In Focus

• The Essence of Relating By Swami Satya Vedant
• Thrown into the eye of the storm By Ma Anand Bhagawati
• Relationships Sailboat? Submarine? Battleship? Loveboat?
  By Ma Prem Tao
• Jealousy and Possessiveness By Swami Prem Sarito
• The Green-Eyed Monster Jealousy and Love
  By Swami Chaitanya Keerti

Most people look for a loving relationship in wrong places. Essentially though, all relationships are based on energy – the human, loving, caring energy. Relationships based on such positive energy show a state of consciousness which reflects intimacy in various aspects of togetherness such as: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. The loving couple/partners experience intimate relationship which blends the energy in a harmonious way so that love flows between them more freely and naturally.

On the other hand, when couple/partners are in a negative, poor relationship involved in an on going state of arguments, fights, quarrels there is a distinct sign energy not blending and flowing freely. The friction is not only painful but psychologically damaging. Also, couples or partners often fail to realize that intimacy between a male and a female is about more than having a sexual relationship. It is a common fact that when intimate contact exists only on a physical plane it tends to bring frustration as the physical body changes and the earlier attraction begins to fade. Hence, Osho’s observation is that, “Sex has never satisfied anybody. It creates more and more dissatisfaction. Sex has never fulfilled anybody – it knows no fulfillment.”

Furthermore, seeing our relationships from our own personal viewpoints usually ends up seeing oneself as the victim, as someone who is wronged by the other. However, if we could see outside our personal viewpoints what is happening energetically, we might come across the very dynamics of relationship in a more objective and compassionate way. We may need to look at in this context basic principles of energy.

One principle of energy is that equal nature attracts itself. Secondly, we reap what we sow. Thirdly, for example, if you were to run an electric current through a wire which is too small or unfit to handle the current it may turn out potentially hazardous and harmful. If we juxtapose these principles with relationships we can see how the energetic interaction with parents, partners, friends, colleagues will need a great deal of understanding, mutual respect and allowing space to the other to be – free. So if we were to recognize and acknowledge the energy patterns working through our relationships we may see how and why the interaction may be so difficult to handle.

The conscious mind exists because of the relationship between people. It is just a link between you and all those with whom you are related, but it does not help in relating to yourself, in knowing yourself. Osho tells a story which highlights the essence of relating.

“I remember a story. King Ashoka sent his son to Ceylon to take them the message of Buddha. He met the king of Ceylon and asked him a question: "There are people in the world to whom you are related and others to whom you are not related. These are the two categories. Is anyone left who is not in one of these two categories?"

The king said, "I am left."

Ashoka's son said, "Now the message can be delivered to you. You are an intelligent person, so something can be said to you. I asked this question to find out if you know that there is something else besides the related and the unrelated or whether you think everything belongs to one of these two categories.”

OSHO
The Great Challenge, Ch.3, Q.2

Commenting on the story Osho points out this third -- which is neither related to oneself nor unrelated to oneself – this is the un-conscious part of our existence. It is indeed the realm of meditation. The conscious mind is helpful as far as our relationship or non-relationship to the world is concerned, but it can never be a help as far as the individual is concerned.

Meditation, says Osho, does not mean a conscious implementation; it actually means an effortless jump into oneself – into the un-conscious of the infinite possibilities. 

In terms of any kind of failure, frustration, or disappointment in a relationship, the way to heal oneself and find a positive break in one’s life, Osho recommends following steps of an aware and responsible act.

1. Be open and express how you feel: be with the facts and not live in projected idealistic imaginations. Express what YOU are feeling and while doing so avoid being philosophical. State the fact as it is; be truthful. Unexpressed or repressed feelings create unmanageable internal complexes.
2. Accept whatever that is: The acceptance is total; Buddha calls it tathata. The sky exists in a state of tathata, suchness: whatever the case may be one is ready to accept it without being judgmental. Such as clouds come and go; the sky remains, it abides. It is eternal, it is timeless. Same is the state of one’s acceptance while going through a relationship

Osho’s emphasis, however, is to be alert and watchful, dissolving the ego mind as one encounters the challenges of intimacy and relationship. He explains a technique:

“So meditate on the sky, and whenever you have time just lie down on the ground, look at the sky. Let that be your contemplation. If you want to pray, pray to the sky. If you want to meditate, meditate on the sky... sometimes with open eyes, sometimes with closed eyes, because the sky is within too. As it is big without, within it is the same.

