The Times of India, 14 February 2012

How can I know that a woman loves me in reality, and is not playing games?

This is difficult! Nobody has ever been able to know it – because, love is a game. That is its reality! So if you are waiting, watching, thinking and analysing whether the woman is just playing a game, you will never be able to love any woman – because love is a game, the supreme-most game.

Why ask for it to be real? Play the game! That's its reality. And if you are too much of a seeker for reality, then love is not for you. It is a dream! It is a fantasy. It is fiction, romance, it is poetry. If you are too much of a seeker for reality, obsessed with reality, then, love is not for you; then you meditate.

There is no way to judge. We are such strangers and our meeting is just accidental. Suddenly we have come across each other, not knowing who we are, not knowing who the other is. Two strangers meeting on a road, feeling alone, hold each other's hands and think they are in love. They are in need of the other, certainly, but is this love?

People feel lonely; they need somebody to fill their loneliness. They call it love. They show love because that is the only way to hook the other. The other also calls it love because that is the only way to hook you. But who knows whether there is love or not? Real love happens only when you don't need anybody; that's the difficulty.

That's how banks function. If you go to a bank and you need money, they will not give you any. If you don't need money, you have enough, they will come to you and they will always be ready to give you.

When you don't need a person at all, when you are totally sufficient unto yourself, when you can be alone and tremendously happy and ecstatic, then love is possible. But even then you cannot be certain whether the other's love is real or not.

You can be certain about only one thing: whether your love is real. How can you be certain about the other? But there is no need for this constant anxiety. If you agonise over whether the other's love is real or not it shows that your love is not real. Why be worried about it? Enjoy it while it lasts! Be together while you can be together. You need fiction. Nietzsche said man is such that he cannot live without lies, he cannot live with truth. Lies, in a subtle way, lubricate your system. You both are trying to use each other as a means.

Don't create anxiety. And try to become more and more awake.

One day when you are really awake you will be able to love – but then you will be certain about your love only. But that's enough! Because right now you want to use others. When you are really blissful on your own, you don't want to use any-body. You simply want to share. You have so much, you are overflowing, you would like somebody to share it. And you will feel thankful that somebody was ready to receive. Finished! That is the full point.

The Times of India, 12 February 2012

OSHOSPEAK
1  Everything falls into the hands of those who have no desire to hold onto things
2   Rules of life are paradoxical, so if you collect wealth to get rich, you become poor and mean within
3  If  you give up with a view to getting, you don’t give up; it just means you are working out how to get rewarded

Give it up if you want to enjoy it. But no, that is not our belief. On the contrary, we believe that we can enjoy only that to which we hold fast. But the Upanishadic sage instructs us to do quite the opposite. He says that they alone can enjoy things who renounce them. The statement is antithetical to our belief. They alone become real masters who refuse to be masters. Everything falls into the hands of those who have no desire to hold onto things.

Renounce to Enjoy
A good analogy is the attempt to hold air in your hand. You can comprehend the real meaning of this Ishavasya Upanishad sutra – renounce to enjoy – if you simply try to hold air in your hand. As soon as you tighten your grip, the air escapes. The tighter you clench your fist, the less air you hold, until in the end there is no air left. Loosen your grip and air will rush towards your open hand. There is always air in an open hand, but from the closed fist it flees. One who keeps his hand open has it always full of air; it is never empty, every moment the air is fresh. Have you ever observed this? An open hand is never empty, and a closed hand is always empty; and if a little air remains in the closed fist, it is stale and old and decayed. They alone are able to enjoy who renounce.

Life is a paradox
In this world, in this life, we get as much as we are willing to give up and let go. This is paradoxical – but all the rules of life are paradoxical. They are not opposites; they are paradoxes. It only appears that they are opposites. The person who wishes for honour and respect, is sure to find dishonor and disrespect. An individual desires to be rich, but when he begins to accumulate wealth, he becomes as poor and mean within as he appears rich without. He who thinks or dreams of immortality, is worried about fear of death 24X7. Death never visits the house of the person who is willing to welcome it: one who is willing to meet death tastes nectar, while one who is afraid of death dies every hour of the day. He dies all the time because he does not know at all what life is.
One who says, "I will become the master," will soon become a slave; and one who says, "I am willing to be a slave," will have infinite mastery. But these are contradictory statements so it is very difficult to understand them, and when we try to interpret them, we do so in such a way that we are saved from the paradox in them – and hence we miss the point.

Thus people have misinterpreted these sutras. "Enjoy through renunciation" has come to mean that if you give charity, you will be rewarded with heaven. Give a paisa to a beggar sitting on the bank of the Ganga and you will be rewarded a thousand-fold. Nothing else in this world is as badly treated as are sutras such as these, and similarly, nobody is as unjustly treated as are the sages – because it is difficult to comprehend them in their true spirit. Instead, we interpret them from our own perspective. We think we understand the sutra: if you give away something in charity, you will go to heaven after death. But pay attention: the sutra says, "He who renounces, receives." It does not say, "He who gives up with a view to getting, will receive." In fact, he who gives up with a view to getting does not give up, because he is just working out how to get the reward.

