THE OTHER: MYSELF...

		I am concerned about my friend’s drinking habits... “Don’t think about anything that concerns others. “And that’s what you go on thinking. Ninety-nine percent of the things that you think about concern others. Drop them – drop them immediately! “Your life is short, and your life is slipping out of your fingers. Each moment you are less, each day you are less, and each day you are less alive and more dead! Each birthday is a death day; one more year is gone from your hands. Be a little more intelligent. “Do not think about anything that concerns others. Train first against the defilement that is greatest. “Gurdjieff used to say to his disciples – the first thing, the very very first thing, 'Find out what your greatest characteristic is, your greatest undoing, your central characteristic of unconsciousness.' Each one’s is different. Somebody is sex-obsessed. In a country like India, where for centuries sex has been repressed, that has become almost a universal characteristic; everybody is obsessed with sex. Somebody is obsessed with anger, and somebody else is obsessed with greed. You have to watch which is your basic obsession. “So first find the main characteristic upon which your whole ego edifice rests. And then be constantly aware of it, because it can exist only if you are unaware. It is burnt in the fire of awareness automatically. “And remember, remember always, that you are not to cultivate the opposite of it. Otherwise, what happens is a person becomes aware that, ‘My obsession is anger, so what should I do? I should cultivate compassion.’ ‘My obsession is sex, so what should I do? I should practicebrahmacharya, celibacy.’ “People move from one thing to the opposite. That is not the way of transformation. It is the same pendulum, moving from left to right, from right to left. And that’s how your life has been moving for centuries; it is the same pendulum. “The pendulum has to be stopped in the middle. And that’s the miracle of awareness. Just be aware that, ‘This is my chief pitfall, this is the place where I stumble again and again, this is the root of my unconsciousness.’ “Don’t try to cultivate the opposite of it, but pour your whole awareness into it. Create a great bonfire of awareness, and it will be burned. And then the pendulum stops in the middle. “And with the stopping of the pendulum, time stops. You suddenly enter into the world of timelessness, deathlessness, eternity.” Osho...

Transforming Panic Into Peace: 3 Steps to Relieve Anxiety...

Here are the 3 things that dramatically reduced or eliminated the anxiety and panic I had been experiencing. Consider implementing the following and see if it brings you more peace.

1. Meet your panic and anxiety head on.

Zen is essentially about who we’re being in relation to something or someone, and this includes needless anxiety. It also includes this very moment. In fact, especially this very moment, as it shows up, and not as I wish it would show up.Inherent in anxiety and panic attacks is the belief that it shouldn’t be happening. But this is never true.No amount of wishing a particular moment to be different than it is can ever change that moment. Many actually think it’s a good strategy, but it rarely ever works out.Upon closer examination, I saw that whenever I ran from anything, that thing chased me. This included thoughts and feelings.I found that whenever I faced and embraced anything, it eventually dissolved and left my experience. I was encouraged because I knew I was onto something significant.I walked around with a new mantra: “What I run from must chase me.”It served as a great reminder and often snapped me back into being in alignment with what was actually occurring.Whatever I met head on lost its power, every time. Resistance would often magically drop away. And it was palpable.I learned that I can either live with the laws that govern me (and all of life) or I can resist them and suffer.Seeing that I couldn’t escape the consequences of how I met anything, I began to face what was facing me. And that insight, I found, was the difference between living a life of peace versus a living a life of stress.I began to consciously choose peace.In fact, any challenging situation (or emotion) that arose wanted to be met by my loving attention.Stress manifested only if I avoided the negative thoughts and feelings.If I shined the light of gentle awareness on what wasn’t at peace within me, it had to come out of hiding and release me—because I met it.

2. Allow it to be as it is.

Notice how your mind in its infinite wisdom will tell you that any particular thought, feeling, or experience should or could be different than it presently is.Is it ever true? Can it ever be true? As much as the mind will try to use logic and reason, it’s never true.Things are often different than they were, but they are never different than they are!This may seem counterintuitive, but the reality is we must first accept our present lot if we wish to experience something different in the next moment. We can’t expect to resist our current situation and simultaneously be at peace.It won’t happen.The essence of Zen is about being with whatever arises without offering any resistance whatsoever. It’s about being neutral emotionally so that we are in a position to respond appropriately.Alternatively, resistance is the energy that gives life to what we don’t want.If we simply allow our symptoms of anxiety to be as they are, we find that they don’t hang around long enough to torture us.By taking the backward step (as they say in Zen) into this present moment, we discover that peace never left us in the first place.It just seemed that way.Allow your anxiety to be as it is, as you look to overcome it.

3. Be compassionate with yourself.

Sure, you’ve heard it before. Be nice to yourself! Get off your back! Stop blaming yourself! The key to effective transformation—turning panic into peace—is to stop beating yourself up and to make yourself the most important person in your life.Wouldn’t you treat someone who really needed support with kindness and compassion?Why are you any different?Perhaps the greatest quality of spirit that the Buddha spoke most about was compassion, not only towards oneself, but to others as well. Compassion is the great neutralizer that has a way of dissolving old wounds, as well as new ones.The truth is you’re not to blame for your anxiety, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t responsible for it.You aren’t “crazy” or “weak”—and you’re no less worthy a human being for experiencing it, either. Your mind may tell you different, and even sound very convincing, but is it really true?No, it isn’t. Not even a little bit.Work with yourself, not against yourself, if you truly desire to transform your panic into peace. It’s all in how you relate to your current condition. Self-condemnation only gets you more of what you don’t want.The truth is, you are much more than any thought or feeling that arises. Within you is the power to transform your panic into peace.As the Buddha said, “Be a light unto yourself.