We are just standing on the threshold of the inner sky and the outer sky, and they are exactly proportionate. As the outside sky is infinite, so is the inner sky.

We are just standing on the threshold. Either way you can be dissolved; and these are the two ways to dissolve.”

OSHO
Only Losers Can Win in this Game, Ch.16

Swami Satya Vedant

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I connect the term relationship to a sound. The sound of a heavy anchor on metal chains descending into deep sea with no possibility to move. If we love another then the term should rather be ‘relating’, which is alive and constantly has to adjust itself to new information, data, feelings, situations. I’d love a new expression altogether, maybe such as the word liaison as it has a mischievous twist to it, but when I looked it up,  its 17th century French root ‘lier’ means ‘bind’; so that won’t do.  The other is rapport, also French of the same century, ‘rapporter’ meaning ‘bring back’. Now here’s a word we might be able to apply. In modern English it means a friendly relationship between people based on mutual liking, trust, and a sense that they understand and share each other's concerns. But ‘rapporting’? Forgive me, I regress.

More importantly I am reminded of the time in Pune1 when so many questions we asked Osho in discourse or darshan had to do with the relationships we were in, or wanted to be in, or wanted to be out of. With incredible compassion and patience he would speak to us, again and again emphasizing how essential it was to fully immerse ourselves into a relationship, with as much awareness as we could muster, to watch our jealousy and possessiveness relentlessly, which would eventually lead us to meditativeness and unconditional love.

He encouraged us:

“Never escape from relationship. That's why I have introduced sannyas with relationship, not without it. There is great meaning in it. Never on the earth has sannyas existed with relationship, that's why I say that sannyas has not really existed, or, the sannyas that has previously existed was anemic, bloodless.

…I am showing you a path which is arduous, which is really arduous. Love alone is good because there is nothing to reflect, meditation alone is simple because there is no mirror to reflect, but meditation and love together.... I am throwing you into the very eye of the storm. But that is the only way one comes home.”

OSHO
Tao: The Pathless Path Vol. 2, Chapter 6

Explore our relationships we did and a stormy ride it was! There were many beautiful love affairs, ample pain, lots of jealousy and rage, tears and anger, ego clashes, yet of course also much laughter and joy; we played and acted out the entire emotional scenario to the hilt. Among so many of us I too found out that a deep fear of being ‘left alone’ would contribute massively to the power games the mind is so clever at constructing.

I vividly recall one morning sitting in Chuang Tzu Auditorium, not listening to Osho’s discourse but wallowing in pain and misery because the latest love affair had just ended. Letting go didn’t seem an option as I felt very possessive about him.  I wanted to be with him so badly; I was still hoping he would return to me. All of a sudden I saw my body sitting there with thick steel wires growing out from my abdomen, attached to the man who had moved on. It was clear this moment was not to be missed. I visualized having a pair of steel cutters in my hands and began a very painful process of cutting through every single wire. This act incurred excruciating physical pain and when the last wire snapped off, I felt as if I had a gaping wound and felt completely exhausted. And I also knew that this story was finally over.

It followed that I understood that intrinsically I am ALONE, and so the fear of ‘being alone’ vanished. I learned that nothing ever ends, and that we can let go lovingly when attraction has evaporated with nothing left in its wake, or move deeper if both parties allow each other to come to yet another level of understanding by simple acceptance and with honesty.

As Osho put it, “Love need not be attached. And if this understanding is coming to you -- that you are tired of attachment -- then drop attachment. That is not a step in dropping love; in fact that is a step in growing towards love. But the mind is very much confused about love and attachment. One has to be very alert, only then can one remain loving; otherwise attachment settles. And it gives trouble, it creates misery.

When attachment creates misery you start getting tired of attachment, then naturally of love too. Then one becomes afraid of love because one sees if you love, attachment comes in. They are not necessarily connected; they are only connected in our ignorance, in our unawareness. They are not connected themselves, they are poles apart. In fact it is a miracle how we manage them together in the same bed! They are not bed-fellows; they cannot be. They are not a couple. Attachment is poison to love.”

