The Honeymoon that Never Ends

The Honeymoon that Never Ends
by Osho

LOVE IS NOT A RELATIONSHIP. Love relates, but it is not a relationship. A relationship is something finished. A relationship is a noun; the full stop has come, the honeymoon is over. Now there is no joy, no enthusiasm, now all is finished. You can carry it on, just to keep your promises. You can carry it on because it is comfortable, convenient, cozy. You can carry it on because there is nothing else to do. You can carry it on because if you disrupt it, it is going to create much trouble for you… Relationship means something complete, finished, closed.

Love is never a relationship; love is relating. It is always a river, flowing, unending. Love knows no full stop; the honeymoon begins but never ends. It is not like a novel that starts at a certain point and ends at a certain point. It is an ongoing phenomenon. Lovers end, love continues– it is a continuum. It is a verb, not a noun.

And why do we reduce the beauty of relating to relationship? Why are we in such a hurry? Because to relate is insecure, and relationship is a security. Relationship has a certainty; relating is just a meeting of two strangers, maybe just an overnight stay and in the morning we say goodbye. Who knows what is going to happen tomorrow? And we are so afraid that we want to make it certain, we want to make it predictable. We would like tomorrow to be according to our ideas; we don't allow it freedom to have its own say. So we immediately reduce every verb to a noun.

You are in love with a woman or a man and immediately you start thinking of getting married. Make it a legal contract. Why? How does the law come into love? The law comes into love because love is not there. It is only a fantasy, and you know the fantasy will disappear. Before it disappears settle down, before it disappears do something so it becomes impossible to separate.

In a better world, with more meditative people, with a little more enlightenment spread over the earth, people will love, love immensely, but their love will remain a relating not a relationship. And I am not saying that their love will be only momentary. There is every possibility their love may go deeper than your love, may have a higher quality of intimacy, may have something more of poetry and more of godliness in it. And there is every possibility their love may last longer than your so-called relationship ever lasts. But it will not be guaranteed by the law, by the court, by the policeman. The guarantee will be inner. It will be a commitment from the heart, it will be a silent communion.

If you enjoy being with somebody, you would like to enjoy it more and more. If you enjoy the intimacy, you would like to explore the intimacy more and more. And there are a few flowers of love which bloom only after long intimacies. There are seasonal flowers too; within six weeks they are there, in the sun, but within six weeks again they are gone forever. There are flowers that take years to come, and there are flowers that take many years to come. The longer it takes, the deeper it goes. But it has to be a commitment from one heart to another heart. It has not even to be verbalized, because to verbalize it is to profane it. It has to be a silent commitment; eye to eye, heart to heart, being to being. It has to be understood, not said.

Forget relationships and learn how to relate.

Once you are in a relationship you start taking each other for granted– that's what destroys all love affairs. The woman thinks she knows the man, the man thinks he knows the woman. Nobody knows either! It is impossible to know the other, the other remains a mystery. And to take the other for granted is insulting, disrespectful.

To think that you know your wife is very, very ungrateful. How can you know the woman? How can you know the man? They are processes, they are not things. The woman that you knew yesterday is not there today. So much water has gone down the Ganges; she is somebody else, totally different. Relate again, start again, don't take it for granted.

And the man that you slept with last night, look at his face again in the morning. He is no more the same person, so much has changed. So much, incalculably much has changed. That is the difference between a thing and a person. The furniture in the room is the same, but the man and the woman, they are no more the same. Explore again, start again. That's what I mean by relating.

Relating means you are always starting, you are continuously trying to become acquainted. Again and again, you are introducing yourself to each other. You are trying to see the many facets of the other's personality. You are trying to penetrate deeper and deeper into his realm of inner feelings, into the deep recesses of his being. You are trying to unravel a mystery which cannot be unraveled. That is the joy of love: the exploration of consciousness.

And if you relate, and don't reduce it to a relationship, then the other will become a mirror to you. Exploring him, unawares you will be exploring yourself too. Getting deeper into the other, knowing his feelings, his thoughts, his deeper stirrings, you will be knowing your own deeper stirrings too. Lovers become mirrors to each other, and then love becomes a meditation. Relationship is ugly, relating is beautiful.