Tightening Of Fists
The person who gives charity here so that he may get the reward in heaven is not renouncing at all. He is simply tightening his fist for the future. If rightly understood, his action is not only a tightening of his fist in this world, but a tightening of it also for the next world. He is telling others by his action, "This action is not very important here, it is quite ordinary, but it is very important there in the next world." If he is quite sure, if he is one hundred per cent certain that he will be rewarded in the next world for his good actions in this world, then he is prepared to make some investment. He is prepared to risk some of his property if he is assured fully of his reward in the next world.

This sutra makes a straight, simple statement that he who renounces, enjoys. It does not say, "Give up if you desire to enjoy." It announces that if you can give up, then you can enjoy; but if you are nursing the idea of enjoyment, you can never renounce.

The Hindu, 7 February 2012

TREND More and more youngsters are discovering their spiritual side, thanks to technology-driven new-age gurus. NIKHIL P. ASRANI has the details

Irang up a spiritual organisation to enquire about their seminar. “Please like our Facebook page for more updates,” is the reply I got. Astonished I wondered if I should be thankful to them for being present on these social platforms or thank the technology that makes it possible. We live in a media-saturated and technology-driven world — our thinking patterns, lifestyle, economic structure and virtually almost every social fabric is shaped by technology and media.

No matter which corner of the world you are in, these social media platforms provide a forum for a two-way communication. Our spiritual leaders have left no stone unturned in taking advantage of these platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs.

Jaya Row, founder of Vedanta Vision, says, “Social media enables us to communicate with people all over the world.”

There are many well-known and not so well-known gurus active on social platforms. “I am a businessman and travel the world over. It is through these social networks that I stay in touch with my spiritual side,” says Narayan Reddy.

Distance is no longer a barrier to both the user and the guru. Just like businessmen, diplomats, and politicians, these new-age gurus are also well equipped with swanky gadgets. No matter which part of the world they are in, they make sure they update their messages regularly.

Although there are numerous organisations and leaders active on these sites, the traditional way holds sway. “The spiritual pleasure you get when you visit a shrine or participate in a seminar or have a face-to-face conversation with the guru can never be replaced by these social networking platforms,” says techie Ambalika Saha.

Not just spiritual organisations, social media platforms are also being used by shrines and religious groups.

People may not open a particular website every day, but they undoubtedly log on to Facebook, deliberately or not they are exposed to spiritual thoughts. Priyanka, a Mumbai-based social media expert quips, “Some of these new-age gurus chant prayers, talk about love, happiness, forgiveness and faith, and some post pictures of their events.”

Deepak Goel, founder of Drizzlin Social Media firm, upholds the idea of spiritual gurus using social media platforms. The truth is that social media is changing every aspect of people's lives.

Sakal Times, 6 February 2012

By postponing the truth you are living in utter misery, suffering, anguish, anxiety. You whole life is just a tragedy – tragedy upon tragedy, failure upon tragedy. Everybody is trying to hide his teatrs and failures. You love is unfulfilled, your desire in incomplete, whatever you have longed for has disappeared as a mirage.

You know the ordinary proverb of the ancients: “Man proposes and god disposes.” There is no god, and what purpose will be served by god disposing your desires? He will be getting mad by disposing everybody’s propositions. Everybody is proposing a thousand and one things, and god goes on disposing! He seems to be a head clerk or something, who simply disposes of files without even looking in them.

But the proverb carries meaning. God may not exist, but in the very fact of proposing you have disposed yourself. In the very fact of proposing you have asked existence to be according to you, and this vast existence cannot be according to you. If you want it to be according to you, you will have to be according to it.

Don’t try to swim upstream, just let the river take you to the ocean. Why make unnecessary effort and get tired? That is one of the essentials of Zen: No effort, total relaxation into the hands of totality; no seeking, but just looking in. Because it is already there, you don’t have to seek.

Zen says, if you seek you will go far away. Don’t seek, just be. In seeking you have to go somewhere, you have to do something, you have to follow some guide. Don’t seek, just be; or don’t seek and find. On whose doors are you going to knock? It is beautiful when you read Jesus, “Knock and the doors shall be opened unto you.” We can forgive him for his poetry, but on whose doors are you going to knock?

There are no doors to existence. Don’t waste your time knocking on doors. Just close your eyes and the whole sky of the inner is open; there are no doors, no windows, no locks, no keys. Zen says you are the answer, just drop the question. It is the question that is hindering your finding the answer. Don’t question, just enter inside yourself with grandeur, an essence of birthright. Without any question, you are the answer. Your consciousness, your awareness, your being, reveals all the truths and all the mysteries of existence.