OSHO
Only Losers Can Win in This Game, Chapter 15

Acceptance is the most beautiful attribute between two people, and essentially between all people we come in touch with. It implies total freedom for all to live and experience every part of what they incarnated for. It is total acceptance of the other as she/he is – without judgment.

Ma Anand Bhagawati

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There are relationships, and there are relationships.

What I’m going for here is the relationship, the evolved relationship I guess you could say, of two people who are determinedly discovering who they are and sharing that together in great delight.

Relationships are here to help us uncover what love really is. It is thought that people fall in love and then marry but actually it’s through marriage, or through some other mutually committed relationship that we have the opportunity to come to know what Love truly is and what it isn’t. And we don’t have it automatically. It takes the often long and arduous process of going through and stirring all the stuff of oneself, buried and otherwise, that comes to the surface when relating with others. Especially when relating deeply and with heart fully involved, not to mention one’s hopes and dreams, illusions, desires and experiences.

I used to be a (fairly) jealous person. In fact, I might still be, I’m not sure, but I know I’m going to find out, hopefully sooner rather than later. Looking at my relationships’ history though, the interesting thing is that my jealousy was not across the board.  I felt those awful demon-feelings in some moments, in some of my relationships but not in all. So why would this be?  Either you’re a jealous person or you’re not. Right? Isn’t it like saying you’re either pregnant or you’re not, for how can you be pregnant only some of the time?  Well, apparently not.

Don't repress, otherwise the relationship will never be really a relationship. Jealousy is not good, but a repressed jealousy is far more dangerous than an expressed jealousy. No jealousy is the best thing to have, but if it is not there then the next choice should be jealousy expressed; the next best is jealousy expressed. Hope for the first but you will have to try the next; the first comes very, very late in your personal growth. It is indicative of a very, very integrated person, that he doesn't feel jealous. Only a person who has accepted himself so totally and one who is so happy with himself and does not have any idea of comparison with anybody else can be non-jealous. Jealousy arises because of comparison. 

OSHO
Far Beyond the Stars...Chapter11

I would say, firstly, that feeling jealous depended upon how secure I felt within myself, within the relationship, and also with the person with whom I was relating.  Another factor might be that in some instances, the jealousy was sparked by a reality, like an inner warning of something to come, an intuitive heads-up. Thirdly, the feeling of jealousy (fear/panic/outrage) because that’s what it is, a fear of loss, of love, as well as a sense of betrayal, depended very much on my mood at the time and how connected I was to my own true self-love. Lastly and hesitantly as it’s an emerging awareness, that a relationship based on a deeper-heart connection, a soul connection between two people who are fully aware of and committed to this powerful level of union with one another as well as to themselves, will spend more time supporting their soul connection and the lightness that accompanies it and place less emphasis and interest on any changing daily drama potentials.

Bottom line, it seems that successful relationships depend upon where you are within yourself and how much of your past patterning you intimately and consciously know and have taken at least some steps beyond their power over you. One great joy that I have found in relationship is the spontaneous flowing together in the moments, sometimes gently banging up against one another and moving here and there responding, playing with the energies taking place. It is so delicious and satisfying, no matter what it is that is in play; invigorating and inspiring being so fully alive, present and fully responsive to life. Shared, it is much greater than alone.

When you are in relationship with people, in a thousand and one ways you are provoked, challenged, seduced. Again and again you come to know your pitfalls, your limitations, your anger, your lust, your possessiveness, your jealousy, your sadness, your happiness all moods come and go, you are constantly in a turmoil. But this is the only way to know who you are. 

OSHO
Tao: The Pathless Path Vol-2 Chapter-6

The average status quo relationship model is between people who do not necessarily look within themselves, but look outside at what comes to them or what should be coming and react to it. And they expect that the other will fill certain needs of theirs, bear certain responsibilities, behaviors and actions. Each assumes a certain understanding of what each partner’s role and duties should be, in accordance with their own upbringing and neighborhood standards. But when one partner doesn’t comply, then all hell breaks loose.  Because of the need to be with another in relationship and not be alone, people often make choices that, like them or not, they live with them, happily or not.  And in too many instances, they are choices that limit living the fullest possibilities of life.