Hence I say relate. By saying relate, I mean remain continuously on a honeymoon. Go on searching and seeking each other, finding new ways of loving each other, finding new ways of being with each other. And each person is such an infinite mystery, inexhaustible, unfathomable, that it is not possible that you can ever say, "I have known her," or, "I have known him." At the most you can say, "I have tried my best, but the mystery remains a mystery."

In fact the more you know, the more mysterious the other becomes. Then love is a constant adventure.

Eat the Sun: Becoming a Solar Powered Human

Source: EatTheSunMovie.com

Is it possible to stare directly into the sun and not eat food? Meet Mason.

Eat The Sun is a feature length documentary that focuses on a young man's journey into the little known world of sungazing -- an ancient practice of looking directly at the sun for long periods of time.

San Francisco, CA 2004: A flyer at school advertising a lecture by an elderly Indian gentleman sparks the imagination of a young man named Mason. The flyer reads: "You can become solar powered." It also states that the Indian man giving the lecture, who goes by the acronym HRM, has not eaten in over 8 years, a direct result of sungazing.

Intrigued, Mason begins this simple practice along with a few other classmates. Everyday, in accordance with HRM's protocol, they stand barefooted on the bare earth looking directly into the sun and every day they add 10 seconds to their sungazing time. The goal, according to HRM, is to reach 44 consecutive minutes of looking directly at the sun -- which could take 9 to 12 months to achieve -- at which time one would be "fully charged", meaning not only cured of all mental and physical ailments but also now without the desire or need to eat food.

In many ancient civilizations -- from the Incas and Aztecs to the Greeks and Egyptians - this practice was exclusive to only the high priests and forbidden for 'ordinary' people. Today, with the help of the Internet, this revived practice is gathering global momentum.

Modern day sungazers claim a multitude of health benefits including better eyesight, enhanced vitality, weight loss and, in some more profound cases, a complete loss of the desire and need to eat food.

The main theory of how this is possible focuses on the stimulation of the pineal gland from direct sunlight entering the brain via the eye – the only external expression of the brain - and traveling along the retinal-hypothalamic tract. (The pineal, once believed to have no function, is now considered a master gland, controlling the secretion of melatonin and serotonin). Brain scans of HRM, age 70, reveal a pineal gland 3 times the size of a normal man, despite his advanced age when the pineal tends to shrink. (Additionally, HRM was part of a 411-day medical study during which time he did not eat).

Mason soon discovers that this journey is going to be a lonely one, as society seems to revolve around food; family gatherings, social functions and dating all center on eating. But as his sungazing time increases so do the positive effects. As a former Olympic hopeful in ski jumping and cross-country skiing, Mason has experienced both physical and mental strengthening and he finds that sungazing is far more potent than anything he has felt before. On the downside, he is alienating himself from society; his girlfriend breaks up with him because of his obsession with sungazing, and others, including his family, are put off by his new zealousness.

When Mason approaches 40 minutes of sungazing his desire to eat fades. His conflicts are socially and culturally driven and counter to what he is actually feeling. The only reason he eats anything at all is because of social expectations and some self-doubt. Can this really be happening? Is it possible?

Mason's loneliness and curiosity fuel his desire to meet other people who look at the sun - other than a 70 year old Indian man - in hopes that they can share their stories and experiences so he can better understand this phenomena. Eat The Sun follows Mason on a cross country tour that links him with a variety of colorful sungazers: a Hollywood lawyer, a practicing Mormon with 5 kids, a religious group that believes Jesus was a sungazer and even a sungazing ophthalmologist, some of whom have been sungazing for over 20 years. Interspersed with Mason's journey are interviews with scientists and doctors.

Mason's confusion builds as he navigates through this subculture of sungazing. His story culminates in his final decision to continue and finish HRM's 44 minute protocol. Will Mason succeed? What will happen when he reaches 44 minutes of staring directly into the sun? Has HRM been truthful? Is it really possible to live without eating?

