ARE ALL DESIRES INSANE? Yes, all desires are insane. Desire as such is insane because desire means living in the future, and the future does not exist at all. What exists is the present. Objects of desire are not significant; desiring is significant. You can desire wealth, you can desire God– desiring remains the same, […]
Abu Bakr al-Shibli was a Sufi mystic and poet of Persian descent born in Samarra. SHIBLI WAS ASKED: `WHO GUIDED YOU IN THE PATH?’ SHIBLI SAID: `A DOG. ONE DAY I SAW HIM, ALMOST DEAD WITH THIRST, STANDING BY THE WATER’S EDGE. EVERY TIME HE LOOKED AT HIS REFLECTION IN THE WATER HE WAS FRIGHTENED
What is the difference between reaction and response? There is much, a lot of difference, not only in quantity but quality. A reaction is out of the past, a response is out of the present. You react out of the past old patterns. Somebody insults you: suddenly the old mechanism starts functioning. In the past people have insulted
REJOICE LIFE WITH SIMPLICITY OF THE HEART…. Life can be known only with a simple heart. Head is very complex, and life is very simple. It is difficult from a complex head to understand the simple life. Life is simply simple. You have also to be simple. A child understands more. He has a rapport
Once it happened that a man was very ill. The illness was that he continually felt that his eyes were popping out and his ears were ringing – continually. By and by, he became crazy because it went on twenty-four hours a day. He couldn’t sleep, he couldn’t do his work. So he consulted doctors.
Love should be pure. It should not be impure. You will be surprised to know that the English word `love’ comes from a very ugly root in Sanskrit. It comes from लोभ — LOBH. Lobh means greed. And as far as ordinary love is concerned, it is a kind of greed. That’s why there are
There are three steps in the spiritual growth– steps or stages. They can differ with each individual but there are always three. One is independence. That is an egoistic state: you want to be independent of all which is false, which is not possible because you are not independent, you cannot be. You are a
A religion is to be sought. A religion has to be chosen consciously. Nobody should be made a Christian or a Hindu or a Mohammedan or a Jain by birth. Birth has nothing to do with religion. Because of this association with birth, the whole world seems to be religious, and nobody is religious. Everybody
WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY ABOUT DARKNESS? I have much to say about darkness, because nobody has taken notice of the mystery that darkness is. Much has been said about light, almost nothing about darkness. But darkness is a much deeper phenomenon than light is. Light comes and goes – darkness remains; it never
HOW CAN WE PREPARE OURSELVES FOR DEATH? DON’T accumulate anything whatever: power, money, prestige, virtue, knowledge, even the so-called spiritual experiences. Don’t accumulate. If you don’t accumulate you are ready to die any moment, because you have nothing to lose. The fear of death is not really fear of death; the fear of death comes