When I look way back at my many relationships in the past, with each person there was such a different experience, as if an aspect of myself would be highlighted while being with that person. I recall one interesting encounter in London, England with a dear man who had just arrived from Maui and showed up at our flat in the midst of an evening meeting. This was a beautiful, large flat that I shared with 3 other seekers in the Arica Foundation. Out of all the people present, he came and sat by me and I wondered why. But from that moment we were together the entire time. Together we amplified each other’s core strengths and I found that energetically I could never fall beyond a certain level of buoyancy.  While we were together, it seemed as if we created quite naturally and effortlessly, a heightened support (energetically) under our feet. I felt totally present and connected within myself and the emerging strength was utterly delicious. We were totally who we are with one another and it was so easy. Together we flowed. The Foundation was going through some challenges at that time and we contributed some good insights and solutions. Everything was clear, straightforward, simple, easy to see clearly and to pass on that insight very lovingly and without any anxst or judgments.

As the relationship was so much fun, so very inspiring, effortless and simply a treat we decided we should take it to a new level, be lovers and see how that was.  Well it was hilarious! There was absolutely nothing there at that level. We just laughed and laughed as we tried to go through the motions. What we had, that’s what it was. And it was a lot! In fact it was such a precious gift that it is still remembered after 33ish years.

This is a very interesting topic for me, because I have not been in a relationship for 20 years, since my second marriage ended. And it was a deliberate choice certainly at the beginning. I wanted to be in full relationship with myself, taking time and glorying in the freedom I felt and the lightness of living my all-oneness. Life suddenly became simple, so enjoyable and in the moment. Pursuing my new career was very beloved and meaningful to me. Doing so with totality as I was able to now give it everything I had, was pure ecstasy. I felt the joy of flowing in my moment without being attached to, or distracted by another, or being pulled away to honor his commitments and away from what was calling to me.  And I no longer had to give up something that had always felt like an enormous sacrifice at the time and a loss of my self for the other; so gone too were the resulting feelings of being less, rather than whole and the conflicting questions as to whether I was just being selfish and thereby unable to be in a relationship or truly living authentically. Some parts of us know that it’s not about losing yourself or sacrificing yourself (although that’s what happens at times as part of the journey) but Love is not defined by those acts.

Love is the mirror. Let your meditation be mirrored in love. If you find that something is missing, meditate more -- but never escape from love; let it be mirrored in love again and again, because that will be the only criterion of whether you are growing or not. If you are really growing in love soon you will see that love has remained and jealousy has disappeared; love has remained and possessiveness has disappeared: love has remained and hatred has disappeared. A great purity arises; a great innocence. A fragrance is released into your soul. Go on meditating and go on loving. Let love and meditation be two wings. Let them help each other. I am showing you a path which is arduous, which is really arduous. Love alone is good because there is nothing to reflect, meditation alone is simple because there is no mirror to reflect, but meditation and love together.... I am throwing you into the very eye of the storm. But that is the only way one comes home. And when things become silent after the storm, the silence is alive. It is not the dead silence of a cemetery.

OSHO
Tao: The Pathless Path Vol-2 Chapter-6

For some time now the desire has been surfacing for a mate and for a quality of relationship that is truly a gift for one another. My longing for a beloved emerged from a very, very deep place and seems to have crept to the top of the charts, as much as I resisted this feeling. The resistance came from an idea that the very desire and need that I felt is in itself false but parading itself as true. So it must be some kind of an avoidance. Well, that idea kicked around for a very long time and I bought it, along with the belief that this is a spiritual concept, both of which are seen to be quite nonsensical now. 

As we are in physical bodies and are indeed physical, emotional beings as well as transcendental ones living on planet earth, a most awesomely beautiful and very corporeal planet, then all this too must be honored and lived. Only the mind and its ideas stand in the way.

Self-knowledge is not the knowledge of a dead self, self-knowledge is the knowledge of the process of the self. It is an alive phenomenon. The self is not a thing, it is an event, it is a process. Never think in terms of things the self is not there inside you just like a thing waiting in your room. The self is a process: changing, moving, arriving at new altitudes, moving into new planes, going deeper into new depths. Each moment much work is going on and the only way to encounter this self is to encounter it in relationship.