Eat The Sun is the story of one man's struggle to uncover the truth and, ultimately, reveals the power of the mind.

Difference between Believe and Faith.

There is a difference between Believe and Faith.

There was a tightrope walker, who was so good that he could walk between two twenty stories building on a tight rope with a balancing pole.Thousands of people would watch him perform his breathtaking feat. After he walked across the building he would have his assistant sit on his shoulder and he would proceed to walk across the building.

Everybody were amazed and gave him a thunderous applause. He asked them whether they believed that he could do it again. The crowd said, “Yes, we believe that you can!”

After a while he asked the crowd again, “Now, who wants to volunteer to get on my shoulder?” With that the crowd became silent
 

There is a difference between Believe and Faith. We can believe what we see. In the above story, the crowd believed in the tightrope walker because they saw him perform the feat. But when he asked them “Who wants to get on my shoulder?” everyone was silent. You see, the crowd had Belief but they did not have Faith. This story clearly illustrates the difference between belief and having faith.

Love and Meditation

Love and Meditation

How can people turn the human phenomenon of falling in love into a meditation?

By OSHO


IT IS THE EASIEST WAY. In human life, love is the closest phenomenon to meditation. The moment you fall in love with someone, what actually happens? What transpires between those two who have fallen in love with each other? They drop their egos -- at least for each other. They drop their hypocrisies, their masks. They want to be together, almost one soul within two bodies. That's the desire of love.

And this is a beautiful moment to change it into a meditation. Just nobody has ever told them. In fact, just the opposite has been told to them: that love is against meditation, so people who are falling in love can never become meditators.

THE SAME PEOPLE who make celibacy spiritual make love unspiritual, something dirty, condemned. But to me things are totally different. Love helps you to relax, which is part of meditation. Love helps you to be joyous, which is part of meditation. Love helps you, for a few moments at least, to be silent, which is the essential part of meditation. And finally, making love, if you attain to an orgasmic experience, gives you a glimpse of what meditation is, but it is millions of times more than this.

So to me, love is a basic experience which can help you to become meditators. The old religions have been preventing it, and they have been preventing it for a certain reason. If people can transform their love into meditation, then the priests and the churches and the synagogues are no more needed, then people are totally free. No spiritual leadership is needed. And there are millions of priests around the world, like parasites on humanity. And naturally they will give you wrong ideas, against love, and they will give you ideas for meditation, but because you don't have the basic experience.... 

LOVE IS JUST LIKE when you enter into a swimming pool, step by step you are going into deeper water. Then the floor of the swimming pool is divided in two parts, one for those who cannot swim, so the water is up to your neck, and then the second part for those who can swim.

But those who want to learn swimming have to learn in the first part, which is not for swimmers. They have to learn it there. Once they have learned, then slowly they will gather courage and enter into deeper water, because for a swimmer it does not matter how deep the water is; the swimmer is always on the surface. The water may be a hundred feet deep, five hundred feet deep, or five miles deep, it makes no difference to the swimmer. It makes a difference only to the non-swimmer. Beyond five feet, everything is death. But the swimming pool is one -- shallow, deep -- it is one. And the boundary line is only a line until you learn to swim.

To me, love and meditation are just like that. Love is the shallow space in a swimming pool, for those who cannot meditate. But that is the place to learn meditation. And it is the same pool, it is the same water, it is the same kind of phenomenon. You are just unable to go deeper because you have been made afraid even to enter into it. The shallow part has been condemned, and you have been told to jump into the deeper part without knowing how to swim. 

So they disturbed your love life by condemnation and they disturbed your meditative life by sheer strategy: because you don't know swimming, you cannot go so deep. And you don't have any experience of silence, peace, sheer joy, a little bit of ecstasy, something orgasmic -- these will give you the hints how meditation is not a myth. You have tasted it a little bit. It is the same energy field, just you have to go deeper into it.

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENS when one couple moves into the realm of orgasmic experience? What actually happens? Every point has to be understood. Time stops. For a moment the pendulum does not move, and that single moment seems to be almost eternity. The two persons are no more two -- for a moment. They have melted into each other. There is no thought in the mind, for a moment. It is all empty and silent, and these are the things which have to be deepened in meditation. 

