke laal laal chhedo naahi bas rang do laal mohe rang do laal marodi kalaai mori marodi kalaai mori haan kalaai mori haan kalaai marodi.. kalaai mori churri chatkai ittrai toh chori se garwa lagai hari ye chunariya jo jhatke se chheeni (x2) main toh rangi hari hari ke rang laaj se gulaabi gaal mohe rang do laal nand ke laal laal chhedo nahi bas rang do laal mohe rang do laal mohe rang do laal