OSHO
Tao: The Pathless Path Vol-2 Chapter-6

My profession is marrying people and I marry people all the time and have a front-row seat to love; what it is and what it isn’t, and to a myriad of relationship styles between a whole melting pot of people who love and are in love with one another. I see what it means to them and what it looks like from the outside and how it translates into their lives. I have written thousands of wedding ceremonies and renewal of wedding ceremonies. Just by being in this hallowed process of creating each ceremony, attuning to each of their souls and being involved in the inter-communications with brides and grooms, I have been transforming my own relationship karmas. I say this with wonder, awe and delight and with great gratitude. Everything has changed and matured from where it was and so many of the old ideas, limits and boundaries, fears and wounds have dissolved. All by themselves. It’s as if through my cherished work, I have been going to school, Spirit School, and taken through a relationship re-training program without having to be in one.

Each ceremony that I write offers each couple a message, a hint, for their evolving relationship, and a direction for their journey within it; all of it said very poetically of course. At yesterday evening’s wedding, the groom was responding to the Surprise Question I generally, but not always, ask and in so doing he turned to his beloved and said:

“I want you to always feel safe. Know that I’m going to take good  care of you so you will always be safe and have all that you need”.

Of course he was speaking primarily financially, but not only. And as we know the feeling of security really comes from within, still, having someone take care of all the financials is very nice to hear. And as I listened I thought to myself, I would love to have someone say that to me:

“Let me take care of all the bits and pieces of this world and know that I, and my loving arms, are here for you so you are free to have a clear shot at whatever your heart desires.”

It can be wonderful, and it can be terrible. It all depends from where each person is offering; whether they are in their true power of self, and unconditional Love, or from some other place more akin to dependency and control.

Relationship grows only out of overflowing energies, never out of needs. If one person is needy and the other is also needy, then both will try to exploit the other. The relationship will be that of exploitation, not of love, not of compassion. It will not be of friendship. It will be a kind of enmity -- very bitter, but sugar-coated. And sooner or later, the sugar wears out; by the time the honeymoon is over the sugar is gone and all is bitter. And now they are caught. First they used to be lonely separately, now they are lonely together -- which hurts even more. Just see a husband and a wife sitting in the room, both lonely. On the surface together, deep down lonely. The husband lost in his own loneliness, the wife lost in her own loneliness. The saddest thing in the world is to see two lovers, a couple, and both lonely -- the saddest thing in the world!

OSHO
The Fish in the Sea is Not Thirsty Chapter-2

When teaching IntuitiveTarot classes in the 80’s and 90’s, I spoke about different levels of relationship, using the 3 Major Arcana relationship cards in the deck as examples; The Lovers, The Moon and the Sun. The Sun card relationship is the one I wish to discuss.  It is the relationship at the highest level, describing a merging of two equal individuals who have done their work; equal here meaning each knows who they are and that they are at their root male and female. They have learned through their experiences to come to a union with their inner male and inner female, so they are not at odds with each other’s masculine and feminine qualities, but rather looking for them. The man looks to the woman for her wisdom, her insight and intuitive guidance and values what she has to offer as he recognizes it. He looks to her for her unwavering truth and her compassion, and honors that role in her.  She honors the fact that she is truly seen and loved as who she is and in this way her deepest gifts are valued and needed, so she can be helpful to him. And thus she is willing and wanting to share herself, all of herself, without reservation. She values his strength, his smarts, his willingness to be vulnerable and his wisdom in surrendering to the feminine, and trusts him because of it. They will stay and love together and go deeper and deeper together.

I had dinner tonight with two friends from my yoga class who met each other in class and have just announced their engagement. They are in their 40‘s, both havebeen married before and they are the perfect partners. I say this without any reservation whatsoever. They are like two peas in a pod. They have asked me to officiate and I’m delighted. In fact I offered it. We spoke about relationships at some length (not surprisingly as I was finishing up this article and they are planning their wedding.