And once you have tasted them, you will be surprised that it does not depend on the other person. Something happens within you. Something happens within the other person. But it is not dependent. If you can sit silently, if you can manage, by watching your thoughts, to bring a gap, a stop, you will suddenly see time has stopped again. And now it is in your hands, not in the hands of biology. You can keep this time stopped as long as you want. And once you know the secret key....

The key is: no thoughts, no ego, no time -- you just are.

That's why I have never been against love. I have been much condemned for it, naturally, because I was cutting the very roots of the business of all the religions.

EVERY RELIGION IS against me. Their profession depends on condemning love and praising meditation. They know you cannot attain to meditation, and they know now your love is condemned, it is a sin. You will never experience any orgasmic phenomenon, so meditation will remain just a philosophy, and your life will remain loveless, angry, full of rage, ready to explode at any excuse. Because where will your energy go?

It could have become peace, silence, joy, blissfulness. You did not allow it to become that. That repressed energy turns into poison. That's why everybody is irritable, annoyed, worried, tense. The simple reason is that they have lost the natural source of relaxation.

No animal looks irritated, annoyed, angry, because they don't understand the language the priests speak.
They have never heard that celibacy is spiritual. Of course they cannot attain to meditation, but they are far better than those human beings who could have attained meditative heights, but have lost even the simple biological experience of orgasm.

THOSE ARE SIMPLY indications of your possibilities, potentialities. And it is easier to experiment with something natural in the beginning and then to try something which is supernatural, which belongs to higher nature.
And once you know how to be silent, how to be thoughtless, how to be in a state of no time, no mind, you experience such orgasmic joy, which has nothing to do with sex, it has such purity and such innocence.

A man who has attained to that purity and innocence has no need of sex, it is no longer a psychological problem for him. But there is no prohibition either. He can enjoy sex too, and he will enjoy it more than anybody else, because his orgasm will immediately become meditative. 

Having experienced the meditative orgasm -- such a greater phenomenon -- his sexual orgasm will immediately trigger the bigger orgasm. He can play with sex. There is no harm in it. There is no need, but there is no prohibition either. It is up to him.

THE MEDITATIVE ORGASM absorbs your sexual energy, because you don't have any other energy. Your whole energy is sexual energy, and that vast explosion of joy simply absorbs all your energy. Hence, you need not become a pervert, you need not make an effort to remain celibate. It is just your choice.

If you want to play old games once in a while, it is perfectly good. In fact, perhaps it should be a part of every enlightened man's life to have sex once in a while, because that will change the attitude of the whole world about sex.

Without that, it is very difficult to change. Then they can see that even an enlightened person can enjoy sex. There is nothing sin-like in it. And it will join the enlightened man and unenlightened man in a bridge. At least on one point, both experience the same thing....

Love is a natural kind of meditation. And meditation is a supernatural kind of love.

An ordinary day of an Overseas Executive at Hyderabad

An ordinary day of an Overseas Executive at Hyderabad

By Udayan Bakshi

Making all efforts to measure the tension level of the springs of the newly purchased sofa  from ‘Home Town’, scrolling the eyes through the Headlines of the newspaper  held in one hand and the other hand helped  the nose to take a dip of aroma in the ‘tea gardens of Assam’. Suddenly with raised brows I started cursing India – the politics, the people, the system, bla-bla-bla.

My heart and the smell-sense pores of my nose were on the flow, relishing the “crime and disorder” in the city and the “tea gardens of Assam” respectively- my horse sense knocked me again. I stood aback in front of the clock. Sh.......! Again late!!...for office. Month of November –means winter season –means ‘Dry Wash’ is ok. With all my efforts I ran the Hurdle race from my home, after providing the bare minimum maintenance to the temple called body, to office with a forceful plastic smile to hide my tensions.

Yak! ...the same thing again! The same people the same work. The same schedule.  Maintaining the same thing for the last 10 years. Ya, got a few promotions, but with increments needs  are also increasing. So overall in the last 10 long years proportionately everything is the same. Trying to find out happiness in Discotheque and Theatres, but its again like a crystal of ice in the desert. May be this is life. All do the same thing as I do.