”Transcending anything never involves rejection, but it always involves acceptance.

“No matter how hard the past, you can always begin again.” ~Buddha

Humans complain...

"Humans complain: 'Life is too much for me. I can’t take life

the way it batters me around. I don’t have the strength. I can’t



make the proper decisions.' And you understand that this is said

not only with the words, but as an attitude inside. Summary of it,

'Life is too much for me.' Lets see the hands of everyone who’s

ever said that, thought it, believed it and suffered from it.




Well, let’s correct your semantics. What are you talking about?

'Life is too much for me.' You use the word life as if you under-

stand it, as if it makes sense to you.




What you really mean, if you could be that direct and clear inside

yourself, is that you are not adequate, you are not strong, life

commands you instead of you commanding life, but you use the word

_life_ as a scapegoat as something to blame and accuse because you

don’t want to see where the actual problem is."

Understand with your whole being...

Understand with your whole being, you have nothing to do but be happy. That means you have nothing to do but be content. That means that you have nothing to do but live in this higher sunshine. Look, let the world go by, let it do anything it wants. You’re not going to be carried away by it, it has nothing to give you, nothing. You've had their insanity, you’ve lived in this madness of competition.Goodbye world.

 What an experience to live right in the world of commerce, of families, of traffic, to live right in the middle of it, driving that car right down the freeway, the noisy freeway and live in another world at the same time. And this other world understands perfectly why that man in the car next to you shook his fist at someone in front of him, why there’s all that smog, why there all these nervous people in the car..."

Anger Is A Small Thing...

How can I be aware during strong emotions? My anger feels like thousands of wild horses are running away with me!

Anger is a very small thing. If you can just wait and watch, you will not find “thousands of wild horses.” If you can find even a small donkey, that will be enough! Just watch it and it will go, slowly. It will enter from this side and will go out from the other side. You just have to keep a little patience not to ride on it.

Anger, jealousy, envy, greed, competitiveness…all our problems are very small, but our ego magnifies them, makes them as big as it can.

The ego cannot do otherwise; its anger has also to be great. By its great anger, and great misery, and great greed, and great ambition it becomes great.

But you are not the ego, you are only a watcher. Just stand by the side and let all the thousands of horses pass — let us see how long it takes for them to pass. There is no need to be worried. As they come — they are wild — they will go. But we don’t miss even a small donkey; we immediately jump on it! You don’t need thousands of wild horses. Just a small thing, and you are full of anger and fire. You will laugh about it later on, at how stupid you were.

If you can watch, without getting involved, as if it is something on the screen of a movie house or of a TV screen…something is passing; watch it. You are not supposed to do anything to prevent it, to repress it, to destroy it, to pull out a sword and kill it, because from where will you get the sword? — from the same source as the anger is coming. It is all imagination.

Just watch, and don’t do anything — for or against.

And you will be surprised: that which was looking very big, becomes very small. But our habit is to exaggerate.

A small boy comes home running, and tells his mother — he is not more than three years old — “Mum, a great lion, roaring loudly, was running after me for miles! But somehow I managed to escape. Many times he came very close. He was just about to attack me when I started running faster.”

The mother looked at the boy and said, “Tommy, I have told you a million times not to exaggerate! How can you find a lion in the city…and you have been running for miles? And where is the lion?”

The boy looked outside the door. He said, “He is standing there. But, to tell you the truth, it is just a small dog — very small! But when it was running after me, it appeared…. You tell me not to exaggerate, and right now you have been exaggerating that you have told me millions of times.”

Our minds are very exaggerating. You have small problems, and if you can stop exaggerating and just see, then by the door a poor small dog is standing. And there is no need to run miles; your life is not in danger.

When anger comes to you, it is not going to kill you. It has been with you many times before, and you have survived perfectly well. It is the same anger that you have been through before. Just do one thing new — which you have never done; every time you get involved with it, fighting. This time just watch, as if it does not belong to you, as if it is somebody else’s anger. And you are in for a great surprise: it will disappear within seconds.

And when anger disappears without any struggle, it leaves behind it a tremendously beautiful and silent and loving state.

The same energy that could have become a fight with the anger is left within you. Pure energy is delight — I am quoting William Blake: “Energy is delight” — just energy, without any name, without any adjective…. But you never allow energy to be pure. Either it is anger, or hate, or love, or greed, or desire. It is always involved in something; you never allow it in its purity.

Every time anything arises in you, is a great chance to experience pure energy. Just watch, and the donkey will go. It may raise a little dust, but that dust also settles on its own; you don’t have to settle it. You simply wait. Don’t move from waiting and watching, and soon you will find yourself surrounded by a pure energy that has not been used in fighting, in repressing, or in being angry.

And energy is certainly delight. Once you know the secret of delight, you will enjoy every emotion; and every emotion arising in you is a great opportunity.

Just watch, and bring a shower of delight on your being. Slowly, slowly all these emotions will disappear; they will not come any more — they don’t come uninvited. Watchfulness, or alertness, or awareness, or consciousness, are all different names of the same phenomenon: witnessing. That is the key word...