The bride, an artist, was speaking of her previous lifestyle being a very insular, solo life which she had enjoyed, focusing on her art and her massage and herself. But when she met this sweet man, which is such an apt description of her fiancée, she said that she loved being in his company so much and vastly preferred it over her previous seclusion. Being with him is so nourishing and they enjoy the daily small things they do, because they do them together. Everything in life is better because they are together. And he nodded his head in agreement with a big smile on his face.

All For Now.
Ma Prem Tao

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I dropped out in 68 and traveled around Asia as a “Hippie Road Freak” with the most beautiful girl in the world…Well, she later became a famous super model… Anyway, she dumped me a year later and I was devastated, suicidal. She was mine. I loved her, dammit. I’d do anything for her-blah-blah-sob-blah. But luck came my way. One night, when I was drunk, I met a guy in a bar who offered me a job in Hollywood, California…. Hollywood!… City of Broken Dreams! The Sexual Revolution! The Human Potential Movement!

My first Encounter Group in Hollywood was entitled ‘Saying Goodbye’, appropriate for my case. Being a bit intimidated, I was the last to work. The rest of the Group were saying goodbye to Mother…mostly Jewish Mothers… so when I got on the Hot Seat to say goodbye to my girlfriend things perked up. In fact they really got on my case and yelled at me “You don’t own her,” “She’s not a piece of furniture,” and the like, but one compassionate soul gave me the advice that changed my life: “Be grateful, she gave you your freedom.”

FREEDOM! The Miracle Medication for Chronic Possessiveness! I immediately embarked on a 40-year voyage of discovery of my own potential and in the process learnt a lot about Jealousy and Possessiveness. I even taught a course for Victor Baranco’s Morehouse called ‘Jealousy, Money and Possessions’.
Over an intense weekend, the Group would come to see that Jealousy is usually a fear of future loss. Unlike Grief over a past event or Envy of a situation that’s happening right now, with Jealousy the worst has not usually occurred yet, like she has not left. Maybe we are at the wire, but there’s often something we can do about it.

The only relationship worth having is one lived in total honesty, hiding nothing. Otherwise it’s got nothing to do with love. Conceptually we are all unfaithful, checking out beautiful women and handsome men on the street, and fantasizing movie stars while making love to our partners. It’s totally natural so why hide it? It’s totally natural to be attracted by our neighbor’s wife, so why not talk about it ? Because we are afraid our possessive partners will be jealous and leave us. Jealousy will probably arise and that’s natural too but, handled intelligently the pain can be largely avoided and often, an enjoyable situation can arise.

The trick is to take responsibility for your lover’s happiness as well as your own. The ultimate test of True Love is to give your beloved the freedom to follow their bliss wherever that may take them. You can give them everything on a silver plate except novelty. If you can give them the OK to share their love and move with others, that’s a hard act to follow and they will probably never leave you. So we encouraged participants who were attracted by others to find out who turned their partners on and arrange for time out for them too.

Sometimes threesomes or group sex would emerge. The pill had given women the same freedom to explore their sexuality as men and Free Sex Growth Centers like Sandstone and Elysium Fields sprang up. Both were in Topanga Canyon, back of Malibu, Los Angeles where I lived. John Richardson ran Sandstone with the idea of attracting politicians and captains of industry to experience massage, nudity and intelligent sex and, hopefully open them up to softer decisions in their public lives. That really didn’t work…well, they were politicians.  Morehouse taught courses on Sex and Sensuality according to Masters and Johnson, creating ways of giving multiple orgasms to women who had never experienced one. That worked for sure.

Jealousy, of course arises out of Possessiveness so we tackled that at its root – Greed. We sent the group out on the street to give away money, leave a tip with a supermarket cashier and present a stranger with a favorite Hawaiian silk shirt. They acknowledged that a hundred dollar bill was useless in the Sahara desert except to light a fire or wipe your ass; that you can’t take your possessions with you when you die. If you worry about money it never seems to come to you and if you don’t, it starts falling out of trees. Too little and you worry about where the next meal is coming from and too much sets up fears of losing it. The closed, possessive people who arrived Friday night would leave Sunday night open and eager to ask for what they wanted, accept what they got and share their love and possessions.