Again I need to meet a delegate from Japan. Good at least my company will sponsor lunch at ‘Taj Banjara’. A new tie-up, a new university. All right, above of all its a chance to see some charming faces in that 5-star rated hotel.

At 2 o’clock I went to the hotel. As there was lots of documentation process I was called in the wonderful suit booked for the delegate from Japan.

While I approached I saw a bright face welcoming me at the door of the suit booked. The person looked too young to be the one I was looking for. I went inside. There was no one but the aesthetic beauty unexplainable.  To my surprise I discovered  the concerned person was the same young exceptionally bright handsome.

As usual the deal was closed. But there was something beyond the deal,  the exotic lunch and the 5-star rated hotel. As the flowing water in a river is always fresh, the twinkle in his eyes and face is always fresh. I thought he had applied cosmetics as I did. But even after four hours of conversation he was  still the same but my ‘fair and lovely – for men’ betrayed me and dark circles around my eyes slowly started appearing.

He was a flow of energy. After having done with the lunch I felt like staying back and listen some more of him, as he was different. Almost of my age but not even a wrinkle touched his face!

Soon we were good friends and I opened up. I talked about my busy life, about the scarcity of time, the same boring schedule and charmless life.

Although his silence , the twinkle in eyes  and smile was bit embarrassing but it was mesmerizing. For the first time I heard ‘Silence- speaking more than words’.

He stood up without exchanging a word and went to the corner where a slice of bread was kept, might  be it was lying there  since the last evening. The moment I entered the room five hours back I noticed that piece of bread kept open since then.  But, but...how could he offer me that to eat!

The moment he offered me something happened in my stomach and brain, may be in his country they eat rotten bread, but how dare he....

I tried to be polite as he was important, and said (acting patiently with a smile)....’but you see the bread isn’t  so fresh’.

He again smiled at me. ‘Aaaaaaa, had he been a stranger in the local auto-rickshaw in the lanes of Hyderbad, I would have made his nose more flat, so flat that Michael Jackson would have envied’

‘Friend, I offered you a not-so-fresh bread, you refused and for the last several years you have been offering your Not-So-Fresh ideas, outlook, thoughts to the society and each one you meet in life. And the result- frustration, irritation, anger, disappointment and so on. For every act in life you get an equivalent exchange of what you give. Its not the other way round. Its inside out and not outside in.’

‘Do you give second rated efforts in the upbringing of your child? Do you compromise with the quality of love and commitment towards your offspring.’ 

‘No. Can’t think of that.”

‘Why?’

‘Because, a,a..its MY-MY CHILD! (Searching for more words)’

‘India and My Country –Japan, more or less started at the same time-1945. You got a brand new future and we got uranium affected land and environment. Everything was devastated. We started from the scratch. We sacrificed everything. As you regard your child, we regard our motherland.’

‘A worker, an employee at Japan says- if I am late at work by one hour, my country will be late by one hour.

‘Success knows only two things – A Sense of URGENCY,  and A Sense of OWNERSHIP. Without that nothing can move you.  And the Sense of Urgency comes from the Sense of Ownership. So when you don’t own something from heart, you can’t and won’t give cent percent to that. And when you don’t give, expected results won’t come. And in a long run you sit and curse situations, others and ultimately the country.  Were you late in your first date with your beloved, your first job interview, or at the first birthday of your child or catching an international flight. If not then please ask yourself –Why?’

‘Most of the Japanese culture is a gift from India- Buddhism is among one of them. We often overlook small things in life. But small things over a long span of time become big. It eats up our morale and at last –life!

The evening ended up  with a little flow of fresh water in my life, otherwise which was stagnant for decades breeding reptiles of guilt, frustration and an ever complaining mind.

The feeling of ownership is everything...and ownership is not ‘claiming rights’ its ‘accepting responsibilities’. Lately but finally I understood.

Daily portion of chocolate 'protects against ageing'

 

A daily portion of dark chocolate could protect the skin against the aging effects of the sun, according to research. 

