Fwd: [GuruRatings] I have been looking for a guru.

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GuruRatings , Sarlo <sarlo wrote:

 

At 11:55 AM 11/26/07, AC wrote:

 

>But, what did osho teach; he wrote/spoke more than

>four hundred books.

>

>was it just:

>

>Be a light unto yourself.

 

Among other things. I prefer not to limit him to one guideline.

 

He taught:

 

Accept yourself. Be total. Be here now. Go with the flow. Life, love

and

laughter. Be a joke unto yourself. See into the inseparability of

love and

hate, life and death, day and night, etc. Zorba the Buddha.

 

All these buzzwordy slogany things and more.

 

An example that occurred to me while i was replying to Asilia but i

thought

it better not to clutter up the Ramakrishna story with it . . .

 

Coleman Barks is one of the premier translators of Rumi and came

several

times to see Osho. One night when he was there, Osho told everyone

that

instead of his discourse, people should listen to Coleman read Rumi.

This

was a unique honouring. Nothing remotely like it ever happened before

or

since.

 

So he read his poems and the next night listened in the front row to

this:

 

Professor Coleman Barks has asked a question:

I FEEL VERY GRATEFUL FOR YOUR ENLIGHTENMENT,

YOUR WISDOM, YOUR DARING EXPERIMENTS, YOUR LIFE.

THANK YOU!

RUMI SAID, " I WANT BURNING, BURNING.... " WHAT IS THAT BURNING?

SHAMS SAID, " I AM FIRE. " DO YOU HAVE ANY WORD ON SHAMS?

FROM SHAMS?

WHAT DO THE BURNING AND THE FIRE HAVE TO DO

WITH MY OWN ENLIGHTENMENT?

 

Coleman, you have asked a very dangerous question! -- because burning

has

nothing to do with your enlightenment. On the path of enlightenment

there

is no question of burning.

 

But because you are in love with Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi... I also

love the

man. But you have to understand that Sufism still depends on a

hypothetical

God. It is not free from the hypothesis of God. And particularly

Sufism has

the concept of God as a woman. Love is their method -- love God as

totally

as possible. Now you are loving an impossible hypothesis, and

totality is

asked. You will feel the same kind of burning, in a more intensive

way, as

lovers feel on a smaller scale.

 

Lovers feel a certain burning in their hearts. A deep longing and

desire to

meet with the beloved creates that burning. To love God is bound to

create

a very great fire in you. You will be on fire because you have chosen

as

your love object something impossible; your object of love is

hypothetical.

You will have to weep and cry, and you will have to pray, and you

will have

to fast, and your mind has to continuously repeat and remember the

beloved.

 

The mind has the capacity to imagine anything and also has the

capacity to

hypnotize itself. After long repetition you can even see God, just

the way

you imagined. It is a by-product of your mind. It will make you very

happy,

you will dance with joy.

 

I have been with Sufis and I have loved those people. But they are

still

one step away from being a buddha. Even though their poetry is

beautiful --

it has to be, because it is coming out of their love -- their

experience is

a hallucination created by their own mind. In Sufism, mind is

stretched to

the point that you become almost mad for the beloved. Those days of

separation from the beloved create the sensation of burning.

 

On the path of dhyan, or Zen, there is no burning at all because

there is

no hypothesis, no God. And it is not a question of love. A man of Zen

is

very loving, but he has not practiced love; it has come as a by-

product of

his realization. He has simply realized his own buddhahood. There is

no

question of another, a God somewhere else in heaven. He has simply

reached

his own center of life, and being there he explodes into love, into

compassion. His love comes after his enlightenment, it is not a

method for

enlightenment.

 

But for Sufis, love is the method. Because love is the method, it

remains

part of the mind.

The effort on the path of Zen is to go beyond mind, to attain no-

mind, to

be utterly empty of all thoughts, love included. Zen is the path of

emptiness -- no God, no love, nothing is to be allowed; just a pure

nothingness in which you also disappear.

 

Who is there to feel the burning? Who is there to feel the fire?

 

So although I love Sufis... I don't want, Coleman, to hurt your

feelings,

but I would certainly say that you will have one day to change from

Sufis

to Zen. Sufis are still living in imagination; they have not known

the

state of no-mind. And because they have not known the state of no-

mind,

however beautiful their personalities may become, they are still just

close

to enlightenment, but not enlightened. Remember, even to be very

close is

not to be enlightened.

 

And the reason is clear: Sufism is a branch, an offshoot of

Mohammedanism.

It carries almost all that is good in Mohammedanism. But

Mohammedanism is

the lowest kind of religion. Mohammedanism, Judaism, Christianity --

all

are hypothetical.

 

There have been only two religions which are not hypothetical,

Buddhism and

Taoism. Zen is a crossbreed of these two, and the crossbreed is

always

better than both the parents. It is the meeting of Buddha and Lao

Tzu; out

of this meeting is born Zen. It is not Buddhism, it is not Taoism; it

has

its own individuality. It carries everything beautiful that comes

from

Buddha and everything great that comes from Lao Tzu. It is the

highest peak

that man has ever reached.

 

Hinduism is a mess: thirty-three million gods! -- what do you expect?

Hinduism has remained a philosophical, controversial, hypothetical

religion. It has not been able to reach the heights of Buddha. Buddha

was

born a Hindu but revolted against this mess, searched alone rather

than

believing. That is one of the most important things to remember. Any

religion that begins with belief is going to give you an auto-

hypnotic

experience.

 

Only Taoism and Buddhism don't start with a belief. Their whole

effort is

that you should enter yourself without any concept of what you are

going to

find there. Just being open, available, without any prejudice,

without any

philosophy and scripture -- just go in, open-hearted, and when you

reach to

the point where mind is silent, not a single thought moving...

 

</quote, from Rinzai: Master of the Irrational>

 

It is my understanding that even gurus who work in the devotional

milieu,

will use their disciples' devotional tendencies to undermine belief

structures that support investment in personality (that is, the

genuine

gurus). Thus Osho used all things, and spoke on all things, and

advocated

almost all viewpoints (though devotional practice was not a large

component).

 

And so he set Coleman up in this way. You can make a philosophical

point

about it, that Zen is the highest, etc etc, or just take it as an

anecdote.

 

Sarlo

 

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