The Sexual Revolution in California at that time was at its peak and my partner, Ma Deva Shavda and I jumped right in. Having sex seemed to be just a step beyond shaking hands. Jealousy and possessiveness were tried and tested almost on a daily basis and, despite the tools we had for dealing with it often created alarming situations. One time I tore the telephone out of the wall because I heard her talking to a lover. Exciting times, but we survived and grew with each experience.

That was in the early 70s so by the time we got to Poona in 77 the much vaunted sex trip was not too daunting. In Darshan Osho talked to us about our seven year old relationship and totally validated our libidinous trip. “Don’t eat the same vegetable every night,” he said but jealousy still happened. Another time she hit me over the head with a mug full of beer in the Oasis Restaurant, M.G. Road. We had just got married.

An intelligent way of handling jealousy is to use that powerful energy in a positive way. Writing, painting, composing, anything creative can dissipate the pain and may produce a flash of genius. Even simple chores done with awareness help. One sannyas friend at Geetam was so intensely jealous that he decided to chop wood for the winter and went at it so enthusiastically that we had fuel for two winters.

After fifteen groups and four years working in Vrindavan kitchen and the Boutique’s Handyman workshop I had settled down to a blissful life in my bamboo hut down by the river. Shavda stayed in her flat across the river in Shattal Baba and we would occasionally date. Somehow jealousy didn’t seem to arise as I had very few casual affairs (I was busy disappearing, being very spiritual) and my possessions were down to a few clothes, one book and a guitar. I do remember being pissed off when I found a shirt missing from the dhobi’s as I only had three or four.

Then came the Ranch and a true test of possessiveness, living in a double wide trailer housing fourteen, or a townhouse with nineteen other people and sharing a room with a woman who wasn’t my lover and entertained several good looking young Swamis. And you know what? It didn’t matter. Maybe I was so busy working 12 hour shifts to worry about it but the whole trip was one of the most inspiring journeys of my life. Who cared about jealousy or possessions? We all had the same...no money, virtually no possessions but plenty of lovers and all for free.

Here in Guatemala I have had the experience of starting a community from scratch. Not an intentional community like an Osho center but a bunch of gringos coming from all over to live a creative life in a beautiful environment with a perfect climate and an affordable economy. All escapists from the real world and very interesting to watch. Most arrivals are really good people with love in their hearts but as soon as they buy property they become possessive, coveting a few inches along their property lines, refusing neighbors access for water and electricity, building over public paths and abusing anyone who disagrees with them.  For 20 years many of them have come to me as the oldest inhabitant demanding that I support them in petty battles with their neighbors. I tell them that all their neighbors are but shadows of themselves, to try a win-win solution and let go. None of them take my advice.

I am currently trying to deal with a sannyasin who has pissed off half his neighbors over the past 15 years, mostly over money and possessions and has decided to leave and settle in Thailand with a kind of “Fuck You!” attitude towards the community. We would like him to leave graciously with love, forgiveness and gratitude. If he takes his attitude with him he may make the same mistakes again and the Karma builds. It’s still in process and meanwhile we are looking for sannyasins to buy his amazing property with its Buddha Hall, a house and guest rooms set in beautiful gardens overlooking Lake Atitlan and three volcanoes in the Land of Eternal Spring. Two hundred K US Dollars would probably close the deal.

Anyone interested (please not the jealous, possessive kind) can contact me.

Swami Prem Sarito
Email - sarito9@yahoo.com

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Someone on the internet defines jealousy as:

"an emotion experienced by one who perceives that another person is giving something that s/he wants (typically attention, love, or affection) to a third party. For example, a child will likely become jealous when her parent gives sweets to a sibling but not to her. On an interpersonal level it is a felt threat from an outsider to an important relationship in which one is involved and produces feelings of anger and fear. It is a state of fear, suspicion or envy over one's possessions."

This is just one aspect of jealousy--there are several other aspects of this emotion also that we suffer from in our daily life. A man becomes immediately jealous when another man attracts his woman--and same is the case with woman also. This does not happen only to ordinary men or women, this happens to all, and event to those rare scientists who are able to reveal the deepest mysteries of the universe, and to those great thinkers and philosophers who reveal us the greatest mysteries of our mind. It happens to everyone whoever is human.

Here I would like to quote what scientists have discovered recently( Courtesy Daily Mail) : "Scientists discover the jealousy lobe: The green-eyed monster that lives in your brain.