Just a few squares every day helps to prevent wrinkles caused by UV light in the sun's rays, it suggests.

Scientists who carried out the study say it might also lower the risk of skin cancer. 

But it only works with dark chocolate that is very high in flavanols, the antioxidants that occur naturally in cocoa beans the main ingredient in chocolate. 

Antioxidants are compounds that protect against so-called free radicals, molecules which accumulate in the body and damage cells. 

But most chocolate goods on sale in Britain have had their antioxidant capacity greatly reduced during processing. 

Previous studies have found flavanol-rich dark chocolate can lower the risk of blood clots, protect against bowel cancer and even help prevent premature births. 

Earlier this year, Swedish scientists also reported that heart attack victims who snacked on dark chocolate at least twice a week slashed their risk of dying from heart disease by about 70 per cent. 

But the latest research, published in the Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology, is believed to be the first showing a chocolate treat can prevent against the visible signs of ageing. 

Researchers at European Dermatology London, a private Harley Street skin clinic, recruited 30 healthy adults, including 22 women, with an average age of 42. 

For three months, half the volunteers ate a daily portion of 20 grammes of dark chocolate droplets that were very high in flavanol. 

The remainder ate identical-looking chocolate drops that had much lower flavanol content.

During the three-month experiment, researchers regularly exposed volunteers to controlled doses of UV light to see how long it took before their skin reacted by becoming inflamed. 

The results showed that, among those on low-flavanol chocolate, there was no change in the amount of UV light their skin could tolerate. 

But among those on the high-flavanol droplets, there was a significant improvement in the skin's resistance to the sun's effects. 

In a report on their findings the researchers said: 'Our study revealed, for the first time, that high-flavanol chocolate protects the skin from harmful UV effects. 

'The main mechanism is likely to be the anti-inflammatory and antioxidant activity of cocoa flavanols.

'But conventional chocolate had no such effect.'

Meditation Cuts Risk of Heart Attack by half

Meditation is good for the body as well as the mind, scientists have discovered, as the practice significantly reduces the risk of a heart attack for people with heart disease.

 Source: The Telegraph

Patients with heart disease who practised Transcendental Meditation cut their chances of a heart attack, stroke and death by half, compared with non-meditating patients, the first study of its kind has found.

Stress is a major factor in heart disease and meditation experts say the technique can help control it.

Transcendental Meditation, practised by the Beatles and based on an ancient tradition of enlightenment in India, involves sitting quietly and concentrating to focus the mind inwards by silently repeating a mantra. The practice is said to induce inner peace by allowing thoughts to flow in and out of the mind.

The results of the research are being presented at the American Heart Association scientific meeting in Orlando, Florida.

Over nine years, 201 African American people with an average age of 59 and who had all been diagnosed with heart disease were randomly assigned to either Transcendental Meditation or health education classes about diet and exercise.

Both groups continued with their normal medication.

The researchers from the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee in collaboration with the Institute for Natural Medicine and Prevention at Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa, calculated heart attacks, strokes and deaths as one result and found a 47 per cent reduction in meditating patients.

They also had lower blood pressure and significant reductions in their stress levels, the researchers said.

Dr Robert Schneider, lead author and director of the Center for Natural Medicine and Prevention, said: "Previous research on Transcendental Meditation has shown reductions in blood pressure, psychological stress, and other risk factors for heart disease, irrespective of ethnicity.

"But this is the first controlled clinical trial to show that long-term practice of this particular stress reduction program reduces the incidence of clinical cardiovascular events, that is heart attacks, strokes and mortality."

Dr Theodore Kotchen, co-author of the study, professor of medicine, and associate dean for clinical research at the Medical College, said: "This study is an example of the contribution of a lifestyle intervention—stress management—to the prevention of cardiovascular disease in high-risk patients."

Dr Schneider said that the effect of Transcendental Meditation in the trial was like a newly discovered medicine for the prevention of heart disease.

"In this case, the new medications are derived from the body's own internal pharmacy stimulated by the Transcendental Meditation practice," he said.