It is a vice that few can avoid but that nobody craves.

Now the area of the brain which controls jealousy has been found, scientists have ­announced. It is the same part which detects real physical pain perhaps explaining why feeling envious of your lover's philandering ways hurts so much. The spot which makes people delight in others' misfortune called schadenfreude was also located by the team. 'It's interesting the part of the brain which detects physical pain is also associated with mental pain,' said Hidehiko Takahashi, who led the research. 'Assessing these feelings of jealousy will possibly be helpful in mental care such as counselling.'

'Envy is corrosive and ugly, and it can ruin your life,' Richard Smith, a professor of psychology at the University of Kentucky told the New York Times.

'If you are an envious person, you have a hard time appreciating a lot of the good things that are out there, because youre too busy worrying about how they reflect on the self.'

In the experiments, 19 students were asked to talk of a more successful rival while having MRI scans, which monitor brain activity.

A part of their frontal lobe became more active when the students felt jealous of their rivals, the Japanese study showed.

They then read a story in which the subject of their envy suffered a series of misfortunes, including food poisoning.

Their scan data showed the mishaps sparked greater activity in the 'reward reaction' part of the brain, which normally lights up when receiving social and financial fortune.

'We have a saying in Japanese, The misfortunes of others are the taste of honey,' said Mr Takahashi. 'The ventral striatum is processing that honey.'

And there appears to be a relationship between jealousy and schadenfreude. The scientists noted that the more jealous one person was of another, the more schadenfreude they felt at that person's downfall.

'We now have a better understanding of the mechanism at work when people take pleasure in another's misfortune,' said Mr Takahashi.

'This is the way other needs-processing systems like hunger and thirst work,' Matthew Lieberman of the psychology department at the University of California, Los Angeles, who co-wrote a commentary that accompanies the report, told the New York Times.

'The hungrier or thirstier that you feel, the more pleasurable it is when you finally eat or drink.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1147525/The-green-eyed-monster-lives-brain-Scientists-discover-jealousy-lobe.html#ixzz0Mnrj6sRn

There's a scientist Prof. Stefen Hawking. You would not find more famous a scientist today than him. In his personal and professional life, he has suffered jealousy from others. (A quote from his official biography:

Stephen Hawking has worked on the basic laws which govern the universe. With Roger Penrose he showed that Einstein's General Theory of Relativity implied space and time would have a beginning in the Big Bang and an end in black holes. These results indicated that it was necessary to unify General Relativity with Quantum Theory, the other great Scientific development of the first half of the 20th Century. One consequence of such a unification that he discovered was that black holes should not be completely black, but rather should emit radiation and eventually evaporate and disappear. Another conjecture is that the universe has no edge or boundary in imaginary time. This would imply that the way the universe began was completely determined by the laws of science.) It is really very interesting to read his love and marriage life also. One of his friends writes:

"I'm told by my physical science colleagues at Nature, a very clever crew, that Hawking is not that much respected among the real experts in his discipline. He's considered either a bit superficial or wrong, depending on who you ask. This, of course, could just be the usual academic bitchery and jealousy of popular success."

There's so much to write on this subject that one would need thousands of pages. But if we just remember one point, we won't need thousands of pages to understand--and that point is jealousy is there because love is missing:

Osho points out: Love is the ultimate law. You just have to discover its beauties, its treasures. You have not to repeat, parrot-like, all the great values which make man the highest ex-pression of consciousness on this planet. You should exercise them in your relationship.

And this has been my strange experience: if one partner starts moving on the right lines, the other follows sooner or later. Because they both are hungry for love, but they don't know how to approach it.

No university teaches that love is an art and that life is not already given to you; that you have to learn from scratch.

And it is good that we have to discover by our own hands every treasure that is hidden in life...and love is one of the greatest treasures in existence.

But instead of becoming fellow travelers in search of love, beauty and truth, people are wasting their time in fighting, in jealousy.

Just become a little alert and start the change from your side -- don't expect it from the other side. It will begin from the other side too. And it costs nothing to smile, it costs nothing to love, it costs nothing to share your happiness with somebody you love.

Swami Chaitanya Keerti

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